I joined the ship in Sydney for last 20 days. Air travel involved 3 planes to Sydney, usual scenario, long lines at security, searches and of course no meals on the 2 planes from FL to LA. Hotel room in Sydney was good, hotel food rather poor and very expensive. Boarding was as per usual, lines and confusion. Once on the ship, a crewmember took my carry-on to escort me to my cabin. He got the deck correct but then did not know if he had to go right, left, forward or aft once he got there. I found out that he had joined Symphony only a couple of hours prior to my arrival and had never been on a Crystal ship before! Luckily I knew the ship better than he did. Once in the cabin I found my luggage waiting for me which was excellent.

When I read the ship activities sheet I realized things were going to be very different on this cruise. There were 100 Full World cruisers on board and just over 200 segment cruisers. Dining was not two sittings or assigned table, but "open seating, doors open from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m." This was a bad error. With Crystal still using personal gratuity plan, the staff would be financially short at end of trip. The kitchen proved to be in chaos, since it meant that some passengers were requiring desert whilst others were just starting their appetizers. This resulted in incorrect food or badly cooked food being served up. Examples: When I cut my breakfast pancake it oozed a gooey mess of uncooked batter over my plate. An order of "link sausages and broiled tomatoes," came up as one thin sausage and one half tomato. I asked the waiter to return it to the kitchen for a bigger portion. He returned very upset, still only one sausage but they had added an extra half a tomato. I was told the kitchen "had no more sausages, that it would take half an hour to get further supplies from the storeroom and to cook them". I made do. I ordered "Fresh raspberries with ice cream" and received "Blueberries and whipped cream," and an order of "fried Oysters" came up as "Oysters Rockefeller", a side order of "Fried Onion Rings" came up as "two spoonfuls of chopped braised onions "as is usually found on a hamburger. On the French night I ordered the soufflE at 7:50 p.m. and was then informed that "the soufflE will not be served so early, you will have to wait until 8.30 p.m. for it." As I was going to the film at 8.15, I settled for vanilla

ice cream. Read more