Live from the stunning Crystal Bach

[goldengatecruisers]

Good morning from an overcast Speyer. Today we are off to Heidelberg. We had a very long day yesterday in Strasbourg after our late arrival. We crammed in two tours and also had time to ourselves where we found a lovely hotel tucked out of the way and sat enjoying some wine and nibbles. Last evening Crystal arranged for an organ recital at the Notre Dame de Strasbourg. There were 46 of us in this massive cathedral and in true Crystal fashion it was closed off to others so it was even more special. Then we had a private tour of the chapels and other areas not usually open to the general public. It certainly was magical sitting in the pews listening to this grand organ belt out majestic and powerful sounds filling the entire cathedral. Then it was back to the Bach and a quick shower and change before dinner. Today our tour is only 6 hours so we will have time to relax when we return to the boat.

 

Paula - glad you found the thread. Some times I wish CruiseCritic would allow the riverboat discussions to remain on the Crystal board because I think more people would find it that way.

 

Mark T. - there is an assortment of bread available and I am sure wheat is among them but I have not checked.

 

eroller - I have not yet been on Mozart but I will at some point experience that ship as I am looking forward to sailing the Danube one day. I hear it is lovely but very different to Bach. In speaking with several crew members who came over from Mozart they have a preference for Bach. In response to your Silversea comment I will most likely not be reviewing Muse as I am only doing a short segment and not the entire transatlantic. Timing worked out perfectly for me while am in Europe. I have sailed on several of the Silversea fleet and really enjoy their product for many reasons. I was told the changes to dining and reservations on Muse are taking affect after the ship reaches Fort Lauderdale at the end of October. I commend Silversea for trying a new concept and when it didn't work out 100% smoothly they listened to feedback and are making necessary changes including reconfiguring some of the dining spaces. It will be interesting to experience the current set up although for my short cruise it won't really impact me at all.

 

zship - You can make special orders with advance notice in the Waterside dining room. There is a nice selection of programming on the television but to be honest we are on the go so much on this voyage I have not found time to sit down and watch anything. When I have been in the room I usually put down the electric window and sit staring at the water and countryside. I did play around on the TV just to take a look and there is plenty there and easy to navigate but I doubt if I will even turn on the TV while traveling. I also try not to look at any news programming when away from home. I figured someone would let me know if there was something of great importance happening in the world.

 

***Just took a few minutes to open up the TV and have a proper look for you. Oh my goodness, there is SO MUCH to watch and plenty of choice. Hopefully that is good news for you. Movies are a mix of current, new release and classics***

 

PS. I forgot to carry my cell phone last night to dinner. I will try and remember again this evening so I can take photos of the menus. Internet on board has been good albeit slow at times but the nice thing about being in a European town each day is that I can use my data plan off the boat and also use wifi in cafes to get all of my necessary emails/texts in a timely manner. No complaints here though about onboard internet as it has worked for me each time I have needed it.

 

Ashley

[JohnKen3]

Interesting point in the photos.

 

Each river boat will have their own napkins for the Bistro. I never realised it but the napkins on the bistro on the Mozart do say Bistro Mozart. Now there are Bistro Bach napkins on the Bach. Wonder if the Bistro Mahler napkins have been delivered as yet?

 

I was looking at the Mozart forward cam this morning. You can see clearly that the Crystal Mozart is almost the same width as the two Viking long boats docked in front of it. That is what gives the Mozart that spacious feel.

 

I must agree with the earlier comment. The moment you are inside the Mozart, you would naturally think she was a new build. Way more contemporary feel compared with the ocean vessels. The exterior does look dated mainly because of its shape and Cystal's colours.

