Crystal cruise itinerary amended due to Rhine water levels

[femme de mer]

Finally, back home! After our cruise ended on Oct 10 in Amsterdam, we continued on to Iceland.

 

First, Crystal provided us with a boat  excursion to see the Rhine Gorge!! It was splendid. 

Crystal had been "listening to my thread' ,as well as, was responsive to my emails about providing that excursion.

 

As things got upended due to the itinerary changes, for our first stop in Koblenz, the Jewish walking tour had to be cancelled because the guide was unavailable  ( we were originally scheduled to be in Koblenz on a different day with that guide). To make up for the cancelled walking tour, it was arranged for those interested to go to the Koblenz synagogue to meet with the lay leader and to also visit the adjacent cemetery- where we were provided with historical as well as current information. 

According to our original excursion choices, a Jewish walking tour of Cologne was not an option.. Without our knowing, Crystal took the initiative to provide this experience for us while our cruise was in progress. Again, this sensitivity was quite impressive.

 

As I was disappointed in not starting in Basel but in Andernach, we ultimately enjoyed the amended the itinerary. Cruising on the Moselle was one of the trips many highlights. We had a marvelous time- met wonderful people who we hope to see again. The crew could not have been more friendly and accommodating!!  Our on board hotel director was amazing! 

 

Given that the water level situation is out of their control. Crystal appears to be trying their best to maintain the river cruising experience as close to expectations.- avoiding  boat swapping and long bus rides to destinations.

 

My husband and I continue to be loyal to Crystal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[malcliz]

Gigmom23.  Just wondering if you’ve found out your revised itinerary for your cruise on the Crystal Bach this Sunday?  We have asked Crystal about our cruise on Sunday week and they aren’t giving any information yet. 

[gigmom23]

Hi Malcliz,

 

Last evening we were informed of the revised itinerary:

"You will still fly into Amsterdam, which is where the cruise will start.  The new itinerary will end in Dusseldorf, Germany. Your ports of call (not in order) will be:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Lelystad, Netherlands

Hoorn, Netherlands

Utrecht, Netherlands

Dordrecht, Netherlands

Nijmegen, Netherlands

Düsseldorf, Germany

Maastricht, Netherlands

Antwerp, Belgium

Ghent, Belgium

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Your flight schedule will remain exactly the same……flying into Amsterdam and returning from Frankfurt." 

 

We were given the option to cancel, but we've decided to go ahead with the cruise with the amended itinerary.  From what our TA said, Crystal was really working hard yesterday to come up with the new itinerary since the one from the cruise ending on the 28th will no longer work.

[notamermaid]

gigmom23,

 

They are not even going to Cologne or Koblenz anymore! Why would they take you from Düsseldorf to Frankfurt, quite a way, by coach? I wonder if they could not get docking in Cologne or Andernach, where they had been on previous cruises. Ships are stranded North of the Rhine gorge and even sailing between Koblenz and Cologne is getting a little tricky. In any case, this itinerary is certainly a bit "Netherlands-heavy". But that can be also a good thing. A bit like a tulips cruise in Spring without the tulips. Perhaps they will take you to Cologne or Bruges by coach. Both would be great, but the towns you have listed are also very interesting.

 

I hope you will have a great time in that part of the world and meet pleasant people both on and off the boat.

 

notamermaid

 

 

[malcliz]

Thank you Gigmom23. That’s a complete change!  We are due to join you on the middle Sunday flying into Frankfurt so I wonder where the ship will be then and how we get there?  Presumably they will coach everyone from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt at the end of the cruise on the 11th November which is quite a long way and we have booked an early flight which we will need to change. We did phone them today but they won’t tell us details of the new itinerary yet so we can’t change our flight yet.  Did they offer to pay for changing flights?  Notamermaid - we were interested in a tulips cruise but preferably with tulips!  😂

[seaworthy98]

Very Disappointed in Crystal

We are on the Crystal Mozart Oct 31 departure, 10 day round trip Vienna. We are flying from Chicago on Sunday, so we have very little time to react to any itinerary changes. Crystal has been terrible communicating with our TA and us regarding our cruise and any possible changes, including any bus trips to Budapest and/or Bratislava or hotel stays, etc. At this time, Crystal claims there will be no itinerary changes. Given current conditions we can’t believe that the Mozart will be able to cruise to Budapest, yet Crystal refuses to admit this.

As long -time Crystal ocean cruise customers, we are very disappointed in Crystal’s customer service for our first, and probably last, Crystal river cruise.  It seems they are putting themselves first, instead of the customer, by trying to maximize revenue.

