BWIVince

I agree completely, but we simply don't know where this is going to land yet. As many will recall I'm not a fan of designated single cabins because they are almost always in less than ideal locations, as we see here with Crystal, but most lines make those one component of their offerings for singles, AND I was in the minority on that opinion on the board. No matter what Crystal says their single supplement ladder is at this point, give it 6 months until the schema has been market tested. Vince

Totally agree…. To that point, that’s why I’m not losing my mind over whatever gets released this week. It’s not the entire future of Crystal, it just represents one moment in time. For example, if the pricing doesn’t meet the market, it will change. If the restaurants don’t meet demand, it will change, etc.. So even if the new entry-level prices are initially out of my price range, some of these market forces have almost certain odds to catch up to them on the very bottom end of their product. Not this week, or this month, but I’m not looking to sail immediately anyway. I’ll add my neighborhood-adjacent rant about people that measure age vs. refit age. Age often locks in general arrangement proportions because in both hotels and ships, it gets VERY costly to make guest rooms fractionally larger/smaller (without combining or splitting whole units), along with most public space allocations. You can affordably change a lot of things after a hotel or ship are built, but it’s crazy expensive to reallocate guest room dimensions and convert rooms into public space or vice versa. In the 70’s and early 80’s there was a turn to bigger guest rooms and bathrooms overall, but since then, general arrangement has been more about density and less about guest amenities and comfort, no matter how the BS is spun. I take the good with the bad on this though, and in Symphony’s case that GA works against us on standard stateroom minimum size and main dining room size, but then swings back in my favor on things like wraparound promenade, public space allocation proportion, and number of public lounges and enrichment areas…. And in the end I value those more than the cabin size. A million times over I’ll take a well renovated and maintained older hotel or ship that allocates space in a way that benefits me than some new ship that doesn’t, just because it’s new. Serenity is in better shape with nicer decor than many ships half her age, including many competitors — a trend I expect to only become clearer as Crystals ships are refit again this year. Vince

…But for a lot of us, it IS about the money. A lot of us (especially singles) can’t afford the fares of other luxury lines because they DON’T have those “small” non-suite staterooms that Crystal did. That doesn’t mean I disagree with your point that Crystal needs to address the perception that the standard staterooms are uncompetitive — their smallest rooms are mostly smaller than any other luxury line’s smallest rooms. From a business plan perspective, of course they want to close that gap and charge the higher per diems that the other lines get for their entry level rooms, but for a lot of us the near-impossibility to combine some of the rooms preserves the potential that some of us will be able to sail with the food, atmosphere and service we need, without the wasted space we don’t. Not all of us want to (or even can) waste all that extra money on space we have no use for. Vince

Especially true with Symphony…. Nothing is impossible if you want to throw enough money at it, but it would be especially challenging to add balconies to the Deck 7 staterooms since they don’t align with the promenade deck and have the ventilation system over the windows in most cases (or under in others). Vince

Isn't that supposed to be a fun of an online forum? 🙂 Airline forums are (generally) worse -- everyone is an armchair CEO. Vince

No, that’s actually EXACTLY the scenario I was referring to and the point I was trying to make. While the fine details vary, in all of these cases these employees were terminated when their properties or companies closed or suspended operations, and in all of these cases a different management team (at the minimum), or in most cases new ownership, are now in place or in the process of forming. That’s the whole point of the varying reactions. Using my old company as one specific example, the company has new leadership and the owner no longer has a management stake in the company, but the ownership remained the same. About 85% of the pre-pandemic employees have returned, up some of us are hesitant because the wages and benefits are subpar and the management would be a question mark for some of us. But the vast majority have already returned for other intangible reasons, including getting to work with their friends again, and a great work environment despite the pay. Some jumped at that chance immediately and others waited to see how the new leadership would pan out, but the point is the number of people returning per quarter has picked up after everyone was either able to reach a point where they were able to make a change or got a chance to see how it was working for others. I get the same story regularly from my contacts at other companies, suppliers and competitors. No one has any way to measure interest and intent, but analogous comparisons have served me really well my whole life, and I’m living in a whole ecosystems of nearly identical examples right now that I’ve spend some time analyzing. I just note what I’ve been watching has taken years, not what these companies started with…. So give it time. Vince

