Crystal River Cruises to Redeploy, Redesign and Delay Two River Ships

Crystal River Cruises to Redeploy, Redesign and Delay Two River Ships

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=7153

Bottom line: no Crystal ships in France, 5 on the Danube, Main and Rhine

Tauck

Tauck

:confused:

:confused:

My comment was to let people know to look at Tauck as an alternative. I had a Crystal river cruised booked and after reading the Crystal board, decided to cancel that cruise and go with Tauck because of their reputation as a luxury river cruise line and most similar to the Crystal experience. Crystal is to new in the river cruise game and once they get the kinks ironed out would reconsider. I like to go with the line that will deliver based on many highly rated reviews and experience.

Two thoughts: how many more ships can the Danube manage and, b, folks are avoiding France because of the terrorism but by the time these two ships are finished who knows what the situation will be.

Two thoughts: how many more ships can the Danube manage and, b, folks are avoiding France because of the terrorism but by the time these two ships are finished who knows what the situation will be.

I had the same thoughts. We are going to take advantage of some of the great offers for France next year as we really enjoy the destination. It is a perfect time to visit.

Longer, longer, longer waits for docks - more, more, more rafting at ports - more, more, more docking in industrial areas - :(

Terrorism? Germany has had 4 attacks this week or so, yet the ships will be re-deployed there, so this makes no sense as regards that line of thinking.

I live in the UK and France and read a lot of European wide press and media and cannot see and accepted distinction of likelihood of attacks between France or Germany or even Belgium.

I don't buy the terrorism angle. I doubt they have had a flood of cancellations for the Seine/Rhone/Dordogne cruises and doubt equally they have had a flood of "surplus" bookings for Rhine/Main/Danube. I think this is being done for economic reasons unrelated to the terrorist attacks.

From a logistics perspective, given the ships can't easily move from one river to another, it does make more sense to have multiple ships of the same class in the same general location.

... but that should hardly be news to them so not sure why the late change of direction...

Crystal made a ton of major expansion announcements (new ocean ships, jumping into river cruising with 7 ships, private Boeing jets for luxury travel) and has now modified all of them. I'm not sure that anything can be read into this particular change, except that Crystal held a press conference long before they had their ducks in a row.

Looking forward to seeing Crystal River boats.

Crystal made a ton of major expansion announcements (new ocean ships, jumping into river cruising with 7 ships, private Boeing jets for luxury travel) and has now modified all of them. I'm not sure that anything can be read into this particular change, except that Crystal held a press conference long before they had their ducks in a row.

Good point.

I do wonder if the fact that there have been issues with length of river cruise ships on the Seine - it appears that all ships that are of the length 135m do not go to Honfleur and there are problems with that length in Paris itself (look back at the Viking threads) - played a part in Crystal's decision. After all, you could also call that "reacting to customers' demands".

Anyway, as regards the new ships, building is going ahead as planned and there was a keel-laying ceremony for the first two ships in the yard at Wismar in North-Eastern Germany (a lovely town on the coast, I recommend a visit): http://www.marinelink.com/news/building-crystals-werften414160.aspx

notamermaid

This may come as a news item on cruisecritic and in a separate thread by our host, but in case it does not happen here is the news item:

http://www.worldofcruising.co.uk/crystal-river-cruises-unveils-itineraries-for-new-2018-river-yachts/

The article mentions the Moselle, but if you want to be utterly correct the ship sails the Moselle only for about 400m if it docks on the Moselle in Koblenz. There is no further cruising on the river beyond the Koblenz docking location near the Balduin bridge. https://www.crystalcruises.com/voyage/details/basel-to-vienna-8f01r

Still, it is an interesting itinerary, coming from Basel, taking in the Rhine gorge but then turning back into the Main to go through the Main Danube Canal into the Danube. It gives you the most scenic part of the Rhine but leaves out Cologne and the Northern part. It also ends in Vienna rather than Nuremberg or Budapest.

I seem to remember other companies doing Basel to Nuremberg but leaving out the Rhine gorge.

A nice combination of ports, well thought through, I think.

They also have Frankfurt as an embarkation port. Not so common in the industry but not a new thing.

I am sure all the itineraries will appeal to a lot of people.

notamermaid