free101girl

My husband and I have sailed on Crystal twice, most recently in 2011. Obviously that was under the old, old ownership! We’re thinking about another cruise with them, so I tried logging into the Crystal site. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t get my old login to work, and my email was not in their system to do a password reset. So I made a new account. My question is, how would I associate the new account with my Crystal Society number? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to add it, although I gather (from a thread I just read here) that the new owners have retained the information about past cruises. Am I missing something, or would I have to call them and get it added?

Just looked at the cruise contract, and as expected: “Itinerary, vessels, hotels, docking locations, ports of call, times and sites visited are subject to change or substitution due to water levels, sailing conditions, site closures and other factors without notice. Any such changes will not result in eligibility for a refund.”

No compensation has been mentioned. I think it’s fair to consider this force majeure. Probably it’s written into the cruise contract that they can change the excursions and destinations, though I haven’t checked. Under the circumstances, I don’t think there were any better options for our cruise. Now, if we had been forced into a weeklong bus tour in lieu of any cruising, I would be quite unhappy and would have preferred cancellation. However, I understand it’s not uncommon for river cruises to become bus tours. Caveat emptor!

Also wanted to mention that my husband walked along the docks here in Vienna this morning and counted the river cruise ships. 23 are berthed here, of which 11 are Viking. I’m told there are more ships at another dock elsewhere in the city.

Yesterday evening around 5 pm, our captain informed us that the Danube is closed to traffic and that our ship (Uniworld River Duchess) will not be leaving Vienna until at least June 12. So we will depart from Vienna when our “cruise” ends on Friday. The passengers who were supposed to be embarking on this ship in Nuremberg on Friday will be doing a bus tour starting in Nuremberg until the 12th, we were told. What a disappointment for them. We were also told that another Uniworld ship that is two days upstream of us is in a small town, in a berth that cannot be reached by buses, so the passengers cannot tour. One that is two days behind us, is now berthed in Bratislava until the traffic closure is lifted. We feel very, very fortunate to be “stuck” in Vienna, which is such a delightful city with good transport connections.

Terrible. How ridiculous that they’ve made you go through all that mess.

Unbelievable. Certainly TUI won’t be on my list for any future holidays. Best wishes to the passengers on that ill-fated sailing! We are on Uniworld River Duchess, docked in Vienna indefinitely. We were originally scheduled to be in Krems today, Passau on Tuesday and Regensburg on Wednesday, ending in Nuremberg on Friday. I must say, if we have to be stuck somewhere, Vienna is a lovely option, and I am not upset at all about spending more time here. My only minor quandry is rearranging our transfer to Prague on Friday, as no one is sure where this cruise will end, and we did not book Uniworld’s post-cruise package. We had booked a private car transfer from Nuremberg to Prague, which I cancelled yesterday, as it’s fairly obvious we won’t end there. Fortunately we are experienced and independent travelers, so I’m sure we’ll work it out.

Thanks, this is helpful!

I’d love to hear from anyone who has used the “fresh pressed juices” portion of the Splash of Romance package recently. Some of the newer videos and articles I have read about the juices claim that you can collect your juice from any of the juice bars around the ship. They also make it sound like you can choose your juices, up to a $10 or $11 price point. But the copies of the SOR letter I have seen list a specific place to pick up juices, and Virgin describes this benefit as “curated” juices, which suggests you don’t choose from the menu. Some people have reported being given two juice choices per day, which were pre-poured into glasses, and having to show their SOR wristbands to collect them. So what has been your experience? Did you get to choose your juices? Were you able to collect them from any of the juice bars? How were they billed: did you show your wristband and walk away without being charged, or were you charged and then the charge later reversed, as with the Shake for Champagne benefit?

Never mind, figured it out!