Keith1010

Rob glad this has all been explained and that the explanation makes sense. Keith

Bill, the good news is that the do plan to keep some dishes from old Tastes and combine with the new ones. The good news is that New Crystal has shown they listen such as updating the dinner menu at Osteria. I am glad they have been adding their own touches to the product. Old Crystal always evolved (I remember when the original Tastes on Serenity) served some basic items at dinner with limited choices before it evolved. As to the date, time will tell. Sometimes it take longer than people think as details are all worked out including the sourcing of the ingredients for the new items not to mention training, any new equipment needed, signage, etc. Nice to have something new to look forward to. Keith

I hear you. Like I said they might not accept this but I would have my TA make the case. This milestone involves a $200.00 credit and a 12 day upgrade. Hard to believe someone would have used it for $200.00 rather than wait for the 11th and gotten both $200.00 and 12 days upgrade. It's worth taking a run at it knowing that they might not approve it. Nothing lost by giving it another try. Keith

If you currently have 10 milestones than under the old program it was impossible for you to have used the one category upgrade. You are only eligible at the end of the voyage meaning it could be used on voyage 11 only so if that is the case I would have your TA mention this. If you have already completed 11 cruises then you cannot claim the 10th milestone sine NC has no way of knowing whether you had used it. Now if you have completed 10 I can't guarantee this is how Crystal will interpret this but if it was me I would've the TA push on this since it would have been impossible to use the 10th for the upgrade until the 10th was completed and you booked your 11th. I would certainly have them make this case. Keith

Patty, You are correct. Under Old Crystal they changed this. Let's say with a 50th milestone you got a 12 day free cruise. Before the program was changed if you had completed 49 cruises and you booked a 50th you could request that milestone be applied to the 50th. They changed it so that you could not request the 50th milestone until you completed the 50th. Now let's say it was the 45 milestone and that involved only an on board credit. While if you had 44 completed cruises you could not request this in advance, once on board the Crystal Society hostess/host could get it applied for you. And the other thing that changed before Old Crystal went under was providing a cash reduction on a cruise versus say 12 days. For example, I know that for the 100th cruise used to be one could get x number of days in a CP (think it was 12) but when that program changed instead of being a number of days it became a future cruise credit which I believe was $5,000.00 majority of cruise was in a standard room or $10,000 per person if majority was in a suite. The value of that CP was a lot more than the future cruise credit but for some the latter was preferable if they had no interest in a CP. Before OC changed the program they also would allow you to put in some of those requests early by taking into account the cruises you had booked. For example, if we were at 94 cruises but we had the World Cruise booked which say was equivalent to 8 milestones we could apply that 100th milestone to that upcoming World Cruise even though at the time we had 94 cruises completed. Keith

I'll try it again. 5:00 to 5:30 PM. At least I got the PM right. I wonder how many people other than myself would go it if was 5:00 AM? Keith

Around 5:00 to 5:00 PM. Keith

David, I am providing the deck plan for Deck 7. If you put your curser over a particular room it will say whether or not it is obstructed, partial or none plus you can see where the lifeboats are. https://www.crystalcruises.com/ship/symphony?sm=undefined&d=7 The ones you asked about say slightly limited view and I think that is because of the height of the wall that you would look out to. Keith

Not sure. There are several additional legal pleadings on the Moecker site. This seems to show there is a good amount of money on hand if I am reading it all correctly. https://crystalcruiseclaims.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/04.19.24-Motion-Motion-For-Assignee-Fees-Healy.pdf Keith

Adding to what Larry said, most of the people on board are full world cruisers and many who we know do not do CC. History & Wine is still on board and doing the full world cruise though. Keith

Maybe this will help. I have used all of my credits totaling 10 sub-credits. I got the e-mail too. I believe it went to everyone who had submitted requests for the Exceptional Initiative program. They way it is supposed to work is there was a point in time that Crystal would start to reconcile with Moecker to find out any money you got. So let's say you were owed $20,000. You had five sub credits each worth $4,000.00. You used one. You got back $2,225.00. They would reduce the amount of remains sub-credits by $2,225.00. Now I don't know if they take $2,225.00 and spread it evenly amongst your four unused sub-credits or take it off one. My guess is spread it evenly. So ,yes you could have gotten money back from Moecker but if your outstanding money that you were owed when Crystal went bankrupt was greater than $2,225.00 you are still eligible to get some money off your cruise fare as part of the exceptional initiative assuming you previously applied for the program by the timeframe that was published. Keith

