Cruising on Crystal

The Ship

Our room was no better and no worse than many middle level hotels we've stayed in. It's really the only area in which we thought the experience on board wasn't quite up to snuff with the rest of the cruise. There were a couple of items in the room that were probably not going to make it into the next issue of Architectural Digest. First, there was the extremely unattractive faceted mirror thing over the bed. It obviously was there to help make the room seem a little bit bigger but only at the cost of drawing attention to itself in all its hideousity. I'm also uncomfortable with a big heavy glass sharp-edged object hanging over my head in rough seas. I'm sure it's secured with huge honking bolts, industrial strength epoxy, and some Silly Putty, but I'd still wake in the night and look to make sure it hadn't shifted on the wall.

Second, there were some light sconces located on the mirror over the desk that looked like, well, the best term I could come up with was a glass wad of phlegm. The color scheme of the room was -  inoffensive. The lounging chair in the room really didn't allow lounging. I like a wider chair for this type of application, one where you can curl up and lean back. The high straight back did not permit any leaning whatsoever and the high narrow arms didn't permit curling. All in all, it was something I'd replace if I had the chance.

The carpet was fine. We liked the inclusion of cushions for the deck chairs and the fact that they brought them into the room every night at turndown so they wouldn't get all wet overnight. There was adequate storage for two people in the room, even considering all the extra clothing we brought because of the dress code. We had a flat screen display TV which was quite nice - it had a built in DVD player that we availed ourselves of a couple of nights. The library has an extensive list of DVD's available to borrow for free.

There was a decent sized mini-fridge in the room with more than enough room to store some stuff if we wanted. Glassware in the room was good, with a pair of actual wine glasses and a first - a corkscrew. Usually we have to bring our own or ask, many times in vain, for one.

The bed was comfortable, not Heavenly Bed comfortable but acceptable. Certainly much better than the torture device Disney Cruise Lines has installed in their cabins. The bed linens were high quality. Every evening there was a turndown service that took place while we ate dinner. Our only complaint (and a faint one at that) was that the pillow chocolates were rather mediocre.

We did have breakfast one morning in the room when we had a tour scheduled. The room service was very nice. The little table in the room really isn't big enough for a complete breakfast for two, though somehow they managed to fit everything in: a complete set up with hot plates, pastries, coffee pot, and the like. We liked. I probably wouldn't do it too often because the standard rooms are really too small to have a complete meal. But still, for a pot of coffee and a Danish type breakfast it works well enough. Some day we'll have to try the suites and order breakfast in there and see how it goes. For scientific purposes only, you understand.

The bathroom was a little larger then Holland America's (though I still kind of like Disney's set up with the two separate mini-bathrooms). Crystal has installed those trendy big glass bowls for sinks on a granite counter top, which I liked. The shower was a good size for me and the water pressure and temperature were right on. There was a good bit of storage for toiletries in the bathroom, which was a nice change from some other cruise lines, or some high end hotels for that matter.

As for the décor in the rest of the ship, it can be safely said that it didn't offend. Unlike Disney, which has adopted a single design concept (Art Deco for instance) and run with it throughout the ship, Crystal has a moderately pleasant and quiet design concept that wouldn't be out of place in a small city Hilton. Some aspects might be considered a bit tacky, like the gold leaf statues of ballerinas and such stuck here and there. The overall design impression doesn't impress which is a shame. With service and amenities as superb as Crystal offers, it needs a setting that matches the rest of the experience.

The ship is exceptionally well maintained and it's rare to see a stray fingerprint or scuff mark anywhere. It's easily the cleanest ship we've traveled on, which is saying something since we don't think, with the exception of a certain Carnival cruise out of Mobile, we've ever seen a ship that was dingy or dirty in any way. Crystal somehow manages to set the bar a bit higher.

Food Service

Breakfast

Passengers have a number of options for breakfast. Early Bird coffee is offered in the Lido Cafe starting at 5:00am. The buffet breakfast starts at 6:30am and extends to 10:00am. We only know this from information we saw in our daily newsletter, as we never got within a mile of getting up early enough to check out an early bird anything.

The main dining room opens at 7:30 am and has without a doubt the most extensive breakfast menu of any cruise line we've tried. There's no assigned seating at breakfast. Unlike other cruise lines you are not automatically seated at the first available table, which is normally an eight or ten top. We were always seated at a table for two. I like the private table, though I also liked sometimes meeting new people at breakfast. On the other hand there have been times when we've been seated with people with whom we had nothing in common, and then it becomes uncomfortable.

