We recently returned from Crystal Cruises newest ship: the Serenity, which left Ft. Lauderdale on December 7th through the Panama Canal, disembarking in Los Angeles on Dec 22, 2004

Perhaps we are getting jaded. This was our 9th Crystal Cruise and about our 150th in total, but we didn't think this cruise was up to par. In the first place, you would think Crystal, which has been rumored never to have made any money would have learned a few lessons from building 2 other ships, but apparently they did not.

Ship designers should be forced to live in their mistakes, but no one seems to hold them accountable. Case in point: There was hardly a comfortable chair in sight anywhere on board. In the Lido Café (open seating breakfast and lunch) the chairs were very low slung and the tables were high, so you had to reach up very uncomfortably to eat. Considering that the ship caters to the Japanese (it is owned by a Japanese firm), they must have been even more uncomfortable, being smaller than the average American. The showrooms had many columns which interrupted your lines of sight. The movie theater showed many first run movies in a comfortable setting, but the projection system was a bust, grainy and often out of focus with unacceptable sound quality. It was probably just tapes or DVD's, poorly projected. In these days of high fidelity motion pictures, this is unsatisfactory. I couldn't sit and watch no matter how much I wanted to see the show.

The Crystal Harmony came first at 50,000 tons and 940 passengers, followed by the Symphony (same tonnage and passengers) but the cabins were a little bigger as well as some of the public areas. The Serenity is 68,000 tons and holds 1080 passengers, but the cabins, although slightly bigger are quite small and they still have ¾ size bathtubs so the average American can hardly fit into one. The main problem with all the ships is 2 sittings. 6:15 for the early sitting, which is too early to eat and 8:30 for the 2nd seating which is too late to eat.

The ship was less than ½ full, with a little over 500 passengers, so this was not a popular cruise, but it was well priced. We noticed, however, like all cruise lines, Crystal is cutting corners, or at least they did on this particular journey.

We checked into our cabin and found no fruit bowl as advertised and it took a couple of calls to our stewardess to get one. We also had to call a couple of times until they replaced a broken deck chair.

There was only one, instead of the usual two, Crystal Society parties(for repeat passengers who comprised about 70% of the ship.) after dinner only. But who wants to drink and eat appetizers AFTER DINNER?

Some of the good points. Really good activities such as a Yamaha keyboard class, with one raffled off at the end of the class, all complimentary. Excellent computer classes and free use of the computers for viewing and manipulating your digital pictures with Adobe Photoshop, which I used a lot. There was always professional help available as well. There was, however, a charge for the internet and printing @ $.50 per page. Other Crystal ships had a business center where you could print anything for free. No charge soft drinks, bottle waters, and fancy coffee, new to Crystal and a nice touch.

We had onboard credits of over $1200, thanks to the Crystal Society, American Express and our travel agent. You used to be able to use your credits in the casino. Now you can only use them in their very over priced shops (Would you believe $85 for a man's tee shirt!) or on the outrageously priced shore excursions which we have been on too many times in very familiar ports, the gratuities, were also pre-paid for us. So we loaded up on unnecessary clothing and jewelry and drank a lot.

The casino was smaller than the other Crystal ships and didn't seem as nice. Older slot machines, and a crap table that didn't open until 9:00 P.M.

Subtle differences we found on this voyage. Poor pastry, public bathroom soap often empty, slow and sometimes non-existent breakfast service in the Lido, very greasy bacon, weak coffee, lousy eggs benedict with watery hollandaise sauce. The lunch buffets were not up to usual Crystal standards. No crab claws or big shrimp. On the big signature buffet they served a steamship roast which was tough and not prime meat. Cheap, stale cold storage peanuts to nibble on in the bars instead of fresh cashews and almonds we were used to.

The hot tubs on deck were the right temperature (102 degrees). The pools were kept clean and sparkling. New toiletries were a nice change. They actually squeezed out of the bottle, but I missed the old Crystal sewing kits where all the needles were threaded with a different color thread.

Overall, it is still hard to beat the food and service on Crystal. It wasn't as good as we remembered, but most of the cruise lines are cutting back and adding on board charges to compensate for otherwise lost fare revenue. To Crystal's credit, they have added activities as well as free deluxe coffees and soft drinks.

Not our best Crystal cruise, but interesting and we certainly didn't starve. You can still order anything off the menu, including caviar, when you dine.




Recommended: Yes

Best Suited For: Seniors