[eroller]

 

eroller - I have not yet been on Mozart but I will at some point experience that ship as I am looking forward to sailing the Danube one day. I hear it is lovely but very different to Bach. In speaking with several crew members who came over from Mozart they have a preference for Bach. In response to your Silversea comment I will most likely not be reviewing Muse as I am only doing a short segment and not the entire transatlantic. Timing worked out perfectly for me while am in Europe. I have sailed on several of the Silversea fleet and really enjoy their product for many reasons. I was told the changes to dining and reservations on Muse are taking affect after the ship reaches Fort Lauderdale at the end of October. I commend Silversea for trying a new concept and when it didn't work out 100% smoothly they listened to feedback and are making necessary changes including reconfiguring some of the dining spaces. It will be interesting to experience the current set up although for my short cruise it won't really impact me at all.

 

 

 

Thanks so much for your reply. Enjoy your remaining time on BACH and your next adventure on MUSE!

[goldengatecruisers]

As promised here is the dinner menu from Waterside.

 

 

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[goldengatecruisers]

 

 

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[SuiteTraveler]

Great photos!

 

You will laugh but at first I thought those were black and white photos of your cabin. I forget that grey is in. Still the furnishings are lovely and I thought the bathroom was very, very nice.

 

I'm curious about the Quinoa salad at breakfast - have you had it? Is is a fruit salad? Is it on the breakfast buffet?

 

Thank you for posting menus! If you can, I'd love some food photos. Thanks for doing this!

[YoungDubFan]

goldengatecruisers- I'm greatly enjoying your posts & photos. I've done 2 river cruises on Avalon & loved them but am sure that Crystal is a few steps above. Please tell Mark that Kelly from Columbus (mom is Mary) says hi. I was lucky enough to cruise the Symphony with Mark & flew to Chicago to see him perform. He is a masterful entertainer & I'm happy to see that he seems to be the inaugural entertainer for the Crystal river ships.

[goldengatecruisers]

SuiteTraveler - I have no idea what quinoa salad is for breakfast. I am guessing it might be with tiny chopped up pieces of fruit and nuts. I don't often go the breakfast service but I will send out troops to investigate and report back to you. FYI, I am not one to take my cell phone to the dining room so chances are I probably won't be putting food photos up on this thread. If I happen to have it in my jacket pocket I will of course snap few shots for your enjoyment. I can assure you the food presentation and quality is superb.

 

YoungDubFan - I will be sure to tell Mark you say hello. Without a doubt Crystal is providing a river experience unlike the other companies. I don't know much about the Avalon fleet but their ships look lovely as we pass them. Same with the Viking boats. Given their success I am sure they are delivering a product that satisfies their clientele. The nice thing about this industry is there is a product for all guest tastes. In speaking with someone yesterday about Viking I learned they have close to 60 river boats but their crew/guest ratio is somewhat different to what you will experience on Bach. For example, I was told Viking on average holds around 190 guests with 45-50 crew. Now please remember I have not looked any of this up so I am merely passing on information. Perhaps someone has the time or inclination to verify the figures. But on Bach we have a max 108 guests and 68 crew. It stands to reason the attention to guests is far superior on Crystal Bach. In addition, I would bet the dollar spend per head with regards to food and amenities is far higher also. Kelly I think you would enjoy the Crystal product on the river. It has the "Crystal" feel that you know and love and the intimacy of a small river boat.

[goldengatecruisers]

Well it seems our internet honeymoon is over and it was with a jolt. For the first week we all experienced acceptable speeds and access including iCloud which, for most of us on Apple products, allowed our iMessage feature to work effortlessly and our calendar, mail and contacts to synchronize successfully.

 

I responded to an earlier question asking me about onboard internet and at the time I was very pleased with the speed and consistency. However, a decision was recently made by Crystal, and I might add the decision was not made by those on the ship, to limit and restrict the internet usage and accessibility to iCloud. It has left many of us stranded in some way because many people use iCloud for work. I am definitely affected and while I can find a work-around it adds a level of inconvenience to my ability to continue working. For those of us who are not retired and who have to check in with work during a vacation it helps having a reliable and consistent internet service with access to iCloud. Do I like having to be connected while on vacation? Absolutely not but sadly it is a reality that many guests need to check in with their offices. In my profession it has become an acceptable form of communication for clients to connect via iMessage. I am very disappointed that a decision was made almost one week into our cruise to restrict and limit the usage. Apparently I was told Crystal realized they had given too much access to the guests on Bach and instead of allowing the access to remain the same until our final port of Amsterdam they shut it all down without notice or announcements.

