Finding a New Home - Should it be Crystal?

[RLK33853]

4 hours ago, Keith1010 said:

There are many different definitions of wealth.  Certainly if you were on the Forbes list you likely will travel on your own aircraft and on your own yacht or lease something similar.

 

Others with more moderate wealth which total many millions who cruise select the line they most enjoy and that doesn't have to be a luxury line. A couple we know well in the last town we live in who can easily take a top suite on any luxury line prefer Royal Caribbean.  For them it works.  

 

Like all things this comes down to personal preference and how they want to spend their disposable income or for that matter for some they might take a cruse of a lifetime.  

 

The good new is there is lots of choice out there and how much choice an individual has depends on various factors and one if how much they want to spend.

 

Same goes for who one sails with. Some have no go-to line and will sail a wide range of lines for various reasons whether that is for itinerary or even to change things up and sail a range of lines and/or vessels.

 

Others sail one line or evolve to one line.

 

And back to value. Value is in the eyes of the beholder.  In our case I believe we get a lot of value from cruising over a land based vacation and for us the Crystal product provides us with the value we consider important.  I know some who would say there is on way they will take a cruise and be in the same room with their spouse for that length of time saying they will go stir crazy and this would lead to too many fights.  

 

Choice is good although once in a while can be overwhelming if one is looking for a product on Amazon.Com and is faced with 100's of choices.  🤣

 

Keith

 

Extremely well said Keith.  Wealth and/or choices aren't just about how much money an individual has.  Everyone has their own style - cruising along with many of the other things in life that are important to them.

 

Ray

[ctjon]

A couple of weeks ago when Serenity was in Portland, ME there was a private yacht there that was almost the same length as Serenity - not the same height, width, but huge.  I guess that would define wealth and could do any cabin size.    As I said before, we intend to spend as little time as possible in our cabins so on many cruises we do the window/vs balcony cabin  because we;d rather do more cruises than a fancy room.  To each our own interests and choices.

One of the things that we really like about Crystal is that all places (other than laundry rooms ) are available to all vs some lines that you need to be in a certain class to use certain restaurants, etc.

Edited October 31, 2023 by ctjon

[ak1004]

5 minutes ago, ctjon said:

A couple of weeks ago when Serenity was in Portland, ME there was a private yacht there that was almost the same length as Serenity - not the same height, width, but huge.  I guess that would define wealth and could do any cabin size.    As I said before, we intend to spend as little time as possible in our cabins so on many cruises we do the window/vs balcony cabin  because we;d rather do more cruises than a fancy room.  To each our own interests and choices.

One of the things that we really like about Crystal is that all places (other than laundry rooms ) are available to all vs some lines that you need to be in a certain class to use certain restaurants, etc.

 

Same for us. My TA used to joke that sometimes we spend more on business class flights than on the whole cruise.. OV is perfectly fine for us.

 

As for all places available - it's the same in all premium/luxury lines with some very small exceptions (compared to mainstream lines like Celebrity). 

[rafinmd]

2 hours ago, ctjon said:

One of the things that we really like about Crystal is that all places (other than laundry rooms ) are available to all vs some lines that you need to be in a certain class to use certain restaurants, etc.

I did a bit of testing on my cruise.  On the re-designed Serenity All laundry rooms have a lock but the key to my most basic cabin opened ANY laundry on ANY deck. It is now the whole ship; the only exception is individual cabins.

 

Roy

[May B]

10 hours ago, rafinmd said:

I did a bit of testing on my cruise.  On the re-designed Serenity All laundry rooms have a lock but the key to my most basic cabin opened ANY laundry on ANY deck. It is now the whole ship; the only exception is individual cabins.

 

Roy

This is what we like, good serious research!

 

Thx, Roy. 

[ak1004]

10 hours ago, rafinmd said:

I did a bit of testing on my cruise.  On the re-designed Serenity All laundry rooms have a lock but the key to my most basic cabin opened ANY laundry on ANY deck. It is now the whole ship; the only exception is individual cabins.

 

Roy

 

If everyone has access, why the have locks?

[Keith1010]

2 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

If everyone has access, why the have locks?

Because for years they utilized them so that guests on a particular deck couldn't use the facilities on the other deck.  Much of this was due to overall guest capacity and that some floors with suites had less guests with decks that were all regular staterooms.

 

Keith

[AtA]

On 10/29/2023 at 9:57 AM, ak1004 said:

 

We must have very different friends.. all friends that we have love O food and the line in general. We did not see any difference between our first sailing on O in 2018 and our last few sailings. But people like to complaint.

 

O has 7 ships and the ships sail at 80-100% capacity most of the time, so they must be doing something right..

I found the food good on our first cruise in 2016 and awful on my second in 2020 right before the world shut down. Since you prefer port intensive cruises I can see why you like Oceania. We personally love sea days and on Oceania they are a bore. Very limited activities which was fine with our first Oceania cruise which was to Cuba but not my son's and my second one which was the Caribbean with unexpected sea days where the only activity the ship planned was Texas Hold Em contests. And of course you had to PAY to join.

[ak1004]

14 minutes ago, AtA said:

I found the food good on our first cruise in 2016 and awful on my second in 2020 right before the world shut down. Since you prefer port intensive cruises I can see why you like Oceania. We personally love sea days and on Oceania they are a bore. Very limited activities which was fine with our first Oceania cruise which was to Cuba but not my son's and my second one which was the Caribbean with unexpected sea days where the only activity the ship planned was Texas Hold Em contests. And of course you had to PAY to join.

 

Agree with you 100% about activities. We would never do TA on Oceania, and probably not Caribbean as well. Our cruise on Crystal in 2019 Caldera to San Diego was fabulous in terms of entertainment and activities, and we both agreed that it's a different league and Crystal is the line to go for the Caribbean. In fact, we booked 3 more cruises on Crystal before Covid because we found a lot of value, considering what we get. 

 

But since we found food and service on C comparable to O, and on port intensive cruises entertainment and activities are less important, we just don't find value in C at the current prices. 

[AtA]

3 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

 

Agree with you 100% about activities. We would never do TA on Oceania, and probably not Caribbean as well. Our cruise on Crystal in 2019 Caldera to San Diego was fabulous in terms of entertainment and activities, and we both agreed that it's a different league and Crystal is the line to go for the Caribbean. In fact, we booked 3 more cruises on Crystal before Covid because we found a lot of value, considering what we get. 

 

But since we found food and service on C comparable to O, and on port intensive cruises entertainment and activities are less important, we just don't find value in C at the current prices. 

Isn't it great we have so many choices?

We almost always try to find cruises where there is a good mix of port days and sea days. We just finished the first cruise on Serenity and the Venice to Rome cruise on Symphony. Both very port intensive and we both agreed we needed a vacation after our vacation. 😄