The Trident Grill up on the Lido deck, in a covered area, offered our favorite breakfast, the Late-Risers Breakfast. Not only because we like to edge our way slowly into the day, but due to the unfailingly cheerfulness of the Trident Grill wait staff. Not that the rest of the staff wasn't bubbly, cheerful, buoyant, jovial, effervescent, ebullient, and pleasant at all times. It's just that the Trident Grill guys were just a little more hopped up, probably on some sort of quasi-illegal super concentrated variant of Red Bull, normally only available in the Orient to factory workers making Fisher Price lead painted toys.  Or maybe they're just naturally cheerful people. Mary loved them and wanted to wrap them up and bring them home with her.

The Bistro was said to offer coffee drinks and Danish pastries though this shades the truth a teeny bit. The Danish pastries are there as advertised, but there's also a full selection of fresh fruit, bagels, smoked salmon, bread, charcuterie, and cheeses. The Bistro is in business from 9:00-11:15am and is for the light eaters on board I guess.

Lunch

Lunch is also offered at all the same venues as breakfast. The Trident does serve lunch all the way till 6:00pm which some people use for an early dinner, especially for those who want to skip a formal night in the main dining room. It offers mainly burgers, tuna melts (Mary's favorite) and one of the better steak sandwiches I've had in some time.

Just like breakfast, lunch in the main dining room is the most extensive menu we've ever seen on a cruise ship.

We had lunch in the Lido a couple of times. It offered a nice selection of items including one of the nicest salad bars I've seen in quite a while. There was always a cook-to-order option. I'm not sure if this changes or is always the same - the only day I paid any attention to it they were making pasta. I really liked the dessert offerings. They were varied, copious and of a size that one could sample two or three selections without feeling one was quite a little piggy. And they were also the best tasting desserts we've encountered on any Lido buffet of any cruise line. Heck, they were better than the desserts served in the main dining room dinners on Holland America.

Dinner

On Crystal Symphony there's only one choice for dinner on most nights, though the two specialty restaurants are available as options if you make a reservation. The main dining room is spacious and all on one level. The ceilings are fairly high and the noise level is moderate to low, unlike several of the other main dining rooms we've tried over the years.

The wait staff is attentive and extremely professional and spent some time each evening before serving getting a little information on how the day had gone and so on. Service always started with a bread selection and then orders for starters, soups and salads, and the main entrée were taken. Dessert options were presented in a separate menu after the rest of the meal was cleared away. Coffee was always offered before the dessert order was taken. Espresso drinks did not incur any additional costs.

Wine service was punctual and professional. We ordered a mixture of full bottles of wine and individual glasses depending on the entrees we selected. Any wine we did not finish was corked and made available the next night. We availed ourselves of this service a number of times. Since we did order wine frequently the sommelier always stopped by our table every night after we had ordered the entrees and asked if we had any requests. This was a nice contrast to other lines where we were lucky on some cruises to talk to the sommelier even once.

The menu offerings were similar to other cruise lines, though the preparation was significantly better. There were always a quartet of appetizers to choose from as well as trio of soups (normally including at least one cold soup) and a couple of salads. Four entrees are offered as well as one pasta entrée and a salad entrée.

Finally there are a couple of plainer entrees, what we always called the steak and salmon offerings. These are the entrees that are for the unadventurous eater and they always seemed to consist of a plain broiled steak or plain broiled salmon. However, in keeping with their policy of doing everyone else one better, Crystal changes even these dishes every night. And the sauces and the accompaniments were considerably better sounding than anything I've seen elsewhere. One additional detail - the side dishes offered with the entrees can also be ordered separately.

Desserts were extensive and Mary tells me they were quite good. I don't normally care much for dessert but Crystal did buy my undying loyalty by offering a cheese trolley upon which the offerings changed nightly. Needless to say they were oh, just a bit better than the one triangle of swiss cheese and one triangle of cheddar with saltines that I received on one cruise ship when I made the mistake of ordering the cheese plate.

A couple of observations on the main dining room: the head waiter and the maitre d' were much in evidence and we talked with both at least every other night. I can't remember ever even encountering the head waiter on another ship unless a complaint was being lodged. We ate dinner in the specialty restaurants a couple of nights in a row. When we returned to the main dining room the next night, the head waiter asked how the meals were, and I noted that they were fine though we missed the French cuisine night in the main dining room. He then asked if we would like to order something from the previous night's dinner and he'd arrange to have it served the following night.