 

I am not usually one to write negative posts but I have to say this has left a sour taste in my mouth. I am very disappointed. To give passengers something for the first half of the voyage and then take it away seems pretty lame. The Crystal marketing machine touts itself all inclusive and all exclusive and yet it arbitrarily removed a very important aspect from my Crystal experience. Having internet access and the ability to sign in to my iCloud account is of importance to me and to many of the guests on board. I don't necessarily have to FaceTime or send large video files but being able to access my client files and send contracts with ease is vitally important to me. I spoke with IT on board and had a chat with the Hotel Director who promised to contact the powers that be to see if they can reinstate the internet service at the same level of accessibility for the duration of this voyage. We will see what happens.

 

For now, its back to a lousy on board internet speed and back to using data plans or cafe wifi spots at every available opportunity on land. P.S. loading up sites such as CNN and Cruise Critic is suddenly very slow whereas before they popped up with ease and navigating Cruise Critic for example was super easy and fast. Not so much any more. Lets see how long it takes to upload this thread post. I will let you know if things improve.

[Jayayeff]

Sorry to hear about the internet challenges. As you know it was pretty dismal when I was on the Mozart last year but I would have thought a year later they would be providing a service that was 'fit for purpose'. I think the majority of people travelling these days need to have fast and reliable internet service wherever they are. I agree that we can get by without Facetime, Skype, Netflix, etc. etc. but full use of our smart devices and acces to 'cloud' storage is pretty much a must have these days...

 

Hope they restore internet access to what is was asap...

 

Anne...

[Host Jazzbeau]

All the posts about poor internet speeds onboard ships [all lines] have usually claimed that this is inherent in the technology. So it is very interesting to learn that Crystal CAN provide really fast internet if they CHOOSE to. If their service is unique this way, you'd think they would make it a selling point, instead of turning it off. :confused:

[JohnKen3]

Is it just iCloud that is affected or the internet in general?

On the Mozart last year, they implemented ridiculously fire-walls.

 

The work around is to however, is to near or stay on the Crystal excursion buses which also offer free wifi. The wifi on the Crystal excursion buses was way more reliable both in terms of speed as well as no fire-wall. Our laptops travelled with us on every excursion. It became a bit a joke as we had to save all our internet upload/download for excursion time. The engine of the excursion buses must be on for its wifi to work.

 

The wifi on the busses works totally differently to the ship (land based vehicle mobile as oppose to satellite on-board the boat?) and is way less restrictive than on the ship. Give it a try.

[RLMSLL]

When I was on the Mozart for two voyages in May, the wifi worked far better than what I have experienced on Symphony and Serenity. I was able to access my roadrunner email, which is typically a problem on the ocean ships. I have to forward the roadrunner email to my gmail account in order to access it on Crystal's ocean ships. This was not necessary on the Mozart. It was however necessary on Tauck's Inspire when we sailed a few years ago soon after its launch.

 

The wifi on the buses worked well in Hungary and Austria, but Crystal did not appear to have an account set up for Germany at that time. Hopefully by now they have set up accounts in the additional countries where Crystal's river boats are sailing.

[goldengatecruisers]

Good Morning from a scenic spot on the Rhine river as we cruise to Koblenz. Castles galore - literally everywhere you look along this very pretty part of our journey. Most of the passengers are either sitting in Palm Court and those of us who are brave enough to face with cold wind on top deck are wrapped in tartan blankets sipping hot chocolate. Our wonderful bar staff are keeping us warm with these lovely drinks prepared at Bistro Bach.

