Roland4

In the last six months we have sailed Seabourn Quest, Regent Splendor, and are currently on Silver Moon. We have met former friends/staffers from Crystal on all three and they are happy and thriving. Will they come back? I have no idea, and it is none of our business to ask, but they are obviously "good enough", and to suggest otherwise is patronizing at best.

Regent came up with a good solution on the Explorer Class ships. The smoking section is a room about 15 feet square in the front/starboard corner of the pool deck. It has a sealed door, the room is sealed and vented directly "over the side". Walking past in virtually any weather you could not smell smoke. Other than the equivalent of the CC, I think this was the only smoking section on the ship.

"A little more formal" is like being a "little bit pregnant". When Seabourn and Regent have eliminated Formal/Informal, SS is completely out of step. They have even decreed an Informal night on the last night before disembarkation, and no line that I am aware of, even Cunard, does that!! The "smoking is discouraged" came from Raf, the CD, on day one. The smoking section is all of the port side of the pool deck, the starboard side of Deck 9, where the smoking lounge is, and is not sealed off, and apparently where anyone wishes to light up on the aft decks. They do say smoking is not permitted anywhere in the lounges or casino, so other than the odd "bozo" who thinks vaping is not smoking, there have been no issues.

We are on Silver Moon at the moment, and the staff are great, Unfortunately, the dress code is archaic, six sea days this segment and every one of them is Formal or Informal, and they are militant about enforcing it. The other issue is the very relaxed smoking policy, starting with "Smoking on the balcony is discouraged." Say what?? As much as we like the ship, this will likely be a "one and done" with Silversea for us.

Clearing cookies and cache also can help, especially with Expedia.

I suspect it was "across the board", but the Maker's Mark issue (not that we drink it!) has been common to all three ships, though Moon still did have some in a few bars when we boarded last week. It definitely was an issue with the wine lists on all three ships, but especially on Regent Grandeur. The "display" wine racks in the various restaurants looked a little "sparse" on Moon a week ago, but now they are all full and multiple varietals are available in all of the bars. The load-in at Montevideo was probably the biggest we have seen since the 2020 WC load-in in LA! They even had fresh cherries on the buffet this morning, something we have never see on a ship buffet before!!!

We had similar "supply" issues on Quest in September, Grandeur in November and even here on Silver Moon when we boarded last week. They had a MAJOR resupply in Montevideo, six containers and multiple transports at 8:00 AM, and they were still loading skids aboard at 6:00 PM!! The "larder" is now apparently fuller than at anytime in months according to some staff, so there is hope this supply chain issue is finally resolving.

Adam and Eve were the first ones not to read "Apple's" terms and conditions!!!😁😁

Gee, I wonder why??? The industry, and retail TAs in particular, went through most of 2020 and almost all of 2021 on almost no commission income. While almost all the cruise lines "commission protected" all those millions of dollars in cancelled sailings, not every supplier did, and this resulted in some cases of thousands of dollars of commissions that had been paid in 2019/2020 being recalled. I am the Office Manager, as well as a Consultant, and I watched this happen in real time. While the agency I work with survived, it was a close-run thing, and some of our "competitors" in our community never did re-open.

We were on that segment as well, and I have often thought the experience we had was "luck of the draw." All of the women had to wear the Crystal-supplied abaya, and for two days prior, the stress level of how to wear it, and how much hair could show, was very high. The barkeep at The Cove said later that with all these women in abayas going back and forth, he felt like he was working in a convent!! Then we got off the ship, us guys sailed through, since all we had to do was wear long sleeves and closed-toed shoes. And the women?? The Immigration agent didn't even look at them, just stamped the passport and moved them on! Once on the brand new, so new the seats were still covered in palstic, Mercedes buses, the local guide, who was also the Managing Director (read - President) of the tour operator told the ladies not to worry about the "hood" of the abaya, that the local authorities were not concerned about tourists. We were followed all day by a TV crew, and when we got back to the ship, the outbound immigration check was no big deal. My wife went through, and I followed her, no questions asked, and the Managing Director wished us well on the otherside before we got back on the ship. A humourous postscipt. In many Gulf states alcohol is forbidden, and the ship had to lock up the bars, and even remove alcohol from guest rooms. Rick Spath was the CD and he told us someone figured out an empty water bottle filled with any kind of alcohol fit perfectly in the room safes, and since the local authoriries had no right to open those safes......... We left the pier in Jeddah, turned toward the open sea, and left as fast as Serenity would go so they could open the bars!!!😁😁😁

