A comparison of world cruises from a segmenter’s point of view

[rafinmd]

I’ve never done a full world cruise (Crystal 2017 is a waitlisted pipe dream), but have now done segments on Cunard, Crystal, and Holland America. I think I have sailed enough with the 3 companies to have a feeling about how world cruises relate to ordinary cruises (although my Cunard experience is primarily crossings rather than cruises). My overall impression is that while world cruises are specially, the underlying features of the cruise line are pretty well preserved. My segments are:

 

Cunard: Queen Victoria, Bangkok to Dubai, 12 days (6 sea days) in 2010

Queen Elizabeth, New York to Southampton, 8 days (7 sea days) in 2013

 

Crystal: Papeete to Auckland, 12 days (5 sea days) in 2011

Singapore to Cape Town, 18 days (11 sea days) in 2014 I will alternately aggregate this with my 2011 segment and my time on the Symphony from Bali tp Singapore immediately before the 2014 segment, making a total of 28 days (15 sea days) in combination.

 

Holland America: Cape Town to Fort Lauderdalei ,27 days (15 sea days)

 

While Crystal is by far my favorite cruise line, I enjoy both Holland America and Cunard about equally, but that does not mean they are interchangeable. I consider Cunard the mainstream line closest to Crustal, but that’s a bit of a double edged sword. While they generally do well in the things I love about Crystal, they are a step or 2 in virtually everything, and ahead in little if anything relevant to a world cruise. While I see more deficiencies with Holland America there are a few areas where I prefer them to Crystal and I particularly like their smaller ships like the Amsterdam. These are some of the things I see in regard to world cruise segments:

 

Food: Food is very subjective and I am far from a foodie, but to me everything about the Crystal dining experience is superb, the food, the service, the specialty restaurants, and the lido guys who remember the preferences of a thousand passengers in virtually no time. Cunard (Brittania) and Holland America are very similar, but HAL does have a couple of touches that I enjoy. One is the chilled fruit soups that I seldom get even on Crystal. Another is the way they cook many of the hot dishes in the lido to order, much like Crystal’s egg stations, but also including very fresh waffles and pancakes. My order is Crystal, HAL, Cunard..

 

 

Entertainment is inherently different on world cruises. Shows may be repeated but it is impractical to repeat them on every segment, so each segment typically only gets one or 2 of the regular shows. What the teams do with the time not spent with their regular performances seems to be consistent with the way the teams are made up. HAL has a group of roughly 5 singers and the dancers seem to be doing their own thing in the background. The Royal Cunard Singers and Dancers are a team but with a pretty solid distinction of roles between singers and dancers. The Crystal Ensemble of Singers and Dancers is the most integrated of the groups with just 2 leade singers. Most or all of the dancers do at least limited background vocals creating a rich sound, but several are singer/dancers, doing some solos and alternating vocals with the lead singers on some numbers. On world cruises the majority of the entertainment is acts brought on for a few days but the the resident teams do play a role as well. The cohesiveness of the Crystal Ensemble shines through very well with some very special production shows, including a St. Patrick’s day extravaganza and an eleborate opening day ceremony for the World Cruise games. Holland America’s singers did some shows, mostly as cabaret style in lounges, and the shows were mostly a succession of solos, with just a couple of group songs in the one show done in the Queens Room. Cunard fell somewhere in the middle. My order is Crystal, Cunard, HAL.

 

Enrichment and Activities: Enrichment is HAL’s weak point, and while it was stepped up for the World Cruise, it was still behind the other 2, both in the number and quality of presenters. My 2 Crystal world segments totaled 16 sea days with a total of 20 presenters. My combined Symphony/Serenity journey had 16 sea days and 15 presenters. My 2 Cunard segments had a combined 13 sea days and 10 presenters, perhaps a bit high since Cunard markets segments a bit differently by nationality, and the QV segment that started for me in Bangkok started for most people 3 days later in Singapore, and I got the benefit of the final presentations of a couple people who disembarked in Singapore. My HAL segment had 15 sea days and a maximum of 5 presenters, 2 from Cape Town to Cape Verde, 2 from Cape Verde to Ft. Lauderdale, and the Port Guide, Barbara. Barbara has no direct counterpart on Cunard but is something of a cross between Crystal’s destination lecturers and the individual port support services available from the Concierge. Barbara maintained desk hours where she was available for individual questions, was stationed at the gangway in ports, as well as giving talks on each of our ports. Crystal’s presenters are often superstars in their fields, including best selling novelists, olympians, fromer members of administrations and legislatures, ambassidors, and name entertainers, people who don’t just give talks but are accessable throughout the ship. Just one example, I painted the floor of a South Pacific orphanage with forensic scientist, novelest, and Bones creator Kathy Reichs. Cunard’s program is just a small step behind with very respectable presenters, but not quite as many, and they are not as involved in the life of the ship. HAL’s are, even on a world cruise, significantly behind. I will note that I got on the Amsterdam just after Archbiship Tutu got off so my experience is not universal, but I think it is reasonable. My order is Crystal, Cunard, HAL.

