Ant@sea

An interesting read. It was one of the “terrible teens” a batch of planes built with many production issues that required out of sequence fixes, shims for parts that did not fit properly, etc, which made them overweight, and adversely affected their range and payload. This made them undesirable for mainline operators to use them, hence, being in storage for all these years.

My takeaway from the Explora forum is that everything is fine until it’s not, and then, the staff onboard is not empowered to fix an issue without orders from Geneva, and I find that troubling. On Crystal, the staff is trained and trusted by headquarters. To me, the software is more important than the hardware.

Re:Genoa Vistafjord …any chance it was a 1995 departure ending in Athens????

According to an inside source, there was a lot of initial sales resistance to EJ as many wanted to see the hardware first, plus there were major misgivings regarding MSC’s notoriously bad customer service. Their Chief Sales Officer, Chris Austin, made a lot of promises, and I’m sure people were enticed as he’d held previous positions at such iconic luxury brands as Seabourn and Ritz Carlton. Interestingly enough, both their East Coast and West Coast Regional Sales directors quit prior to the inaugural sailing(I’m sure they’re thanking their lucky stars they don’t have to face the backlash). So agents have no one to turn to to voice their concerns to, except Austin, who’ll have to take the heat for over promising and under delivering.

I think Crystals first challenge will be to show they are delivering on their promises which seems to be going according to plan. I have a feeling that once they are established for a while, former crew members who’ve migrated to other lines will start to return which was one of their strongest points. They’ve negated the larger capacity issue by reducing passenger carry by making many more suites. They also have access to A&K’s passenger base as well to hopefully negate having older tonnage. I do recall that one of OC’s issues was lack of economy of scale with such a small fleet, so some growth will be necessary. They’re off to a good start so they just have to keep demonstrating that they can deliver in what they’ve promised in a consistent basis. I do remover a while back one of the chief negatives about Silversea was a lack of consistency across its fleet.

Keith, You and Anne Marie have done so much to reassure loyal Crystal past guests that everything is as good or better than it used to be. Having said that, the New Crysal cannot survive on their existing passenger base and must strive to attract new guests. How do you feel the Crystal stacks up against all the newer tonnage coming into the market from Silversea (in particular the Silver Nova being comparable in size) as well as Regent and Seabourn? (I was going to include Explora Journeys, but based on the reviews I've been reading, they appear to be a floating dumpster fire, including the latest that they've cancelled their 2024/2025 published schedule and are working on new ones)

Keep in mind Bayonne if great for getting to Newark airport, but that’s about all. Getting there from New York is a royal pain.

Yes, passengers are always adverse to eastward world voyages. Turning your clock ahead every few days always throws people off. In Addition, it puts more stress on the crew who have to compress 24 hrs of work into 23.

Unfortunately, even though your reservation says “Explora Journeys”, their back office is all “MSC”, and you’re getting MSC’s notoriously bad service, which is one reason they are struggling in the US market, as many agents a have had dreadful experience with MSC’s lack of service.

I find those 2 Viking ships odd, as they were built for polar conditions but only spend half the time in Antarctic waters, where one of them suffered damage resulting in a passengers death.

Re:commission—that’s for an MSC cruise but illustrates the poor service agents receive and have to fight to get, which leads to leeriness about booking Explora. On the agent preview cruise, I’ve seen photos of many top OC Agebts who were stiff HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars commissions but they still showed up by virtue of Manfredi. Their challenge will be to convince any of theirclients who got stiffed to rebook. I do agre with you that to go off and start up with expedition ships may be misguided given the glut of ships now in that category. Lindblad just released their quarterly financial report and mentioned that they had to contend with competition slashing rates.

Re: Explora….the initial photos are impressive, but I have it on very good authority that sales haven’t been a “slam-dunk” Many agents were waiting to see the finished product first, and a real impediment is MSC’s reputation for dreadful customer service and back office operations. Regardless of what the front line executives say, it’s all MSC behind the scenes, and I know many agents who refuse to book them, as they can’t waste dozens of phone calls over many weeks to receive a paltry $100 commission

After seeing some videos of the cabins I’m very surprised to see that the bathrooms don’t have double sinks, even in the largest suites.

Thank you all for the replies. An NCL rep used to call me if I’d been surfing the NCL web site but was unable to tell me if singles outside the studio were welcome at their gatherings. Now I feel more comfortable. 12 days until Getaway transatlantic!

I’ll be sailing shortly on the Getaway as a single in a balcony cabin and wondering how I’ll be accommodated in the dining room. I’d previously sailed in the Breakaway as a single in one of the Studio cabins and the studio concierge always asked who’d like to dine and formed a table, so I never had to dine alone. I’d appreciate any guidance from other singles who’ve sailed before outside of the Studio area accommodations.

I can help but think back to 1992 when the QE2 hit a rock on her way back to New York during a New England cruise. The Transatlantic crossing had to be cancelled and all passengers were put up in hotels at Cunards expense and flown to the U.K., again at Cunards expense. Back then, they realized that this was not a “cruise” but a crossing as a form of transportation and did right by all the passengers. Unfortunately Carnival/Princess never seemed to grasp this concept.

I’m not sure if this has yet been mentioned, but shortly after the announcement of this initiative, two major agency consortia signed preferred partner agreements with NC, first Signature, then, Virtuoso…the #1 and 2 biggest agency groups OC had. I’m sure to get this much needed show of confidence, NC had to make some sort of concession to all the past guests who’d lost money.

Also take into account the billions of dollars of debt that they took on over the last 2 years. This precipitated a reexamination of all areas of the company and they’ve seen where staff is not needed or the need to remove a layer of management if they deem it non essential

Thanks for advice. Access to the activities and mingling in the solo lounge with the cruise staff is the deciding factor in my decision as well as the studio vs sole occupancy rate for the inside doubles.

I sailed on the Getaway several years ago in a studio and was impressed with the attention single guests were given..a cruise staff member arranged group table reservations when we gathered each night in The studio lounge so I never had to dine alone. I'm looking at booking another trip but have noticed on many that the Studio cabins are more expensive than sole occupancy of an inside cabin. Does anyone know if you still get access to the studio lounge? I’d reached out to my “personal cruise consultant” who contacted me from NCL but they were useless. I’m also puzzled why some sailings are priced that way. Any insight would be appreciated.

I think Cunard is having their annual “Inner Circle” top agency award cruise on this segment.

Any space still available on the SFO to YVR segment?

This appointment follows Carnivals new CEO, being from the financial side of the business. Keep in mind the billions and billions of dollars that cruise lines have borrowed over the past 2 years. At this point a person with a firm grip and understanding of finance is critical to enable the. To service the debt in an expedient manner and restore the balance sheet to a healthy state following 2 years with several billion dollars lost each year. as most finance people aren’t as adept at PR as sales peop,e, I’d expect the to promote their senior VP’s of sales and marketing to be their front men and company face to the public and trade.