BWIVince

Is anyone else old enough to remember when Symphony's library wasn't in the atrium (before the 2004 refit)? 😊 Vince

Not saying it wouldn't be nice if all the changes weren't done by now, but if you had any concept what was involved in making all those edits in a content management system this complex, you'd probably have a lot more patience, and be a lot less "disappointed" all the time. Vince

Just my $.02... Not worth any more or less than anyone else's. I thought they struck a nice balance with the menu... A lot of people have enjoyed the "global tapas" vibe that Tastes has, so they came up with a menu that's part small plates, part entree. A lot of people said they wanted a steakhouse venue, so this offers a handful of different steaks, an entree steak feature, and a variety of potato offerings and sides/sauces to go with the steaks. It elevates some of the typical offerings, like the salmon, served robata style. ...And it does all this out of an auxiliary galley the size of a postage stamp. I'm sure -- as always -- the specific dishes on the menu will evolve over time, but I think the initial menu is a great starting point at least. No menu, or even venue, is going to please all the people, all the time. Vince

Thanks for checking, Emily! They had a really heavy lift on the '24 and '25 changes, so I don't envy them one bit on having to turn around and finish '26 at the same time/right after. Looking forward to seeing you and Dick soon! Vince

I respect the answers -- they are certainly free to run their company however they like... Just the same way their customers are free to share feedback on their decisions. In fairness though, I don't think most people are as concerned about the noise that travels through a sound-dampened ceiling as much as what travels down an open hallway. All of the cabins on deck 7 are above public areas on deck 6, on both ships, and the rooms were constructed accordingly. IMHO that's apples and oranges to having a casino down the same hall without any sound barriers separating the cabins. I will say though, Serenity's "Lounge" _IS_ a very quiet place, that part is true. It's quiet because it has the warmth and charm of a government permitting office, due to the lack of daylight. I'm curious to see how they renovate it to compensate for that, but the windowed libraries on Crystal were a very deliberate design decision, and seeing Serenity's Lounge in its current state just reminds me WHY that was a deliberate design decision. Vince

I don't get Symphony's swap at all... The point (on a ship this size at least) is to locate the casino inside a traffic flow pattern triangulated from the main dining room/restaurant (Waterside), the show lounge (Galaxy), and the secondary evening cabaret venue (Starlite). Now I get why Luxe may be too small even though they wanted to downscale, but the bridge lounge is more than 2/3 the size of the old casino, so the space is extremely similar. While I think the old Casino is a great space for the bridge lounge, if they're going for a similarly sized space it seems like the diminished traffic flow from deck 6 aft seems counterproductive for a minor space efficiency savings. 🤷‍♂️ At least it will not be that far from the Avenue, so although the foot traffic is less overall, it will stretch later. Serenity.... Uhh, Deck 7?? In the designated "quiet buffer" between the restaurants and the cabins? Ummm, ok. All y'all window cabin people that were making fun of the location of the solo cabins are going to be begging to be further forward now. 😄 If only they had space just aft of the show lounge, on the same deck as all the evening activities, not on the same hallway as passenger cabins, that's currently 99% unused and they could carve out as much/little space as they wished or needed. Oh, wait... I'm sure you're right though, this will probably make more sense when we see the whole plan in its entirety. Vince

What's wrong with/happened to the library on Serenity? 😳 Vince

I saw the email this morning, and I think this sounds promising. For all the reasons I've already covered, I wasn't surprised in the least that it wasn't one of the existing cruise casino operators that they went with. Having a "local" specialty operator should work out better here overall. [Edited to add: It's also a good sign that we've almost made it to July and they're still tracking to have the casinos live later this year.] Vince

The ever-evolving dynamics among mass-market lines is fascinating to me…. The case for having so many lounge venues used to be the bar revenue they generated, but in an era when mass market lines make so much of their bar revenue from drink packages, their financial interest is in reducing redemptions on the packages, so suddenly those various lounges aren’t the opportunity they once were, and other revenue offerings get “new” cash are more attractive. Vince

I was just about to ask where they announced the 2026 itineraries, I thought I missed something. 😁 I’ve said it before and I'll say it again — no matter when they hoped to release 2026, I don’t expect them to release 2026 until they clean up 2024 and 2025, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that causes a delay for 2026 because the same team has to do both, and the 24 and 25 changes were extremely time consuming. Not saying they have to be late, just saying it’s a reasonably predictable risk depending on how close they were when they had to shift focus. Vince

That’s probably why it’s a dinner menu. 😊 Vince

I agree with Terry that this is likely something only Crystal can help with. FWIW, from what I’ve seen so far, my web account is disassociated from my data in Crystal’s old CRM system, and even my CS Number. My agent supplied my CS number when she booked my cruise, and linked the old CS account with the booking, but I haven’t seen any connection between my web “account” and the legacy CRM data yet. The connection with my booking was made by email address. Vince

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Serenity’s pool so I can’t comment on it, but I just wanted to add that Symphony’s pool is definitely deeper than that. I’m 6’3” and I tread water in the deep end. Vince

In fairness, from those of us who have been sailing Crystal from the beginning, this management team is FAR from the worst Crystal has had. Even the recent ones weren’t the worst. I’ve generally been pretty impressed with NC so far. Vince

I’m so insanely jealous of y’all that get to board in San Diego! Not only does that segment have nice ports, but that makes for a much more appropriate length vacation than some of us are getting. 😢 haha. I’m looking forward to reading all about it this week, but even more looking forward to meeting those of you who are staying on in Vancouver! Vince