Well, since Mary missed out on the chocolate soufflé she had to order that and we both missed the escargot and so we asked for that too. And the next night both items were served in addition to our regular meal. That's service. And it's not that uncommon on board Crystal. If there was a particular item we liked the staff would make sure, if it was at all possible, to see that we got that item. Mary talked me out of expressing my deep love of White Castle hamburgers just to see if they could get them for me - or at least make passable imitations.

We tried both of the specialty restaurants on board. The first specialty restaurant we sampled, Jade Garden, is an Asian fusion restaurant. Apparently it's associated with Wolfgang Puck in some manner and serves some of the dishes from his Chinois restaurant. We enjoyed the food immensely and the service was as good as in any in the main dining room, if not better. I could go on and on about the succulence of the lobster appetizer or the stunning spiciness of the prawns but then that would be just taunting.

Suffice it to say that the meal was excellent and we would take the opportunity to dine there again in a flash. Interestingly enough we were seated at one of only four or five occupied tables in the restaurant when we dined at Jade Garden, while probably another ten or so tables went empty. Of course, if memory serves this may have been the French dinner night in the main dining room so that may explain the lack of patrons.

In contrast, the Italian themed specialty restaurant, Prego, was packed the night we went. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the only disappointing meal we had during our entire cruise. It wasn't that the food or the service was bad or anything. It just wasn't up to snuff with anything else on board. The food was lacking in any real excitement or snap, instead being fairly pedestrian middle of the road Italian. After the excellence of the Asian restaurant our expectations were probably unduly high. We both decided that we'd rather eat in the main dining room than in Prego, but would gladly dine in Jade Garden again and again.

Other Foodie Events

During our trip there were two additional food events. One was Sunday brunch served on a sea day. The buffet was set up in the main lobby area just outside the main dining room and it encompassed pretty much everything one could desire for a Sunday brunch. The most popular things by far were cold lobster tails that people were lining up for. If you skipped those though, there was little in the way of lines or clutter in front of any of the other tables groaning with foodstuffs.

The second buffet was served on the Lido deck but outside adjacent to the Trident Grill. The theme was Pan-Asian food and I had a great time with this, with lots of sushi and various Asian specialties. Even Mary, with her notorious and inexplicable aversion to buffets, commented favorably on it.

One evening we participated in a Vintage Room dinner. Basically this is a wine tasting dinner, with different wines served with every course, served in a private dining room. In this case all the wines were hand picked by the head sommelier on board and from what we tasted he is a talented judge of vino. I won't bother to list all the courses or the wines we drank, but we did discover a couple of new varieties of which we were unaware. The dinner is expensive and limited to 12 guests (our dinner had 11 total) and held only once or twice per sailing. We definitely thought we got our money's worth out of it.

From what we understand there are also Vintage Room dinners that are much more expensive, serving extremely rare vintage wines. I think we'd probably give that a pass since $1000 a head is a little steep for us.

Every evening, hot hors d'oeuvres are offered in the various bars by staff. Holland America offered the same thing, though the Crystal version was miles or least kilometers better. Every cocktail party we went to also had both the hot hors d'oeuvres as well as canapés. And they also served more hors d'oeuvres in the late evening after 11:00 pm in the bars and probably the casino.

Finally, and there is a finally, there was a tea served in the Palm Court every afternoon. Since we were ashore most days we only got the chance to go once. Along with the tea there was the usual assortment of sweets and cakes and many finger sandwiches which I appreciated to help smooth out the interval between lunch and dinner.

Liquid Refreshment

In addition to the coffee drinks in the Bistro, one can get cocktails at several venues. Our favorite was the Avenue Saloon, done up in dark wood and leather. The drawback to this bar, at least in my opinion, was that there was a piano player who also sang (albeit decently). It could become quite crowded just before late seating and a couple of times we ended up going to the Cove, a bar just off the main lobby that also had a piano player. As a matter of fact there really wasn't a bar on board that didn't have some sort of live music in the evening. I'm not complaining, per se, but sometimes one just wants a quiet drink. This may have been available in the Palm Court, but for some reason we never made it up there before dinner. Maybe we'll try it next time.

We attended I think three hosted cocktail receptions (hard to remember - relic of a life of hard drinking), and all held in the Starlight Club. These were notable for several reasons. One, we went. We hardly ever go to these things, but we decided to try the first one just to say we had and we liked it, so we went to the subsequent ones. Two, the booze was free. I mean free as in you didn't have to spend any money. Free! We really didn't grasp the concept at first. We were served a glass of champagne immediately after we arrived at the first party. And we weren't charged for it. And it was decent champagne too. So we said cool, but then the servers came around again and asked us it we wanted some more and we said ah, what the hell. And we had a second glass and they didn't charge us. Now this was highly unusual, indeed unprecedented as far as we can recall (though that's difficult - heavy drinking, remember?). We, or I should say I, declaimed my delight and had one or seven more glasses.

