Roland4

A big chunk of that will be the 2024 World Cruise, which I suspect has not been "nailed down" yet. That is what we will be looking for when it is released. Where that ends will determine the rest of the open dates. Given Serenity will be in Alaska Summer 2024, my best WAG (Wild Assed Guess) is the WC may well end in Miami in maybe April.

Those bags have been packed for so long most of the clothes in them have probably gone out of style!!😁😁😁

Just as an FYI, A&K have been running expedition cruises for many years. We did an Antarctic expedition cruise with them in 2010.

We have friends doing the full 69 day circumnavigation on Moon. Other than the "throwback" Formal night dress code (Tux/suit/jacket, tie mandatory at the three main restaurants) They have been enjoying themselves. Not sure why Silversea has gone more Formal when almost the entire industry is going the other way.

Had my quarterly visit with my GP earlier this week, and mentioned that all three of us have had a a visit from the "Rona" monster. His comment was with three boosters, plus the "real McCoy", we are pretty much "bullet-proof" for the next few months! Hope he is right as we are heading off to Buenous Aires in three weeks for 32 days on the Silver Moon!

Received this earlier today in my office e-mail. Also received a Client Copy in the home e-mail. Thank you for your ongoing support of the new Crystal Cruises. Our teams are continuing to make extraordinary progress in various areas to introduce the new Crystal to the world. Your support has made our Open Deposit Program a huge success, providing thousands of future guests the ability to reserve their preferred voyage in anticipation of our general sales launch. As we continue to prepare for the release of our itineraries, please be advised that our Open Deposit Program will only be available through Sunday, January 22, 2023. As a reminder, Open Deposits provide your clients with an exclusive first access to our soon-to-be released itineraries. In addition, guests with an Open Deposit benefit from an As You Wish shipboard credit of up to $500USD* per suite! Guests may take out as many Open Deposits as they wish and can be redeemed for one (1) reservation, so if they wish to book more than one (1) cruise, please be sure they purchase the needed number of Open Deposits to do so at launch. Please note, your clients who have elected to receive information from Crystal Cruises will also receive notice in the coming days that our Open Deposit Program will be ending. As a courtesy, we continue to encourage past and future Crystal Cruises guests to contact their preferred travel advisor and we kindly ask you reach out to any of your clients who may have interest in our Open Deposit Program as well.

To me, the driving factor in this is the state of the two ships. Until the changes/updates are set, and they release the new deck plans, how can they take bookings? More importantly, as anxious as we all are to be onboard, I personally would rather they take the time they need and do it right. The last thing they need is to start taking bookings prematurely, and then have to change/cancel sailings because the ships are not going to be ready on time.

It actually turned out quite well. A little less thick than in Prego, and I suspect that was from the "missing" bread bowl. Really not that difficult to make. 🙂

We have good friends coming for dinner tomorrow and decided to try to make the Prego Mushroom Soup for the first time. Except for the bread bowls, we found all the "bits and pieces" required, so we shall see how it turns out! 😋😋Wish us luck!!!!

You're probably the only one willing to admit it!!!😁😁😁

It's the same idea, except in individual muffin tins, with melted shortening in each instead of tallow. Done properly, and my BH mastered the recipe years ago, (something my Mom never could, we called hers Yorkshire Hockey Pucks!) you end up with this pillow of yummy that goes great with beef gravy!!😋😋

We had a very nice prime rib with all the fixings this evening, including my Better Half's "world famous" (at least within the family) Yorkshire Pudding!! Everything is all cleaned up and put away, and I suspect we may not make Midnight! Since we are reminiscing about NYEs past........ Our closest friends have two sons, two years apart, and when they were young, 8 and 6 as I recall, Dad built a backyard skating rink. How Canadian is that!! We always got together on NYE at their place, and this particular one was one of the coldest on record! The boys, and my BH, are out on the rink for hours on end, while we, bundled up in heavy coats, tuques on our heads and gloves on our hands, tend to the rib eye roast on the BBQ rotisserie. At one point, the hockey puck skids into the snow beside the rink, so I put my martini down on the local windowsill to go retrieve it. I come back, not more than three minutes later, and the water from the ice cubes in my drink had frozen on the top of the gin in my glass!😁😁 The NYE my martini froze!! A Canadian Winter Memory!!

At the end of the day, we ended up with a far better flight schedule, Toronto/Montreal/Buenos Aires with reasonable connections, but I shudder to think what someone who just trusted the Air Dept. could have ended up with! It was the fact that no one in the Air Dept initially saw anything wrong with the Santiago itinerary that concerned me!