 

Segmenter vs Full WC: This is the one that doesn’t fit the pattern. Actually, I think that there special things about any world cruise (special programs and itineraries) that outweigh any us vs them considerations, and most of the differences between full cruisers and segmenters are inevitable structural differences that outweigh anything created by the cruise line. I think people who are together for roughly 100 days develop a body of shared past experiences and plans that segmenters simply cannot share. There may be some things the cruise lines do to add to that inherent difference, and surprisngly I think Crystal does it more than the others. These include a number of special events which may be on or off the ship, and what happens will vary by segment. I do not remember such an event on my 2014 segment, but in 2011 the covered lido deck waas used for a special evening event for only those on the full WC and it resulted in closing the pool early in the day and the Trident (pool) grill and ice cream bar became diffult to use by closing times. When events are off the ship, many key personnel are not available to those remaining onboard. It isn’t a deal breaker, but it can be annoying. Cunard has very little difference in treatment between segmenters and others, but there is a part of a lounge on each ship that’s reserved for the full WC people. On Queen Elizabeth it was about a third of the Garden Lounge, and on Queen Victoria it was perhaps 25% of the Commodoe Club (Cunard’s equivalent to HAL’s Crows Nest and Crystal’s Palm Court). Other than that I didn’t see any real difference between segmenters and those on the full WC. There was even less difference on HAL, the only trace of a difference I saw was indirect. Clearly, people on a full world cruise will be predominantly 4 star mariners (roughly equivalent to Cunard World Club Diamond or 15-20 regular voyages), making them eligible for priority tendering, making it somewhat slow for the rest of us. That’s the only trace of a line sponsored difference I saw. One thing I noticed is that HAL has a tradition of “pillow gifs” on formal nights, and I shared fully in those. My order is HAL, Cunard, Crystal.

 

That’s my view on segmenters vs full world cruisers, but that’s a relatively small part of the equation. For either a segment or a full WC my clear choice would be Crystal, with Cunard holding a slight edge over HAL for the quality of their enrichment programs. Despite an order of preference, all or part of a world cruise with any of these companies is a very nice experience.

 

While a full world cruise is a bit doubtful, I do have a deposit on Crystals 2017 World Cruise. I’ve seen a preliminary itinerary but no prices yet. I did price coming world cruise prices and thought the results were interesting and perhaps a bit surprising. I looked at Queen Victoria for 2015 which is both the shortest and least expensive, the 2015 HAL cruise, and the 2015 and 2016 Crystal offerings. Crystal’s recent world cruises have been heavily booked, especially 2015, and I was surprised at how much cheaper 2016 was compared to 2015. In order of increasing price, here’s the lineup of what I got for a solo cruiser:

 

HAL inside: 282

Cunard inside: 293

Cunard OV: 310

Cunard Verandah: 327

HAL OV: 335

Crystal 2016 OV: 423

Crystal 2015 OV: 470

Crystal 2016 Verandah: 578

Crystal 2015 Verandah: 625

HAL Verandah :713

All of these ships have ample outdoor public spaces making a verandah unnecessary, and an interior cabin would be fine although a view is nice. I might be interested a HAL or Cunard world cruise for the savings an interior cabin offers, but think Crystal is fully worth the price differential for an oceanview or balcony cabin.

 

Roy

[jimmybean]

Interesting post, Roy. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opinions.

[ricki]

Thank you, Roy. Very interesting!

 

Ricki

[alibabacruisers]

Thank you Roy for that thorough and interesting post.

[Scrapnana]

Interesting comparisons, Roy.

 

Did the port presenter on HAL mainly try to sell shore excursions? Just tell about the port? Or a combination of the two?

 

We did have a chilled fruit soup each night on the QE.

 

I hope you do a full World Voyage (and I look forward to reading your blog)!

 

Kathi

[rafinmd]

Thank you all, and I stand corrected on the soups. I looked at my QE menus from last year and we had them last year as well.

 

Barbara's talks were about 95% general information about the ports. She did list "Barbara's pick" at the end of the talk which involved a shorex at the end of the tour, but that's pretty much it.

 

Kathi, I hope my comments on Cunard rang true to you.

 

Roy

Edited May 27, 2014 by rafinmd
Port talks