I just wanted to add my two cents about generalizations on returning staff, since I have firsthand experience with this personally, professionally, and through all of my current and former contacts, coworkers and friends in the travel industry. I feel comfortable betting on "most", but it's the timeline that becomes the qualifier. Especially in the hotel industry, but also with intermediaries and cruise lines that traditionally have low turnover and long tenure, I'm seeing a surprising number of the employees returning to their pre-pandemic employers, regardless of where they may have been working in the interim. It wasn't a light switch flip though, which is part of what has surprised me. The backstory is that a lot of the people fall into (but not limited to) four big buckets: a) People who are interested in returning immediately and are timed with existing contracts or obligations to be able to start ASAP. b) People who are interested in returning immediately but need to wait 6-12 months in order to be able to start for either personal or professional obligations. c) People who are skeptical to returning but who are open to the idea once they see if the work environment or offers really play out the way they're supposed to. (These are the "maybe" or "give it a couple of years" people.). This includes people waiting to see which colleagues or leaders return before committing. d) People who were completely disinterested in returning, until they saw how things came together or who all else came back. Where (c) is more like FOMO because FOMO is keeping the door open, (d) are people that closed the door and then realize they're already missing out when they see everything in motion after a year or two, and THEN start their journey. We've seen this steadily build month-over-month in the past year (roughly), so I'd expect in Crystal's case, that these former employees and crew would return in 2024-2026. So long story short, I wouldn't take the number of returning employees on day 1 as a final number. Based on what we're seeing across the travel industry, this is going to be a process playing out at Crystal over several years. Vince

I personally agree with you about role changes in order to be contemporary and competitive, at least in concept, but I'm not sure I can identify any of any importance when I try to get down to specifics. For the fun of discussion, if you don't mind elaborating, which roles don't you think should return? (...And maybe which ones do you think should be added, or replace them?). You're totally welcome to decline if you don't feel comfortable with any specifics, I just thought it might be an interesting topic. Vince

That's how it gets ya. 😞 I hope you start turning the corner soon, and that OLoPP hopefully doesn't quite go through what you have. Vince

I really hope you turn the corner here soon and start feeling better Ken! I totally get the loss of vacation perspective, but I kind of had the opposite view when I was sick last week... I was wishing I was confined to a cruise ship cabin instead of my house, where I could have free meals dropped off, fresh towels and amenities dropped, and I could take long, steamy showers without having to worry about the water bill (and if it was Crystal, better water pressure than my 2.5gpm fixtures here). Plus the slower internet on the ship would lower the expectations everyone had for me to work while I was sick. I totally get that YMMV here though. 🙂 Vince

$500 is a LOT to some of us. 🙂 I clearly need to make more friends in this group! 😄 I actually don't understand this logic, and it's come up again and again. People are treating the $500 like it's the risky proposition, and the full booking like it's safer somehow. It's QUITE the opposite. The $500 deposit is not only fully refundable, but as the program is outlined right now there's no case in which it wouldn't be covered by a chargeback. (I still recommend verifying that with your bank, but under network rules that would be the case.). So there is no practical way to lose money here. A full booking, OTOH, whether you make from your $500 deposit or wait to book later, may be subject to any cancellation penalties or processing fees, and times out for dispute eligibility after 540 (or similar, depending on network) days from when each amount is applied. I'm not rushing out to book anything, on any line, because I don't know what I want to do next, but if I was, I'd feel a LOT more confident about the $500 part than I would about placing a full booking on _ANY_ cruise line. In fairness to A&K, I probably trust them with my money a lot more than some of the larger conglomerates too, while we're on that subject. Just food for thought... Vince

