Crystal Symphony Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Great food, moderate sized ship, clean, gracious crew.

We sailed Crystal Symphony on a 20 day San Francisco to New York cruise in August 2018. Great cruise and Crystal provided high quality service. We were impressed with the new restaurants that have been added, Churrascaria and Silk - so with 5 places to chose from we had lots of choice. The service was excellent and the spacious and relaxed atmosphere in public areas was what we have come to expect from Crystal

This is second time reviewing this Cruise for United. The run did not go to Santa Cruz at all. The main destination is the great ship and all its’ venues. So many choices of activities. The best for us was cruising and enjoying the Crystal

embarkation was a breeze. We just walked through the lounge, stopped at the table, got our boarding cards nd picture taken, then we were on board. No lines, no waiting. We were met by stewards with champagne. Nice start. The rest of the cruise was high class all the way. Minimal waiting in the dining venues, but that was it. When we tendered, we walked out and straight onto a tender. Again, no waiting. Tender pulled out when another tender pulled up, no waiting for it to be full. Food was fabulous! Entertainment was five star. Everyone from the captain on down was friendly and attentive. One of the best cruises ever.

We will not be booking further voyages with Crystal, for sure.

We are on the World Cruise right now headed to Ft Lauderdale FL. As always the butler, service in the venues, food in dining room and cafe are wonderful!!! But there are now three Asian restaurants, which is not enough variety...we need German or Mexican or Irish Pub. The Italian is a fabulous break from the main diningroom. The new decor is now bkack, gray and white with glass and chrome -- which gives off a cold and unfriendly feeling. A far cry from the burgandy, na y and forest green with the cherry wood railings and trim that made it warm, comfortable and welcoming....more luxurious feeling. The entertainment is a lot of repeat shows although very good. Could use some new music...still same period of music just new songs. Enjoy the soft piano music as it invites conversation, but they have added some loud guitars which are not as much of a special feeling. So did not feel like coming home this time .... our with cruise.

Best company out of the twelve I have used previously

Wonderful trip full of magical memories. Crystal is family that treats all guests with respect and warmth. The all inclusive extras make it special

I love this cruise line and my experience. Once you have cruised with Crystal and enjoyed the fantastic food and service, you will look at Crystal offerings before considering any other.

Overall our second experience on Crystal's Symphony somehow seem to lack the magic of our first experience. Whether due to having been one the ship before or something else we could not quite determine. We also experienced the strong odor of waste in the rear section of the 8th deck on two days and this was really disgusting. All members of our party also developed Upper Respiratory Infections either while aboard (1 person) and within 1-3 days of disembarking. This could have come from the flight over or from the ship. I believe its that latter and hope that somehow additional efforts can be made to reduce exposure. The ship offers some cabins with PURE air filtering and if we rebook on Crystal I will ask for a PURE cabin.

Crystal is undergoing either problems or growing pains since a change in ownership early this year.  Staff is wonderful and the trip and tours were great.  However, there is needed ship upkeep and there have been significant cut backs in services since our Crystal cruise last year.  Staff is somewhat stressed but great.

Supposed room updates were non existent and the staterooms on the 9th deck are to be converted to penthouses so there will be limited space for those who do not want to pay penthouse prices.

This is not the same outfit we traveled with last year and plan to look elsewhere until Crystal gets it's act together.

We visited six ports of call in 10 days. The organized tours helped us make the best use of time in port. Lots of activities on ship made for fun and variety. The ship itself is like a floating four star hotel. Almost any need was anticipated in advance. The regular wines included in the tour were great selections, much better than typical everyday fare. Several different eating venues with convenient times, good variety, and great service helped to round out a vacation of a lifetime. We can't waiting to cruise again.

Service was very good as was food. Would have been nice to stay in Estonia overnight. Seemed because of time of year perhaps, that tour sites were very crowded.

Please see my commentary on the next portion of this cruise - Portsmouth to Stockholm.

Our room was terrible on this portion of the cruise.  Powers to be were not very helpful and a refund for our troubles was a spit in the ocean.  Worn sofa, pee;ling surface of the bath tub when taking a bath etc.

Housekeeping and wait staff were fantastic as well as the ports visited.

Second time on Symphony and can't wait to get back.  First class service all the time, never a let up.

Great ports of call in Beijing and all over Japan.  They took the entire ship to Beijing for a three day, two night excursion, all part of the cruise fee, nothing additional.  On top of that, the accommodations and food were first class and the sightseeing just incredible.  We had an amazing tour guide the entire three days, Oscar on Bus #22, and his contributions were essential in making Beijing a memorable stop.

Japan is in full bloom with cherry blossoms so every stop was beautiful. All the stops were exciting.  The ship made the decision to miss a port to avoid possibly being stranded in the strait for a couple of days, courageous and correct decision and one that was well communicated to the entire ship.

We had one problem on an excursion and Crystal immediately refunded our cost to us.

Food was incredible.  Just cruised on Celebrity Solstice around New Zealand two months ago and they are about five levels below Crystal.  Nice having all inclusive cruising as well, even though we don't drink.

We loved the destinations, all were up to our expectations and Crystal really know how to treat a guest.

would recommend this to experience many places without unpacking/packing and flying constantly.  great itinerary   Our cruise specialist, Trisha Kirkbride (luxury cruise agent)was great and always took care of every detail    Would highly recommend her.

The overall experience was extremely positive but then we got very lucky and fortunate which improves everything. We were assigned a table of six for the early seating. We ended up with two other couples who we had so much fun with that the highlight of each day was having dinner with them.  The cruise was under booked with about 550 guests. They had about 480 staff and crew on board so you could not move far without someone helping you or serving you. Food was excellent in all aspects of the club. We did not do Prego or Silk Road much as we wanted to enjoy our friends in the main dining room. Those two places were very good as well. The Lido Cafe for breakfast/lunch was exceptional. Trident Grill makes an excellent hamburger. Most of our excursions were cultural in nature and we found them very informative and enjoyable. Others on board had excursions that they felt less positive about. I really thought the "at sea" lecture series to be one of the highlights of the cruise. What fantastic people sharing their experiences. The evening entertainment was also very good especially the show "Imagination". Thee were some "hiccups" at times but in a three week cruise this can be considered inevitable. Some friends had less positive experiences in terms of services rendered and excursion availability but these were more exceptions rather than normal practices. Overall ships comfort was impressive. Some rough sea days (10 feet + seas) made walking about interesting but not impossible. Stabilizers did an impressive job!!! I would be happy to take a Crystal Cruise again. I am not sure I would fly 20 hours to do so.

This was our first Crystal cruise.  The food and staff was outstanding.  We enjoyed the quality of the lecturers and the selection of excursions.  Many of the excursions sold out but the ship staff was very accommodating on wait listing for availability. 

One comment:  We were given vouchers for $500 each for the next cruise, which expire May 2018.  We signed on for a next cruise on board - London to Stockholm, which starts in June ! Any suggestions ?

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.