Crystal river cruises to redeploy two new builds to rhine & danube rivers

[Roland4]

I would assume Roland got it as well.

 

Actually, no. This was the first I saw of it, but as I mentioned earlier, it does fit with what I had heard. I think Nancy has the right idea, but I would be more inclined to think the decision is "collateral damage" of the attacks in France. I would not be surprised (and I know nothing official or otherwise) to find out that they have had a lot of France sailing cancellations. If people don't want to go there, and you can delay the launch, then why not. Just makes good business sense to me.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Roland4

[Jayayeff]

At 4:21 PM CDT today the cruise calendars on the Crystal website still list the French river cruises for 2017. They probably should have corrected that before issuing press releases. Guess that's another case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing which has happened before with Crystal corporate. :cool:

 

Patty

 

Does anyone know what they're doing, or even believe anything they say anymore??? Just read this press release and for whatever reason they have changed 'the plan' yet again, as far as I'm aware neither of the river 'yachts' being delayed/redesigned were ever due to sail the Rhone anyway!!!! The Debussy was sailing R/T Paris on the Seine and the Ravel was sailing R/T Bordeaux on the Garonne and Dordogne!!! I'm just pleased I booked the Mozart - at least that physically existed and was not just a figment of Crystal's imagination....:D:D

 

Anne...

[Keith1010]

Well, I now have a game plan so all is well here.

 

There was a question about the press release. Normally press releases are placed on the web site concurrently or within just a few hours of when they are also sent out to various media outlets, etc. Due to a technical reason this was not possible with this release so it might be another week or so until it is posted on the Crystal Cruises web site.

 

All TA's have been notified by Crystal who have clients that were booked on this cruise and for those guests who were booked directly with Crystal Cruises they were notified directly.

 

We appreciate the incentives that Crystal is offering and will be working with out TA today to figure out how we will utilize them although we do have time to make the decision.

 

In my case, we had booked our airline tickets but have just modified them. Instead of spending a few nights in Paris as we originally planned and boarding Debussy we will extend our time in Paris by a few more days and then return home. Originally we had planned to go to Paris anyway and then tied it to the Debussy River Cruise so we will still enjoy some time in Paris.

 

Things happen in business. I am not aware of any business that doesn't alter their plans by adjusting existing products or new products that have not rolled out. When that happens often incentives are not provided to customers. This is not the Crystal way.

 

On a related note, I was on a cruise on another cruise line in January. Our entire itinerary was reversed and we only learned about that a few months before the sailing. No explanation was given. No options were provided should we not have wanted to go with the change and for those who put a lot of effort into booking tours privately, etc they had to start over.

 

Things happen. And in the scheme of things we are most thankful that we have a lot of time to revise our plans accordingly.

 

Keith

[auldlassie]

Just heard the news from my TA this morning.

 

Hard to credit this change, given they have only just had a customer fiasco over changed cabin assignments due to the new deck plans on the Debussy. Left hand, Right hand.

 

I don't buy the terrorist attacks theory, no one jot. Why redeploy more ships to Germany when they have had 4 attacks in the past week or so? I live in both UK and France and read a lot of different European media and don't see any noted/accepted difference in vulnerability between France, Germany or even Belgium. I don't believe they have recently had specific many French Seine/Rhone/Dordogne cancellations any more that I believe they've recently had a tremendous clamour for more Rhine/Main/Danube ones. I think there are economic reasons behind this quite unrelated to terrorism.

[JohnKen3]

The cancellation of "Black Tie Optional" night and change in policy was even more poorly communicated by Crystal; i.e. no customer communications whatever. You either noticed it in PCPC. Even my Cruise Ticket indicated there would be a "Black Tie Optional".

 

My TA did not have a clue about this and other matters until I raise it. At least, in this case, Crystal had to use them to contact affected passengers to find out their preferred options.

 

Its seems to be about "positive hype" rather than 'full communication" with the change in management.

[JohnKen3]

I don't buy the terrorist attacks theory, no one jot. Why redeploy more ships to Germany when they have had 4 attacks in the past week or so?

 

Agree. In terms of customer feedback, I think it is to do with the size of room given a river boat is smaller for the Seine compared with the Rhine/Danube.