Apples and golf pants. 1. They can ignore “status” (Crystal didn’t really have status tiers, so there isn’t much to ignore), but they paid a lot of money for the CS history. I can’t really see why they would ignore it. There are plenty of other things they needed that money for. 2. They didn’t, and legally can’t, buy Crystal’s financial transaction details. This is easy to ignore. 3. Terry already listed all of the reasons that you can’t surmise an accurate financial loss from the court releases and he’s 100% correct. That data is incomplete, unverified and obsolete at this point. There will be snapshots in time when part of it is sort of correct, but it’s not kept current or anywhere near complete, ever. It’s simply not intended to be a register of what everyone lost — it’s a partial list of debts and reimbursement requests at fixed points in history. Trying to misuse it as such would be a DISASTER. Why do we have to agree to disagree on a statement that’s FACTUALLY INCORRECT? Full information is NOT available. Only a small part of the information is available in a bankruptcy — much of the chargeback and insurance data will be unreported. Having entry level phone agents make outbound calls for new bookings from a qualified leads list is a standard thing in the travel industry. Having entry level phone agents make outbound calls to negotiate open-ended deals with people who may feel they’ve suffered a financial loss is perhaps the biggest disaster of a business plan over ever heard in my entire professional career. The $500 seems to have worked fine, but if it didn’t, up it to $750 or $1000 and go from there. Listening to customers is one thing, and Crystal will soon have plenty of sales management to do that, but wrangling is not what outbound phone agents are for. Vince

What the new (or old, if they go that direction) loyalty program will look like is just one of the myriad of programs and details the new company has to outline before they can start full-scale marketing. They don’t need to have all the details worked out, and they can continue to add to it, but they do need the basics at this point. IMHO, I can’t imagine them ignoring Crystal’s previous guests in the program after spending so much money for that info, but what the new program looks like will be anyone’s guess. It’s a balancing act between being Crystal’s first real chance to make sweeping changes to the program and fix some of the legacy issues with it with less blowback than the previous management teams would have received, and the need for the program to feel familiar and rewarding to previous guests in order to make the transition attractive and comfortable for the legacy clientele. We shall see…. (Probably in the next couple of weeks if reports remain on target.) Vince

Trust me, Crystal isn’t withholding information because they don’t understand the value of communication — things are only quiet because there is nothing final yet to communicate. When they have something to share, you’re going to hear so much about it you’re going to long for the days before you were bombarded with emails and/or mailers. I can see the complaint threads now. Enjoy the quiet while it while it lasts. As for timing, keep in mind that New Crystal has to do about 65% of the work that NYK and Old Crystal took 4+ years to do. Starting with built ships isn’t even as much of an advantage as it might sound, when you’re trying to plan dry docks on both that customarily have taken about 2 years to design, fabricate for and execute. Vince

It also reduces slightly as it sits/holds through service... I'm sure you all ate it closer to immediately, if I can remember what it's like to have a bowl of that within reach. 🙂 I will definitely check it out! Thanks for the tip!! I LOVE steaming mussels -- a (net) bag of them almost called to me the last time I was in Wegman's. Minus the scrubbing/prep, they're super easy to work with, and you can be as creative as you like with the ingredients. Yeah, I know that's true of any food, but you know what I mean. Oh no -- hope you're starting to feel better soon! I had the flu all last week (tested negative for Covid multiple times), with worse symptoms than that, so hopefully you'll be 100% again quickly. In the meantime, we're here to take care of you for a change! I think I have a box of Hamburger Helper around here somewhere... (No, I don't.) Vince

Not surprising at all... People book new products with travel suppliers every day on spec, because there is usually some kind of incentive tied to it. If they don't like the details when they're released they can always cancel, but the incentives to book after more of the details are released are almost always less attractive. It's pretty much all upside. Vince

I’d say it’s a trend in travel in general these days — I can’t think of a hotel booking I’ve made in the past year that didn’t have a nonrefundable option. Besides the obvious advantage of the supplier getting to keep the money no matter what, they get access to the cash immediately regardless of service date, which is valuable in the COVID-area travel industry after years of being squeezed. (Remember the discussions about how travel suppliers have to keep refundable passenger/guest deposits reserved or isolated.) Vince