[susanannie]

seaworthy98

 

Crystal should let you know by tomorrow. I cannot find the post from Walter Littlejohn (there are so many different boards on low water these past weeks), but he laid out Crystal’s whole process. The last step is notifying passengers of itinerary changes five days out. 

[gigmom23]

3 hours ago, malcliz said:

Thank you Gigmom23. That’s a complete change!  We are due to join you on the middle Sunday flying into Frankfurt so I wonder where the ship will be then and how we get there?  Presumably they will coach everyone from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt at the end of the cruise on the 11th November which is quite a long way and we have booked an early flight which we will need to change. We did phone them today but they won’t tell us details of the new itinerary yet so we can’t change our flight yet.  Did they offer to pay for changing flights?  Notamermaid - we were interested in a tulips cruise but preferably with tulips!  😂

We received notice a couple of hours ago that the Crystal Bach was hit by a barge today, so they offered us a shortened cruise on the Crystal Debussey.  This cruise would be round-trip from Amsterdam 10/28/18 - 11/6/18.  We were told Crystal would pay for any additional cost to change flights home, but we've decided to cancel.  I don't know how all of this will affect you, but I hope Crystal communicates with you soon.  Tomorrow I will be planning a trip in January for our 40th wedding anniversary, as this cruise was going to be an early celebration for us.

[malcliz]

2 hours ago, gigmom23 said:

We received notice a couple of hours ago that the Crystal Bach was hit by a barge today, so they offered us a shortened cruise on the Crystal Debussey.  This cruise would be round-trip from Amsterdam 10/28/18 - 11/6/18.  We were told Crystal would pay for any additional cost to change flights home, but we've decided to cancel.  I don't know how all of this will affect you, but I hope Crystal communicates with you soon.  Tomorrow I will be planning a trip in January for our 40th wedding anniversary, as this cruise was going to be an early celebration for us.

Oh dear!  Maybe we are both not meant to go!  How disappointing for you that your celebration cruise won’t take place but I hope you find the right trip in January. We had been looking forward to sailing Crystal for the first time. Thank you for letting me know and I hope we hear from them today. 

[Cisterna]

We , and another couple , were booked for the Debussy Amsterdam to Basel 10/27 - 11/06 . I was nervous about the low water level on the rivers and had been monitoring it for 2 weeks, but kept hoping the storm they were waiting for would happen.  Crystal notified us of the low water level situation  around 4:00 pm 10/19.  We were scheduled to leave for a pre-cruise stay in Amsterdam on Wed. 10/24. We also had booked an extended stay in Basel to included a train trip to Zurich and return to Basel for a flight home on 11/09.  The revised itinerary was extremely Netherlands heavy,  and not the Rhine cruise we dreamed of.  I do have to say that Crystal communications of the revised itinerary,  25% reduction in a future cruise (with a 2 year time frame) , very generous compensation to re-arrange our flight schedule, as well as transportation to and from the airport/dock, where outstanding!   We were also given the choice of receiving a full refund - which we ultimately chose.  We were shocked to receive our full refund in 2 days! Not the situation with the airlines that said 4-6 weeks (with HUGE cancellation fees), We also booked private food tours, Ann Frank, Van Gogh, etc., which are all not refundable - total loss per couple $1600!. 

 

This was to be our first Crystal River cruise ( we have done a few others with competing companies) and Crystal seemed to be a luxury choice.  I have to say after reading all the disastrous reconfigured trips on Viking - (extensive buss trips , rushed excursions, terrible customer service and sub par hotel accommodations), I am so happy we  chose Crystal and will definitely book with them again.    

[malcliz]

I’m sorry you’ve had to cancel your cruise. We haven’t had any communication from Crystal and they haven’t answered our emails and have no information when we phone. We believe they will offer us Netherlands ports and as we are keen to try Crystal for the first time we would accept that but we would like to know so we can rearrange our flights. We are surprised also that we haven’t been notified about the collision so presumably they are still hoping the Bach will sail next week. Hoping we hear something over the weekend. 

[clarku]

We heard from our TA today that our 11/11-18 Bach Frankfurt-Mainz cruise will now be a Cologne-Antwerp cruise on the Mahler due to water levels and the recent damage to the Bach.  Up to $1k/person for airfare changes plus 30% of what we paid applied towards future cruise.  Since our vacation time isn’t flexible we decided to go ahead with new itinerary.  