Some where during our second or third reception we came to the realization that not only could we suck up quantities of champagne limited only by our ability to raise the glass to our now slightly numb lips but that we could order a regular cocktail or beer or any alcoholic beverage we desired and they still wouldn't charge us. Oh, and three - they always had live music at the receptions and the dance floor was usually doing good business. Highly unusual for any other cocktail reception we've been to on other cruise lines.

Activities

As is our wont, we didn't really attend many of the live shows. I went to two shows which was double Mary's total, but that was because the theme of the second show was Broadway musicals. She and I have agreed that our marriage is founded on mutual respect for each other's foibles and I've come to accept that one of hers is a lack of appreciation that most sterling of man's inventions - the musical. Some day I have hopes that she'll see the light, or at least Legally Blond, but alas not yet.

None of the shows we saw rose much higher in quality than what you'd expect from a regional summer rep company, but then that's pretty much par for the cruise ship course. There were also a couple of piano recitals that we managed to miss because of prior engagements, along with a show with a torch singer, so our complaints about the entertainment should be considered as moot.

The live music overall, was of a fairly high standard and we enjoyed it. Well, maybe except for the live music in the main dining room at dinner. Other cruise ships we've been on usually have some sort of live music - a piano and even a harp on Holland America I believe. But this is the first time we've encountered a strolling musical trio that played requests. This was not something either one of us really liked. One, I don't like people - waitstaff, strolling musicians, wandering derelicts, anyone - looming over me while I'm trying to eat.

Two, it's stressful to come up with a request and the only tune we can think of is the one they just played at the table next to us. Mary constantly vetoes my suggestion of the theme to The Great Escape, which she has taken pains to inform me is considered neither romantic nor proper dinner music. And I always veto her selection of "Inagottadavida" in retaliation. Which leaves us sitting there, clueless. We let them pick a tune one night and were punished by being forced to smile through their rendition of "Feelings." After that we decided we would always ask for "Greensleeves," which at least we don't hate. I'm guessing the people who cruise on Crystal a lot like the dinner trio, but I'd be quite happy with quietly piped in jazz.

There were a number of instructional activities that we thought we'd avail ourselves of. As it turned out, due to the large number of port calls on the trip, when we finally did get a couple of sea days, we were too tired to sludge our brains into accepting knowledge, so we just sat around and read or watched a movie. I really did want to take the Berlitz French course though. Maybe next time.

The gym and spa appeared nice though I never once went back there after the walk through on the first day. Mary liked the spa treatments, though she sets such a low bar that when I give her a 12 second neck rub she always tries to tip me. So it's probably a good spa. She did get her hair cut and styled once and they did a good job. At least I thought so, though I've found that offering unsolicited opinions on Mary's hair is what one might call a rather incautious thing to do.

The library on board was the best we've ever encountered, with an extensive offering of books and an even more extensive selection of DVD's for loan, free of course. We borrowed a couple of movies on nights when Mary felt like staying in and missing out on the musical stylings of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Philistine.

We also didn't go to the theatre for a movie, though it looks like a nice one. Again, the lack of sea days managed to derail any plans to use this facility.

Shore Excursions

We took one shore excursion arranged by Crystal, which is about average for us. It was perfectly fine and we ended up wishing we'd taken at least one or two more for other stops on the cruise. We came to understand afterwards that there was an option for arranging private excursions with a local guide and car and so on. Somehow we missed the memo on this feature and it's the kind of thing we love doing. We really aren't big fans of big tours on buses and prefer to find someone who can give a more personalized tour. In light of this information, when we find ourselves on another Crystal cruise we'll almost certainly avail ourselves of this feature. From what we heard from others, most people seemed to enjoy the excursions and we did note that there seemed to be significantly less confusion and chaos surrounding these than we'd seen on other cruises.

Conclusion

We liked Crystal. We liked Crystal more than we expected. We liked Crystal so much that Mary made a reservation for another cruise next year. (It didn't hurt that making the reservation onboard results in more onboard credits and the deposit is fully refundable.)

Crystal really exceeded our expectations. The food was the best we've encountered on a cruise ship and the service, as we've recounted over and over, was hands down some of the best that we've received anywhere. And that's that is what makes Crystal what it is. They don't have the fanciest ships and don't have the most passengers. What they do offer is an experience that we'll remember for many years to come.