Missi Queen

We love Crystal . We have done almost 50 cruises with them and love the crew and our fellow passengers. We felt at home from our first cruise with them in 2002. Not sure what snooty means and I guess that it is in the eyes of the beholder but it is our home away from home. We have tried HAL and Celebrity which were ok but we have not repeated with either line. We will soon be embarking on the Rivera for our first time with Oceania and look forward to it.

I am not sure about Spain, but in the other post someone mentioned the tax and added Brazil along with Spain and Itally. I do know about the Brazilian tax. Last April we were on Crystals WC and from the time we arrived in Rio until we left 12 days later when we departed from out last Brazilian port, there was an additional tax of 30% applied to anything one purchased. Since Crystal's all inclusive includes Alcohol, there was no issue with drinks, but if you purchased anything during that time in any of the shops you would be charged the extra tax. If you returned the item, the tax was non refundable.

The shops had to do complete inventories prior to our arrival in Rio. Customs checked everything. The shops had to report all sales and the Brazilian authorities could check remaining inventories. If things did not match up Brazil could impose confiscatory fines.

We had been to Brazil on a cruise two years before and there was no extra tax. Needless to say nothing was sold in the shops during theses 12 days. Maybe with a five percent extra tax people may have purchased something, but the 30% tax did not bring in much revenue for Brazil. This would obviously be different for a line that sold alcohol, there would be a significant revenue stream

My husband and I just booked a cruise in April on the Riveria and are forward to trying Oceania.

My husband and I were also on this cruise. It was our first HAL cruise. We were with a group which made it a lot of fun but I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the state of the ship. It appears to need a complete overhaul.

Many Many chairs had split fabric , cushions for the lounge chairs were soiled and ripped., the carpets were worn and looked dirty. The balconies on the port side on deck 5 often had 2 inches if water on them because a drain further back in the ship was clogged. While I think that the ship was generally clean it was so worn that it appeared quite dirty.

Our AC was quite effective as was the toilet flushing. The food was good but the dining room was jammed with tables and chairs and once you were seated due to the closeness of the neighboring tables and chairs , you were wedged in.

Our favorite places were the crows nest and the outside area on deck ten. They were the only areas of this ship that did not appear to be dark and dingy. Another treat we found was the Piano Bar and an excellent entertainer , Jim Fisher. He was great.

The constant PA announcements from the cruise director were quite annoying and on all the cruises we have ever done, We have never seen alcohol pushed as aggressively as on this cruise. But also even though it was aggressively pushed , I never saw anyone inebriated .

Unless we heard that the Zuiderdam had a complete overhaul, we would never cruise on this ship again. Based upon this experience we would not probably sail on HAL again. While the cost is extremely reasonable, it did not have the value to us.