[dalekwho]

Yesterday we were told by out TA that our 12/5 Crystal Bach Basel-Amsterdam river cruise will now be aboard the Crystal Mahler and they are considering several itinerary changes (one might be starting in Amsterdam).  No word about air fare changes, adjustments or refunds.

 

Has any one heard any more/different information? 

 

I thought the Mahler was scheduled for a cruise starting 12/6 Amsterdam to Budapest (via Mainz); not sure how everyone will fit on one ship.

 

Thank you.

Edited November 10, 2018 by dalekwho

[malcliz]

2 hours ago, dalekwho said:

Yesterday we were told by out TA that our 12/5 Crystal Bach Basel-Amsterdam river cruise will now be aboard the Crystal Mahler and they are considering several itinerary changes (one might be starting in Amsterdam).  No word about air fare changes, adjustments or refunds.

 

Has any one heard any more/different information? 

 

I thought the Mahler was scheduled for a cruise starting 12/6 Amsterdam to Budapest (via Mainz); not sure how everyone will fit on one ship.

 

Thank you.

We are on the Mahler at the moment and we wondered too how everyone would fit on one ship but there are only 29 of us at the moment!  We are loving it.  The ship, the service, the tours. Our itinerary was changed to mostly Netherlands although we are in Cologne today. Really impressed with everything. 

[markobmf]

dalekwho, we were scheduled on the Bach 11/25-12/5 to disembark in Basel on 12/5. The official word we received yesterday was that we would be on Mahler on a severely amended itinerary and that we would now disembark in Amsterdam (Crystal is paying up to $1k each for us to change our return flights which is useless to me since i'm on an award flight with miles). So at the very least, it appears certain that you will embark in Amsterdam should you be on the Mahler. However, if the Bach is repaired and the water levels rise, I suppose you may somehow embark in Basel.

[dalekwho]

1 hour ago, markobmf said:

dalekwho, we were scheduled on the Bach 11/25-12/5 to disembark in Basel on 12/5. The official word we received yesterday was that we would be on Mahler on a severely amended itinerary and that we would now disembark in Amsterdam (Crystal is paying up to $1k each for us to change our return flights which is useless to me since i'm on an award flight with miles). So at the very least, it appears certain that you will embark in Amsterdam should you be on the Mahler. However, if the Bach is repaired and the water levels rise, I suppose you may somehow embark in Basel.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I'm sorry to hear about the changes to your cruise.

 

If you're like us, you've probably planned for this trip for a while.

 

[skybluewaters]

3 hours ago, markobmf said:

we were scheduled on the Bach 11/25-12/5 to disembark in Basel on 12/5. The official word we received yesterday was that we would be on Mahler on a severely amended itinerary and that we would now disembark in Amsterdam (Crystal is paying up to $1k each for us to change our return flights which is useless to me since i'm on an award flight with miles)

 

You could use the $1,000 per person for a flight from Amsterdam to Basel. 

 

Our Mahler cruise was supposed to end in Budapest, but the amended itinerary caused us to disembark in Amsterdam instead.  We used the money for a flight from Amsterdam to Budapest and then spent two very nice days in Budapest on our own. 

 

If you have planned to spend a few days post-cruise in Basel, this would work out well.  But if you are scheduled to return home from Basel on the day of disembarkment, it might be difficult getting an early enough flight to reach Basel before your flight home.

[notamermaid]

10 minutes ago, skybluewaters said:

 

You could use the $1,000 per person for a flight from Amsterdam to Basel. 

 

Our Mahler cruise was supposed to end in Budapest, but the amended itinerary caused us to disembark in Amsterdam instead.  We used the money for a flight from Amsterdam to Budapest and then spent two very nice days in Budapest on our own. 

 

If you have planned to spend a few days post-cruise in Basel, this would work out well.  But if you are scheduled to return home from Basel on the day of disembarkment, it might be difficult getting an early enough flight to reach Basel before your flight home.

I would just like to add that one could have a  train ride for two by high speed service from Amsterdam to Basel for  1000 dollars easily. If one is comfortable with seven hours on a train it is an alternative to flying.

 

notamermaid

 

[markobmf]

22 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

I would just like to add that one could have a  train ride for two by high speed service from Amsterdam to Basel for  1000 dollars easily. If one is comfortable with seven hours on a train it is an alternative to flying.

 

notamermaid

 

after assurance from my TA and Crystal that we could take the only flight home on disembark day which happened to be in the early am, I booked that award flight months ago. This makes it impossible to fly to Basel to catch the flight. We also can't leave the cruise a day early and fly to Basel because the itineraries are not final and we have no idea where we'll even be. Thanks for the input though.