I have to admit, I've always wondered about ways to break a segment, and this was specifically something I was curious about. So I did a little digging... According to the September 2019 version of CBP's summary, it looks like they have a specific exclusion example for getting off with your belongings and subsequently reboarding in the same port on a different ticket (regardless of date): NOTE: Application of the PVSA is based on the geographic locations where passengers “embark” and “disembark”. The transporting vessel’s itinerary, whether the passenger is a revenue or non-revenue passenger, or how the passenger’s transportation is ticketed, is irrelevant. EXAMPLE: The transportation of passengers aboard a non-coastwise-qualified vessel M/V MAURY on ticket/itinerary from San Francisco, California to Vancouver, Canada, where the passengers depart the vessel with their luggage in Vancouver. If the same passengers reboard the M/V MAURY in Vancouver using different tickets and disembark at any other coastwise port other than San Francisco, the M/V MAURY would be a violation of 46 U.S.C. § 55103. So it looks like if you got off in Quebec, you might have a case if you were rebounding in a different foreign city, but you can't just get back on the next day in the same port with a different ticket. 😞 I think the use case they're trying to exclude is a company setting up transport between two different US ports by just adding a "layover" abroad somewhere... Which seems like a weird idea, but I could see vacation packages working like that. Source: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2019-Sep/PVSA-ICP.pdf Vince

The PVSA gives a couple of options for foreign-registered ships, but basically you can’t be transported between two different US ports without touching a foreign country on a different continent or an exception port like Aruba, Bonaire or Curaçao. Visiting any foreign port would qualify you to return to the same port (like a round trip Miami or San Juan Caribbean cruise), but not a different US port for disembarkation. Therefore if you board in New York, your options are to (a) disembark in New York again, (b) disembark in another country, or (c) stay on until you finally hit another port that qualifies you to disembark elsewhere in the US. Cruise lines generally design their US itineraries to be individually compliant, and sometimes home port a ship so it’s easier to plug together itineraries, but for ships that continuously wander like Crystal’s, you always have to stay on top of this. I can’t speak to why Paula Jean didn’t catch this, but situational awareness probably plays a factor to anyone that sells combo cruise cruises for a living and only a fraction of them have odd rules that need to be considered. It didn’t even occur to me to think about the PVSA until Roy said something, but how close to mind the PVSA probably speaks to how frequently and recently someone needed to consider it in booking travel. Vince

I’m glad you got a definitive answer Larry, and it makes sense as we all expected. I know people confuse the Jones Act and the PVSA all the time, but it is a little discouraging that EDI specifically doesn’t know the difference, but at least they understand the core violation. 😊 I’m sorry the original plan didn’t work, but it could be a lot worse than the Nassau option. At least Nassau has a good amount of air lift and competition. Vince

I’m glad you elevated that to a manager and requested it in writing. I have serious doubts that a call center agent would be an appropriate resource to vouch for the PVSA validity of an itinerary, especially at a line that spends most of the year not sailing from US ports. Vince

I think they anticipated that (given the circumstances)... This looks designed with that very much in mind. Vince

I wouldn't worry too much about that (but that's easy for me to say as I've recently expressed my feelings about Tastes 😄 ). The space on both ships was originally designed to be concept-agnostic, so this type of transition has been baked into the design. It's entirely possible that there would less than 24 or 48 hours worth of work, if that. We'll know more as more details become available, but this sounds like a really light lift. Another thing to keep in mind, most of Crystal's alternative dining venues have been completely constructed/reconstructed from the steel at some point in their career, in 11 days or less. That should give some context around how quickly they can make most minor modifications, if it's that fast to build them in the first place. Vince

I wasn’t initially concerned when I saw those terms because that’s rather standard boilerplate verbiage that prevents customers from churning credits and non-cash instruments into cash, but you make a great point about the literal application of these terms. If someone has a tangible monetary expense from turning one award reservation into another, I would encourage their agent to submit the expense for reimbursement because that’s not really supposed to be the typical exclusion use case for that clause, and I think it’s worth pushing for a reimbursement in that case, even if it takes an elevation (though it shouldn’t). Vince

Somehow a friendly battle between Jim Brochu and Gloria Gaynor DOES seem like an appropriate Pride Month activity though! 😄 ❤️ Vince

Ok, I'll go on the record and say it... 🙂 Not everyone loves Tastes. I definitely don't love it. The dinner menu is completely dull, and the lunch menu is completely inappropriate as the sole remaining quasi-sit down daily lunch venue. (Chicken quesadillas and spaghetti with meat sauce? Is there an elementary school lunch lady to dish it up too?) That said, the Chinois Chicken Salad has been around for decades (since the Wolfgang Puck days), so I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon. If I read this correctly, this only addresses the dinner service, so unless there is more to the announcement than what's on the web page (which there might be), I think lunch may be more like (or exactly like) what we have now than dinner... Which itself is pretty status quo. Just my read on it though. [Edited to add, the above comments are in the spirit of 'different strokes for different folks'. I'm not attacking people that like spaghetti and quesadillas.] Vince

I agree that a lot of Crystal's existing customers won't be familiar with the brand, but 4 beef small plates (half the street food menu) plus 4 different steaks and an additional beef feature is still a _LOT_ of beef. I'm more worried about people complaining that there is too much focus on beef (despite the name), but that may just be PTSD because I listen to clients complain all day and have learned to expect the worst. lol I love the menu though -- looking forward to trying it someday. There are many things I'd happily order. Vince