 

I mainly think that since Crystal has established land operations (excursions, on-board local entertainment (remember, these entertains do not stay on-board the cruise) agents, buses, food and beverage suppliers etc) along the Rhine and Danube, it would be more management efficient and cost effective to spread this out amongst more river boats on the same river rather than replicate the infrastructure on different rivers.

[ctjon]

I would think rebuilding etc of ships would be a huge cost for Crystal. I'm not a ship builder nor do I know what stage things are in but ordering steel, etc. has a lead time - you just don't go to Home Depot and get some lumber cut different size.

I assume the fear people have about France, etc. was leading to very few bookings which led to this. For us we looked at a couple of Paris ones and it seemed to us that you spent a lot more time in Paris than actually river cruising and thus didn't look that good to us.

 

I wonder when the Danube, etc. will get too full to handle the traffic with more and more ships there. There is a physical limit to what rivers and locks can take.

 

Time will tell.

[May B]

I loved the idea of spending all that time in Paris, as we have not been there (yet). We had not booked, although one Debussy would've matched up perfectly with our Antwerp to Honfleur on Symphony next year, or there was a great one over New Year's. Alas, 'twas not meant to be.

 

I'm not sure what technical difficulty would not allow posting of the press release to the web site, but I especially don't get why they can't take the Debussy/Seine info off the web site at the same time as the info went to the folks who were already booked. Otoh, the most important people to contact were the ones already booked, so that makes perfect sense.

 

Keith, you might possibly have been the only passenger who had already booked your air! Glad you've sorted it out.

 

Still disappointed I won't be seeing Paris (and Giverny and Rouen) from the Debussy!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited July 29, 2016 by May B

[May B]

I do continue, also, to be very impressed that Crystal makes grand changes like this so far in advance. I believe in 2015, Crystal cancelled its 2016 sailings to Israel (which broke my heart, on general principle), and in early 2016, cancelled the Mediterranean Serenity sailings altogether. A year or more is a very healthy amount of time for something like that.

 

Also, itinerary changes are way more important than cancelling BTO evenings. It's like comparing apples to scrapple! And darn it, JohnKen3, I sure hope the two of you dressed in your usual finery every evening of your cruise. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited July 29, 2016 by May B

[nancygp]

Just heard the news from my TA this morning.

 

Hard to credit this change, given they have only just had a customer fiasco over changed cabin assignments due to the new deck plans on the Debussy. Left hand, Right hand.

 

I don't buy the terrorist attacks theory, no one jot. Why redeploy more ships to Germany when they have had 4 attacks in the past week or so? I live in both UK and France and read a lot of different European media and don't see any noted/accepted difference in vulnerability between France, Germany or even Belgium. I don't believe they have recently had specific many French Seine/Rhone/Dordogne cancellations any more that I believe they've recently had a tremendous clamour for more Rhine/Main/Danube ones. I think there are economic reasons behind this quite unrelated to terrorism.

 

I guess we can agree to disagree on the reasons. However, I forgot to mention global economic reasons and I also suspect they are a major factor including terrorism.

 

Nancy

[nancygp]

I'm not sure what technical difficulty would not allow posting of the press release to the web site, but I especially don't get why they can't take the Debussy/Seine info off the web site at the same time as the info went to the folks who were already booked. Otoh, the most important people to contact were the ones already booked, so that makes perfect sense.

 

Keith, you might possibly have been the only passenger who had already booked your air! Glad you've sorted it out.

 

Still disappointed I won't be seeing Paris (and Giverny and Rouen) from the Debussy!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Muriel,

 

this was not the first time I've seen an official Crystal Press release posted here in the past month or so where it was not on Crystal's website for several days perhaps a week. In at least one or two instances, not even sure they ever made it to Crystal's media section. I can't say this 100% because I haven't gone back and looked but my memory is still pretty good!!! :D At least the TA's as well as the media outlets are getting info in a timely fashion for the most part.

 

In addition, I have found multiple issues on Crystal's website relating to new promos and wrong information that have taken weeks to get corrected or weeks to be added to specific information.

 

I am aware that there have been changes in the IT direction of the company and hopefully for the better in due time.

 

Nancy

Edited July 29, 2016 by nancygp

[nancygp]

I do continue, also, to be very impressed that Crystal makes grand changes like this so far in advance. I believe in 2015, Crystal cancelled its 2016 sailings to Israel (which broke my heart, on general principle), and in early 2016, cancelled the Mediterranean Serenity sailings altogether. A year or more is a very healthy amount of time for something like that.