I bet Vince will post a picture of it!!😁😁

Wouldn't bother me as, other than passing through, the only time we spent significant time in the casino was when it was our lifeboat station! Having said that, I am not sure what they can use the space for. More shops? Another lounge? I know some have mentioned another restaurant, but that space is nowhere near the galley area, and with cabins above and the ship's offices and medical centre below, that would require serious alterations!

The NCF are the Port Charges portion of the fare and are non-commissionable, hence NCF/NCCF. The Taxes are the local taxes charged by the various ports. Crystal's Destination Fee appears to be the NCF + Taxes lumped into a single number, the same way they reported the Port, Security & Handling Fees originally. While I have not see a New Crystal invoice as yet, the DF is apparently lumped in with the total Fare, but reported separately on the invoice as an "information item" for TAs. We need to be able to separate this number from the commissionable part of the total in order to "prove" the reported commission amount owing. This is nothing new, just a different way of reporting on the invoice.

At the risk of repeating myself, these fees were previoudly known as the "Port, Security and Handling Fees" under the Old Crystal. The only difference is "Old Crystal" reported them separately, while "New Crystal", like most lines these days, buries them in the published fare. They are not something new. They do, however, split them out on the TA version of the invoice as they are not commissionable, so they may very well show up as a seperate item on the invoice from your TA.

Be that as it may, we were on Quest for that exact itinerary this past September. Sadly, Hurricane Fiona had other ideas, and we never left the St. Lawrence River. The most exciting thing we did was buy a box of TimBits in a Tim Hortons in Gaspe!

This is not Crystal-specific. We are looking at a 33 night cruise on Regent Explorer in January 2025 and the top rooms are already booked, and bottom rooms are already heavily booked.

I am aware of that. We boarded in 2018 by tender at Athol Buoy from the White Bay Terminal, and when we arrived a day early in Sydney on the 2020 WC, we were tendered in from out near Watson's Bay!! Now THAT was a long tender ride!!!

I initially thought they might go there on the following sea days, but there are only two of them, and even with that, they are not scheduled into Sydney until 14:00!

For a prime example of this, look no further than the 2024 WC. As near as I can tell from the posted itinerary, they are skipping the entire South Island of New Zealand, and are only spending four days in the North Island, two of those in Auckland for what I assume is a segment turn over!

We were not planning on booking it anyway, but I just counted, and as much as we like sea days, 65 of them out of a 139 day itinerary seems just a bit excessive!

Based on what I am reading; The contract on the Crystal website says :"“Destination Fees” mean the fees, charges, tolls and taxes imposed on Carrier by governmental or quasi-governmental authorities as well as third party fees and charges arising from a ship’s presence in a harbor or port." Sounds like the old "port tax" to me. These are what Old Crystal called the "Port, Security and Handling Fees". The other luxe lines for the most part just bury them in the pricing (though they provide TAs with the breakdown as they are not commissionable), but they are there. I am just happy to hear that "Destination Fee" does not equal "Resort Fee"! That would seriously annoy me!

It came up automatically for me yesterday. I will have to plug in US$ to see what the exchange rate is. Most lines are using something in the $1.35 range at the moment.

When I checked the pricing yesterday, it all came up in CAD$. Stickman also noted the local pricing came up in AU$, so it would appear currency pricing on Crystal is consistent with A & K's general pricing policy of quoting in the "local" currency. I have not checked the USD pricing to see what exchange rate they are using, mostly because we have no intention of booking anything until 2024, after we see how things pan out with the initial sailings. Also because we are waiting on the 2024 WC, if in fact they do a WC in 2024.

As a fellow Canadian, be thankful that you can now book in CAD$. That was never an option before.

They must have the information. We didn't do an open booking, or anything else. The Boss got the Feb 13 CS e-mail at her home e-mail, and I got it (for me as a client) on my office e-mail.