Correct and they are great IMHO. Keith

You just never know. As the cruise gets closer you might want to write to on board guest services to see if they would let the head sommelier know you are interested in attending a champagne lunch and once on board call the operator to see if you can speak with the head sommelier. If it's a port intensive cruise there might not be many guests interested but I've seen it go both ways. Keith

They still offer Vintage Room Lunches on most of the cruises as they did before and if they do a few on a cruise (long cruise) sometimes in addition to one with Champagne they might offer one with wine tastings too. Keith

I guess based on Tracie's comments that I've been able to do this as I am booked on Serenity and the ability to do this is not for Symphony bookings. I have a message out to Crystal to see if this has been intentionally done or a systems issue. Keith

The Crystal Society Milestone Program which I posted the other day reaffirms who gets unlimited visits to the specialty restaurants, based on availability. Just as in the past, those who have 50 or more milestones are not charged for additional visits. Keith

Yes on every cruise including our next two. Keith

David, I think based on your post you know this but just in case you can cancel the tour in my account. Keith

Maybe there was some other reason but in terms of room category this would apply only to those in a CP or Junior CP based on availabilty. Other instancesof not being charged would include being on a full world cruise, a grand voyage, or having 50 or more Crystal Society milestones. Keith

I have found the dinner hours on the cruises we have been on so far to be the same as they were with old Crystal. Maybe on some of the very low loaded cruises they adjusted them but not on the ones we have been on and given it appears that occupancy will rise this summer it should be as it was before. Since start up I've only sailed on Serenity but we have cruises also booked for Symphony this year. All of our Tastes reservations since start up have been at 6:30 PM when tastes opens and that is the same on our upcoming cruises that we have recently booked. Other specialty restaurant hours are the same and Waterside dining was the same as well. Keith

For us whether we use or not use the service depends on the number of pieces we are taking. Specifically: We can handles two carry ons, two personal items and two 28 or 29" pieces or one Carry one and three large pieces. While we could get porters it gets complicated with more pieces including vehicles needed and if we are arriving back home and have to go through customs/immigration. I can remember arriving back to DFW when that was our home airport and there would only be a couple of porters and the first time we got one but the following year we had to wait quite awhile. So I look at this as a toolbox. We don't always need the tool but having it available to us works very well. On a related note, as FlyerTalker said I like those airlines that offer an app to track luggage.It has alerted me twice when my bags were not on the flight and these days I also add to each bag an Apple Air Tag. And finally, because I believe in Murphy's Law we fly in a few days before we embark because things happen and likewise if we ship bags we send them a lot earlier than they require. Finally, when shipping bags home another thing that can go wrong is they arrive home earlier than they are supposed to. One time with DHL they were to hold the bags for a few days after they arrived back to the USA as we were staying on land for several days before flying home. Guess what? They didn't and left them on our porch and they shouldn't have done that either. Thank goodness my neighbor spotted them and took them in. These days I would at least know they were there with video cameras. An example that things can go wrong and that applies to UPS, Fedex, DHL and USPS and whomever else is out there. Now if I was a human octopus at least I could handle more bags but that's not to say the vehicle can. 😀 Keith

I would add to what Terry posted which the rules of the former program were not all that different. It said the request had to be submitted before final payment was made. I also think it is referring to the upgrades as like you said an as you wish type of credit could be issues on the ship. I don't think old or new Crystal does this because they want people to forget about the program. Rather several of the milestones relate to upgrades, future cruise credit, special dinners that need to be planned prior to guests boarding, and other things and it makes sense this needs to be done before the cruise. The Society Hosts/Hostesses used to tell me that it was great that some of the TA's would let their clients know if they had milestones to use compared to those who never told their clients about the program or didn't bother to assist on this. A lesson I learned years back each time the program changed is simply use it or you may lose it. In other words if the milestones change with a new program one might have lost out on a milestone by not using it. Keith

This is the Crystal Society Benefits Brochure from Crystal Cruises which corrects any mistakes that were in the earlier verision. Cheers, Keith Crystal Society Benefits Brochure April 2024.pdf

I am not being argumentative but I've had problems with both DHL and FedEx. And when it comes to FedEx for non luggage but just deliveries I have several examples where they messed up. Nothing is going to be 00% perfect all the time. When you ship luggage or check in luggage there is some risk IMHO. But if we want to travel we don't have a choice. Keith

I’ve also had UPS on occasion. Keith