 

Also, itinerary changes are way more important than cancelling BTO evenings. It's like comparing apples to scrapple! And darn it, JohnKen3, I sure hope the two of you dressed in your usual finery every evening of your cruise. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I fully concur.

 

Nancy

[BWIVince]

Thanks for the good wishes. But my question was where the poster had confirmation of Q1 2019 launch of the first Exclusive ship. The silence about this matter has been puzzling to me. Ocean cruises are the heart of Crystal. Or were. And it seems as if priority is being given to other enterprises.

 

Larry hit the mail on the head.

 

There's no date to announce until the order is finalized.

There's no order to finalize until you have plans.

There's no plans until you nail down the general arrangement.

There's no general arrangement until you are done visioning the next generation product for 2020-2030.

...And visioning a next generation product for a company that has a different strategy and ENTIRELY different budget, than what was previously drawn up under previous requirements from your last owners is a BIG exercise.

 

Judging from the mention that the cabins are now start at 400 sq ft (GA step above), you can see where we are in the outline above and why we haven't heard a date yet.

 

This in no way equates to the river boat build. You can knock that order out fast, and have the first steel cut -- if not an entire boat built -- in the time it takes to just get the requirements for a next generation ocean ship that takes into account where new owners want to take the product in the future.

 

Vince

[BWIVince]

I don't buy the terrorist attacks theory, no one jot. Why redeploy more ships to Germany when they have had 4 attacks in the past week or so? I live in both UK and France and read a lot of different European media and don't see any noted/accepted difference in vulnerability between France, Germany or even Belgium. I don't believe they have recently had specific many French Seine/Rhone/Dordogne cancellations any more that I believe they've recently had a tremendous clamour for more Rhine/Main/Danube ones. I think there are economic reasons behind this quite unrelated to terrorism.

 

You are of course free to believe what you like, but you have to admit that if bookings are poor in France right now, there are a couple of really obvious low hanging fruit on the excuse tree. ;)

 

I can't explain why, but my company is seeing something similar on the event management side of the industry. France is much softer than Germany right now. (Though I admit headaches like this week's AF strike call don't do a lot to endear meeting planners either, but that's a different story.)

 

Its seems to be about "positive hype" rather than 'full communication" with the change in management.

 

I'm not sure the current management's poor communication looks much different than the previous team's absolutely horrible communication. :( Heaven knows this has always been Crystal's Achilles heel.

 

Vince

[CristalBabe]

Miles maybe I am not communicating.

 

So let me try one more time.

 

You said it was handled well by Crystal.

 

To me it was not.

 

The TA's should have heard today and then they should have given the TA's a few days to get the information out before announcing it in a press release.

 

I am not blaming the TA.

 

Keith

Hi Keith; Got a call from my TA - was on the first two of Debussy....interesting times, eh? Well, enjoy the NW Passage and expect to get further "news" from you!

[Keith1010]

Thank you Fran.

 

All once again TA's did hear at the same time the Press Release went out.

 

Always a tough one. One one hand I would like to have seen the TA's get the notification and then a couple of days later the Press Release go out. On the other hand I can understand that if they just let TA"s know and all of a sudden it gets posted on sites such as Cruise Critic that all of a sudden sites like Cruise Critic are issuing their own news on this without having seen the Crystal Press Release.

 

Sometimes things are not just black and white.

 

Otherwise the communications on this are perfectly fine. If we lived in a world without Cruise Critic and other social media and a world where communication was much slower it wouldn't even be noticed.

 

I'm all fine with this.

 

The irony for me is that I was booked on a Serenity cruise for June 2017 that were removed from the schedule when the ship was redeployed and then booked this River Cruise and now that one was redeployed. But things happen and thankfully not very often.

 

We now will enjoy a land based vacation in Paris which was our original plan anyway. And hopefully the change of flight fee will get resolved. Life is still good.

 

On a very positive side when this thing hit me yesterday it was only a few hours after it some like FedEx had no idea where on of three pieces of luggage was that we had ship with one of the luggage delivery services. I was getting to many conflicting statuses from FedEx. As of this AM they had no clue where the piece was even though someone who had written to me from there the other day took the information I gave them and said it was being sent out. Long story on all of that. Well, as of an hour ago I have a nice photo from the port agent showing all three pieces of my luggage even though FedEx system still doesn't show it.