 

Last evening we participated in the Crystal event on land which was a private concert at Schloss Johanisburg. We were transported from Bach to our Crystal buses by means of a small train, similar to those used as tour trains in amusement parks. It was a lovey and novel way to get us to the buses which were a few hundred yards from the river boat. Then a 15 minute drive to a spectacular property up on the hill where we were greeted with sparkling wine and other beverages. We socialized in front of the main house and were then escorted into a private hall for our concert. Four young ladies known as Finesse performed for about an hour and to the delight of the guests. I am not sure how many guests took advantage of this evening but it seemed to me only about 50 or so. A shame the others did not come as they missed a great evening. Finesse are a stringed instrument group and they played a variety of classical and modern music with a beautiful lighting concept within the venue which added to the ambience. When we returned to Bach, Chef Matthias greeted us with a fabulous spread in the Bistro which seemed to go down well with everyone. A night cap in Palm Court with friends and then it was off to bed. It was a long day and one which included another E-bike tour so we were ready for a good night sleep.

 

I have some positive and encouraging news regarding our internet service:

 

The ships staff have been advocating on our behalf to restore our internet service to prior speeds and efficiency. I am pleased to report that the IT manager on board made special effort to find us to personally inform us things have been restored. I ran down to my laptop to load up my work emails from iCloud and felt it appropriate to hop on to this thread to share the news. The response from the Bach has been genuine and the problem at hand appears to have been resolved. Thank you to our wonderful on board staff who have tried their best to get this back to the way it was before. I know all the guests will be grateful.

 

Jazzbeau your comment made me sit up and think. Here is an opportunity for a cruise company to offer superb connectivity and yet for reasons we may never know they chose to restrict it and slow it to a snail's pace. I guess I don't truly understand all of the background noise associated with internet service on board a ship or river boat and I wonder if the service Crystal has to pay for is based on usage or bandwidth.

 

Thanks also to JohnKen3 and others for suggestions of using the bus wifi.

 

In any case, I, for one, am very grateful for the restoration and this way I can continue to let you all know about the wonderful journey we are having with the Crystal Bach.

[goldengatecruisers]

Last nights Crystal Signature Event

 

 

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[goldengatecruisers]

Scenic Rhine cruising en-route to Koblenz

 

 

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[Jayayeff]

Great photos, and lovely weather you have for your scenic cruising...

 

Anne..

[nancygp]

Ashley,

 

Thanks for posting the beautiful pictures.

 

So,glad you and Kelly are having a great time.

 

Enjoy,

 

Nancy

[goldengatecruisers]

Thank you Nancy. Yes we are having a great time on board. You have to do this!!

As promised in an earlier post here are some photos from last nights dinner. Apologies for the lighting on a couple of them as I am not used to photographing food.

 

 

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[goldengatecruisers]

 

 

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[goldengatecruisers]

PS that food was not all mine although I have been known to indulge in 5 courses [emoji13]

 

 

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[Keith1010]

Ashley, food looks amazing and we know it was all yours. :)

 

Photos are terrific.

 

 

Keith

[goldengatecruisers]

Guess I'm busted!!!! We had a superb tour in Cochem and just returned to Bach for a spot of lunch and then an afternoon of scenic cruising. Weather is glorious and 72 degrees with blue skies. Hopefully we will get some good photo opportunities along this next stretch of the river. I took a photo of Bach alongside in Cochem .

 

 

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[Jayayeff]

More great photos, you are doing a brilliant job as a reporter at large and I'm sure those with upcoming bookings will be very grateful for your efforts....

 

Anne...

[goldengatecruisers]

Thanks Anne. Really I'm just trying to help others who might have upcoming river cruises. I was so desperate to see information prior to my sailing but no one posted anything from the inaugural. This way people can get excited about their trips and quite rightly so. It's an amazing product and I think Crystal have done a superb job. I plan to write up a summary at the end. If anyone reading this is contemplating traveling on Bach or for that matter any of the Crystal river vessels you should have no hesitation in making a booking. Everything about this is top notch. It is true Crystal style just at a slower pace and it is such a civilized way to see the rivers of Europe. I'll take some photos from our upcoming scenic cruise. I was told it might not be as dramatic as the other day but I'm sure the scenery will be lovely. Thanks for the nice comments Anne

 

 

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