Sadly not as wonderful as expected.

Crystal Symphony Cruise Review to Transpacific

cjclark53

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 69

Overall rating:

3 out of 5

Verified Review

11 Night Isles Of The South Pacific (Papeete To Auckland)

Sail date: December 09, 2016

Ship: Crystal Symphony

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 5008

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 7 years ago

Review summary

I was truly impressed at the caliber of activities they had available for the days at sea. There was a wide array of excellent speakers and truly top notch instructors for the wide variety of classes. That said, it was disappointing that we could not go to key ports that were the entire reason for the trip: Cook Islands and Fiji, but Mother nature was very uncooperative.

The cruise could still have been excellent if the cruise theme of "Food and Wine" had been better executed. 2 cooking demonstrations, 2 limited wine tastings and one evening with some dishes by the specialty chef did not a Wine and Food cruise make. To make it worse, the food was not as good as on previous Crystal cruises and at our final dinner i couldn't eat my duck (nor my husband his beef) due to the heavy hand with salt.

Evening entertainment was excellent; Crystal dance hosts were very good and they had excellent musicians on board for the lounges and some specialty entertainers for select evening. Plus the "I Imagine" show was excellent. Service as always was spectacular.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

The menus were more inventive than average but often fell short. There were a number of times i couldn't eat food because it was overly salty. And the steak i had one night when nothing else appealed isn't as good as we do at home. And even Nobu (Silk Road) didn't seem as magical as previously.

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5

Excellent bridge instructors. Very good and fun movie people - loved their apps talk. Interesting speakers - lawyer, anthropologist, public affairs specialist. Unfortunately no regular Vintage food and wine pairing dinner was available.

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Really good musicians on board. Excellent violinist (Marta), pianists, the Crystal Band was top-notch. Very good special performers. We were very happy with the availability of good music.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Fabulous crew. Pumla our stateroom attendant was great - so helpful and caring. Very good dinner staff (table 85 - I forget his name!). Always loved being served by Kiko in the Lido. Great servers in the Crystal Cove in the evening.

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

Boy space was tight! We learned to deal with it but it was very difficult maneuvering for two people!

Ship tip

Staff is first class, accommodating and will go out of the way to help you, get you whatever you need or want. Musical entertainment and on-board activities were excellent. I wish the food had been as good as on other Crystal cruises.

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