DaisyUK

Thank you all for your kind advice, and especially Kjbacon as I had not realised how the tables are allocated. Good to know!

Thank you all, I feel much better now. This is what I was expecting, but it is almost a year since we were last onboard and I was worried that things may have changed. Really appreciate the help.

Reservations for specialty restaurants opened on 1 March for our sailing on Explorer at the end of May. On 2 March I tried to make reservations in all 3 restaurants for the first 3 evenings, but was unable to book either Prime 7 or Chartreuse. Our suite specifies that we have guaranteed reservations every night. I have written to Regent reservations, but they tell me there is no availability. Does anyone have experience of this and know whether availability will open up once we are on board? We have sailed with Regent several times previously, in the same suite and never had this problem pre-cruise before.

Thanks for posting Keith - that's a tremendous value.

52 minutes ago, artbcpa said:

Amber, Thank you so much for your review. Keith is absolutely right. You need to post your review on Cruise Critic's reviews. But it is not just for newbies. It is also for those of us who have not experienced New Crystal. It brought tears to our eyes to hear that Crystal is fully back. We will be on the Symphony at the end of this month and now we are extra excited.

 

We are long time Crystal devotees going all the way back to the Harmony. It is has been several years since we have sailed Crystal due to the pandemic and our experiences with Edie. (Someone might have explained that period.) We did sail on several other luxury lines including Regent and Seabourn. We were on both of their other two new ships and, you may be right, they are extraordinarily beautiful. We loved them. Yet they still didn't have that extra special "family" feeling that Crystal used to give us.

 

Your review brought that back to us. Thank you.

 

Art & Ellie

Lucky you. I’m sure you will be very happy with Symphony. We had a wonderful cruise Sydney round trip. Very difficult to find fault with anything. Hope you have a great time.

It was Bruno when we were onboard a couple of weeks ago

On our recent Symphony cruise (disembarked 21 Jan) there was a crew member at the entrance to the buffet every single day, encouraging guests to sanitise their hands.

We disembarked today after a wonderful 17 days onboard. The guest lecturers were great, but I'm not sure that they are staying on. I cannot remember all the names, but we had Bill Toone, Peter Price, Karen Bohringer and others - all excellent. Our CD was Russ Grieves - again, we thought he did an absolutely excellent job. I'm sorry that I didn't keep copies of Reflections as I could have given a more comprehensive answer if I had. Although I cannot remember the names of all the lecturers, we found all the lectures we went to to be all worthwhile.

Yes, you're right - we are booked in 784, not 984; it was a typo

7 hours ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

That's a great way to approach travel, move on and look forward to your next trip. 💖 Do you have future Crystal cruises booked?

 

Patty

Well, we are currently onboard Symphony but nothing further booked at the moment. We are looking at a couple of sailings this year, but if we go ahead we would to have to cancel bookings we have already made with other lines so are weighing up the pros and cons of that - we would be into cancellation penalties. 

2 hours ago, Wheetie_C said:

Would you mind sharing which excursions you took ( including the ones you liked vs didn’t). Thanks

Honestly, I can't remember, and I didn't keep a note. I do remember that one we enjoyed was the island of Capri - that was great. Can't remember the one we didn't enjoy, nor the reason why. Sorry not to be more helpful. 

1 hour ago, Whipsnade said:

When any of these companies talk about “new builds” don’t believe a word until they announce a contract with a builder. I, too hope Crystal will be able to move forward but even with the cash they have they cannot compete with MSC and RCL. And with only 250 pax on board it is going to be tough sledding to get the $$ they need to expand. 
We board in Sydney on 1/21 for 68 days. Can’t wait. 

As has been discussed previously on this board, I suspect that the 250 passenger load will increase over the next year or so. We have been looking at some cruises for later this year and are unable to get our first choice of suite/itinerary on several sailings. This is our 2nd Symphony cruise since the re-start, but during that time we have been on other lines and have also committed to more cruises this year and next (on other lines). If we do decide to bite on the bullet and cancel the other cruises to go on a Crystal Cruise, we will lose a significant amount of money and that's a hard pill to swallow and I'm sure there must be others in the same boat(!)

A little update from a very rocky Tasmanian Sea. We're having a great time onboard Symphony. Weather is disappointing, but it is what it is and we are hoping for some improvement before we get to the Sounds/Fjords🤞 Apart from the weather, all is good. We are a little light on passengers - we were told there are about 250 onboard. We've enjoyed some wonderful food, service and entertainment. The crew go out of their way at all times to be helpful, friendly and to engage. 

We are booked in 984 but 901 has become available. Wondering if anyone can give any advice about 901? We've been in 985 before and liked it well enough but preferred the layout of 1015 (not available on this trip).  Any help/advice greatly appreciated!

Our ship was docked in Fusina, about 30 mins drive from Venice centre. 

We are on this cruise also. Hope you don’t me me jumping in on your thread. Also happy to answer any questions. Our car will be arriving in about half an hour. We were on Symphony in September this year and if standards are the same today as they were then I think we are in for a real treat!

I do enjoy reading your reports each morning, and am glad you are having such a great time. If the food in Waterside lives up to the menu descriptions, we'll be very happy next week! The Vintage Room dinner menu also looks very appealing, as do the wines. 

An exciting day! Looking forward to reading about your adventures...

We were in a QM2 Q2 recently. There were 2 bathrooms, one with a 'proper' shower (enclosed, no curtain) and one with a bath/shower combination which had a curtain. I asked for the shower curtain to be removed which was readily done. 

My relatively limited experience, for what it's worth...

We enjoyed the Q2 on QE. Loved the mid-ship location and the space within. The only thing we didn't like was the lack of a second WC - crazy with all that space that there isn't one in our opinion. We spend a lot of time in our suite/room/cabin (whatever you like to call it!!) so it's very nice to have the space, but as others and you have said, if you don't spend a lot of time in it then perhaps there's not a huge advantage for the additional $$ it costs. 

Whichever option you choose, hope you have a fabulous time.

There seems to be plenty of activity relating to Serenity, but no so much on Symphony...

Adding our best wishes to everyone else's for a wonderful cruise and Christmas!

Have to agree about the general transformation, and the new suites. We were in one of the Junior CPs a few months back and will be again in a couple of week's time. It had everything we needed, was very comfortable and the layout was perfect. It didn't feel like an 'old' ship room at all. Much of the rest of the ship had that 'new' ship feel also. Thank you for your post, it has heightened our anticipation for our upcoming cruise - we just have the long journey from England to cope with first!

Beautiful pics. Very much looking forward to our first visit/cruise on Symphony around Australia/New Zealand in Jan. 

This is great information to have, thank you. I tried Ter777's suggestion to try and find out who would be speaking on our cruise without having to go through each bio, but could not find any reference to speakers/entertainers. Perhaps it's a work in progress?