But you, or your TA, do have to keep a very close eye on their Air Dept as that appears to be a weak link. Our original flights from YYZ had us flying out at 6:00 AM, connecting in Miami to a flight departing at 9:45 PM. That was bad enough, but they had us flying into Santiago, Chile, for a cruise departing from Buenos Aires!!! That's one heck of an airport to ship transfer, and no one in their Air Dept saw anything wrong until I pointed it out! Based on some of the posts on the CC Silversea board, this is not an unusual problem!

Except that is only on "select" sailings and "limited time only". I have not found a sailing with the pre-paid fare, but then I have not been looking that hard, so I have no idea what the savings would be.

Those strategies were a post-RCI project as I understand it. No particular reason Crystal 2.0 should follow it as well. Silversea appear to have loosened the "Door-to-Door" policy a bit, at least according to an industry video I saw recently. They now allow you to drop the flights in exchange for an air credit in the same way that Regent/Oceania do. That was not an option when we booked our Silver Moon sailing for this February. They are also now offering something called "Port-to-Port Pre-Paid" at a lower price on select sailings. The catch is it is 100% non-refundable!

Except for PH and above, each guest was entitled to one visit in each specialty. Additional visits, on a space available basis, required a cover charge. This was done as way of controlling the demand. Keep in mind that on the Explorer-Class ships, BOTH Prego and Umi Uma would fit comfortably in either of Prime 7 or Chartreuse with room left over! This charge is what I suspect they are referring to.

I received an e-mail on my agency account this morning welcoming us to the "new" Crystal. While I did not book anything, all of the TA links that would allow me to do so seemed to work fine. One thing I did note, for those of us in the Great White North, the open deposit booking platform does give you the option to book in Canadian Dollars. This will be a nice change from the "old" Crystal, who only booked in US Dollars.

It is rather odd here on the ship. The Observation Lounge is all Christmas during the day, but walk back 30 feet the pool area and it's all older Top 40's music!!!

We were sitting in the Observation Lounge yesterday morning when we suddenly realized the background music was Springsteen singing "Santa Clause is Coming to Town"!!!!!

Bingo!! The first time a new or existing client walks in and says "I want to book the Crystal World Cruise in the Crystal Penthouse", "principle" will going flying out the window at the speed of light!!!

Hi Nancy! Happy to hear that things seem to be getting better on Quest. We took advantage of the 20% FCC they gave us and have booked Ovation for 12 nights Reykjavik to Copenhagen at the end of May next year. It goes to several places we have wanted to see, and if the last few Toronto Springs are any indication, it won't impinge on "swimming pool season"!!😁 Larry

Well, it could be worse. You could be living up here in Ontario! All alcohol sales are controlled by the provincial government, and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is THE largest purchaser of beverage alcohol in the world! For all that, it is almost impossible for the average person to import wine from abroad without going through hoops within hoops, and then paying taxes that make it cost prohibitive! We have done tastings in vineyards all over the world. When they approach us to join their "Wine Club", we say we live in Ontario, and every time, be it California, Australia, New Zealand or Europe, they give a knowing nod and move on to the next person! Having said all that, we have never cared for any of the C wines. Given all the great wines available in the US, I am not sure why anyone would want to go out of their way to buy them!😁

Okay, to set the record straight, we paid full price for our cruise, and yes we were in a PH as we have booked this level of accommodation, and have always paid full price, for years. Not sure why this should matter to anyone, as, much like Crystal, once you leave your room everyone is treated equally, and as far as I remember, the only time I mentioned it, even onboard, was as a point of reference on my one post about COVID. Yes, I am a TA, mostly retired, and I am open about it because people like to talk about cruises and cruise ships. After 18 years in the industry, I am fairly well-versed, and I often get asked. As a matter of preference, I don't even carry business cards when we travel and politely, but firmly, decline when asked, and it does happen, to take on someone's business. Like nancygp, we heard about the status match offer AFTER we had made the final payment for this cruise, applied, and were given Diamond status based on our 40+ cruises totalling close the 450 days. Frankly all it got us was a discount on the two bottles of wine we bought. Oh, and a load of laundry! As far as "special service" for ex-Crystal guests, I can say with certainty every member of the staff I talked did not know the match programme even existed. I lost track of the number of double-takes we got when, after being welcomed back, we admitted this was our first Seabourn cruise!

I am not suggesting there have been no problems, as there obviously have been. I am suggesting that we have seen improvement in the general service levels since the beginning of the cruise. It apparently is not back to what it should be, but it appears to be moving in the right direction. And yes, I do believe in dealing with significant issues when they occur in the hope they will be corrected. If that means a little extra attention, I am fine with that. Beats "suffering in silence" any day. As a general comment, I don't believe in waiting to the end-of-cruise evaluation, then slamming "management" when they can't respond.