You took the words right out of my mouth, Rob. 🙂 I just want to add two small points... First, I would verify with your credit card issuer how they count the timing of an open booking. Technically, services to be delivered in the future are defined by and bound by an expected date of service (even if it's just an estimate), so in the case of Visa and Mastercard especially, a booking that would never have an expected date of service could be subject to some weirdness if a particular credit card issuer chose to interpret a guideline how they wanted. (We saw cases like this mentioned on the board.). That's one drawback to the way Visa and Mastercard's network is structured. In concept though, you SHOULD have 540 days for an open booking -- but your issuer is the one that's going to have to argue it with the acquiring bank and merchant, so make sure your expectations are in alignment with your bank's. The only other thing I'd remind everyone is that the timer doesn't reset once you convert the open booking into a confirmed booking. Any money placed as a deposit on the open booking will still time out at a maximum of 540 days from the date of that charge (or whatever the time limit is for your particular card)... So the earlier you place the open booking deposit, the less time you'd have to dispute those original funds. This is the main reason I'm personally not booking right now -- I don't know when they're going to restart service, and when my actual booking would fall... And I'm not booking any services with any travel supplier anywhere (not just cruise lines, or Crystal) that I can't get back via chargeback at this point. Vince

I was so grateful when it hit 40 this afternoon... I went for a drive to run errands for the first time in days. Vince

You’re way ahead of me today, Roy…. My big walk today was TO my cluster mailbox, which was postponed from yesterday. My big adventure only got the green light this morning when I was able to verify the temperature was 6x higher than it was at the same time yesterday. 😁 🥶 It was still painfully cold. Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah on the 8th night! Vince

Definitely... And I was in no way discrediting your post when I was relaying my experience -- the clues are out there and people far smarter than I can definitely make more sense of it than I've been able to with enough time and focus (especially by comparing archived pages). That's just more than I was able to keep up with personally. 🙂 Vince

I stopped trying to read the tea leaves through port reservations for this very reason…. Given that not every reservation that legacy Crystal had this far out was published (they could have been part of a provisional change or backup situation because of the industry turmoil for the months before the shutdown), it was hard for me to figure out what was new and what was old. Even if I compare the previously published itineraries and find differences, I still don’t have 100% confidence that all the differences are new or valid. Vince

Im glad you mentioned it, I didn’t know they opened in Pike & Rose! …Though I feel like there’s a half dozen or more restaurants in Pike & Rose that I need to try. One of my oldest friends lives near there and I should use that as an excuse to go spend time with him. (..and he loves Italian.) I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve driven through there since they relocated Montrose Rd…. I think my greatest fear is Magoo’ing around Rockville (what’s North Bethesda?!?) and not even knowing how to get anywhere, since they moved all the roads/access. I still can’t get the image of Mid-Pike Plaza, which used to be there, out of my head. That was our Toys R Us when I was a kid, one one of my best friends worked at the Linens ‘n Things there when we were in high school. Syms bounced around, but at one point they had the upstairs space, and I can remembering going with my dad to buy suits there, back when dads (generically/stereotypically) had to wear suits to work every day…. Hence why we had to go to Syms. Lol. We couldn’t afford to get all of his suits at Raleigh’s. (I’m not sure I love today’s “just wear a tshirt and turn your camera off” thing, but I’m definitely glad I don’t have to wear a full suit M-F.) Anyway, thanks for the update!! I’m definitely taking notes and creating a list! 😊 Vince

I think this was expected by many (most?) of us given the timing. Given the extremely tight window they're giving themselves to refit the ships (assuming they stick to them), there is no way they're going to be able to blow up the general arrangement to such a degree as to overcome the capacity issues for the former Prego and Umi Uma spaces. They could shuffle the venues and move the more popular concepts to Marketplace or some larger venue, but that would have a seriously negative impact on atmosphere. Until they have a couple of years to plan a proper future refit, or until they build new ships (more likely), it was hard to imagine how they were going to get away from the extra-visit surcharges. Cutting capacity a bit only goes so far, and at least on Symphony, they only have so many more rooms they can combine. Vince

I'd just write them back for verification... I suspect there are links coded for each offer, and either the confirmation was miscoded for that link or the wrong link was promoted somewhere (which may not even have the current verbiage on the page). Verifying the offer with them will also clue them in to the issue. Vince