Crystal Symphony Review
First Time Crystal Cruisers - Experienced on other Lines
Rating by category
Additional details
We picked this cruise because we’d never taken an ‘all-inclusive’ type cruise and this one was a short 7N from New Orleans which is close to us. I’d seen the various pricing sheets showing how close in cost a cruise on a Line such as Crystal was to a ‘standard’ Line such as Celebrity, which we’ve cruised 20+ times and wanted to see if they were true - it’s true! At least for the shorter 7N cruises.
We loved this ship and the entire Crystal experience. I will be giving my opinion about this cruise by comparing it to our Celebrity experiences. I won’t cover the ports - it was a Western Caribbean and been to all of them. Spent most of the time on the ship. So here goes.
Embarkation: With barely 800 passengers, it’s not nearly as crowded as our previous cruises. The larger ships handled the 2000+ well, but this was better than nice: as we walked into the terminal, they asked us if we were suites or standard SR, and gave us a number. When called (waited about 10min), we walked onboard and checked in there. Given our keycard, gave them our paperwork and charge card and that was that. 5min max. Handed a drink as we walked further in and off to a lunch in the main dining room, not a buffet. And was introduced to ‘Crystal’ Dining - wow. Will talk on that shortly.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Stateroom with Verandah
Cabin: We had a standard Deluxe Veranda SR (B1). Well laid out and handy. Comfortable bed. Storage was adequate with drawers pretty much all around the room. According to the numbers, this SR is suppose to be larger than the standard Celebrity SR, but it just seemed smaller. Not a big problem, just smaller even though the sq ft showed it larger. The bathroom was OK, and had enough storage and two basin sinks. It was a small bathtub/shower with curtain. I wasn’t big on that at all. Like the shower stall only. Bathtub was pretty small. The veranda was small, about half the size of a Celebrity one, but nice chairs and large enough table for breakfasts. Meet our needs fine. This SR only had two outlets. One US One Euro. So I suggest you bring a Euro converter so you can then have two plugs. Not sure of rules on bringing extension cords and multiple head cords. Nearby was a small laundry - very handy. I’ve always said we didn’t need them on a cruise, but it was a nice addition.