 

Keith

Edited July 29, 2016 by Keith1010

[nancygp]

 

All once again TA's did hear at the same time the Press Release went out.

 

 

Hi Keith,

 

my TA happened to call me this morning on something unrelated to the announcement yesterday. During our conversation, my TA mentioned the changes but knew I probably heard about it already!!! :D My TA's agency did know about the changes a few hours earlier than the Press Release hit as they were contacted by Crystal as their agency had clients that would need to be notified. I'm sure that was the case with many other TA's.

 

Again, it was only a matter of hours prior to the official announcement that the TA's who had clients booked heard the news so that they could start preparing for these changes and all TA's should have received the notification at the same time the press release went out.

 

Nancy

Edited July 29, 2016 by nancygp

[Keith1010]

Hi Keith,

 

my TA happened to call me this morning on something unrelated to the announcement yesterday. During our conversation, my TA mentioned the changes but knew I probably heard about it already!!! :D My TA's agency did know about the changes a few hours earlier than the Press Release hit as they were contacted by Crystal as their agency had clients that would need to be notified. I'm sure that was the case with many other TA's.

 

Again, it was only a matter of hours prior to the official announcement that the TA's who had clients booked heard the news so that they could start preparing for these changes.

 

Nancy

 

Nancy, yes that's correct.

 

It's a tough one when it comes to communications so I do understand that there is no easy solution to this.

 

I have to say when it comes to communications that my experience is that communications from Crystal is far better than any other cruise line we have sailed. :)

 

Keith

[nancygp]

Nancy, yes that's correct.

 

It's a tough one when it comes to communications so I do understand that there is no easy solution to this.

 

I have to say when it comes to communications that my experience is that communications from Crystal is far better than any other cruise line we have sailed. :)

 

Keith

 

Keith,

 

I was not disputing the way the communications were handled and generally my experiences with Crystal via my TA or directly have been pretty good all things considered.

 

I was merely stating a fact on what I just happened to find out from my TA earlier today.

 

Nancy

[Keith1010]

Nancy, yes absolutely I knew you were not and we are in sync.

 

I was agreeing with you about the TA's hearing ahead of time.

 

My other comments were not in response to your post. I was just expanding on my recent comments that I understand that communications on all of this can be tricky. :)

 

Happy Birthday. :D

 

Keith

[nancygp]

Nancy, yes absolutely I knew you were not and we are in sync.

 

I was agreeing with you about the TA's hearing ahead of time.

 

My other comments were not in response to your post. I was just expanding on my recent comments that I understand that communications on all of this can be tricky. :)

 

Happy Birthday. :D

 

Keith

 

Thanks for clarifying. I did know the other comments were not a response to my post. I was expanding on your comment!!! :D

 

Thanks again for the birthday wishes...wish I was in a crystal ship right now...one can dream...oh, I was not too long ago and have great memories!!!

 

Nancy

[Keith1010]

Nancy you are very welcome.

 

I should have said something like "all".

 

Have a wonderful birthday.

 

We are very excited that our trip is starting. With the heat we are now having it will be nice for some cooler weather and to be back on Crystal.

 

Keith

[imcpa]

Is there a thread I can read about the Serenity changes for 2017? This is the first I have heard of this and would like to read about it just out of interest.

[Keith1010]

Is there a thread I can read about the Serenity changes for 2017? This is the first I have heard of this and would like to read about it just out of interest.

 

Here you go. :)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2289262

 

Keith

[RLMSLL]

It appears that Crystal does not plan to cruise the Moselle even with their increased number of river boats in the Danube / Main region. In my opinion this is a missed opportunity for Crystal, since I found the sights along the Moselle to generally be much more scenic than those along the Rhine which tends to be more industrial in many stretches.

 

Our fondest memories of our Rhine / Moselle cruise was the time we ditched the planned excursions, stayed on the ship, snd enjoyed a lovely sunny day sailing the Moselle. There were about 8 out of 130 of us that did so, and none of us had regrets about missing another castle visit or wine tasting. The scenery along the river was much more memorable.

 

I think Crystal should at least "test the water" and consider adding some itineraries that included France's Moselle.