READY, SET, GO

We enjoy reading all your comments so keep them coming.

Thank you Joan & Mac for your very thoughtful comments.  It is hard to believe we first met 17 years ago on a Crystal Cruise and first the day of embarkation at Dover Cliffs.

Gill...Many thanks for your thoughtful comments and for following along.

Patricia...You are so right.  Often, one of the challenges of travel is getting to and from the ship.  We thank you for your kind words.

Thank you Arlene for following along and for your kind words.  This cruise will undoubtedly be an adventure and our restart of travel.  It is amazing the impact which one virus has had on us individually and the world-wide population.

​Tomorrow our adventure begins.

Part of the fun of cruising and travel is all of the planning which goes into each adventure.  While it takes more time to prepare for a very long voyage such as a World Cruise, we still devote considerable attention to shorter cruises such as this one.

We each do our parts.  Anne Marie pulls together detailed listings for each and every item we take with us from clothing to toiletries.  Keith books the cruise, hotel, flight(s), transfers, restaurants and shore excursions.  

We work individually and together on most of this, running by what we've come up with with one another before we finalize each item we are working on.

There will be changes since we traveled last and part of this is due to COVID-19.

There was even a change for final documents.  In the past they arrived approximately 30 days prior to the cruise in a Crystal Document Holder.  

This time the documents were sent to us electronically.  Approximately four weeks before the cruise we received to our home page one of the documents which provides a bar code which will be scanned at check-in as part of embarkation along with a new type of pre-printed luggage tags.

The previous luggage tags provided spaces for each guest to write in their name, penthouse/stateroom number and date of voyage.  These tags had the information all pre-printed.  We removed our suite number and last name from the photo but it was on the tags.  They are two sided with the same information on each side.

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Even though the document package is different we were excited to open the envelope and seeing the tags is another reminder our cruise is almost here.

Before we close, we have many people to thank.

​We wanted to begin by thanking our Travel Specialist Gerri.  For over a year, Gerri followed up for us on several issues related to cancelled cruises and pushed for their resolution.  At a time when some friends told us their Travel Agents pretty much abandoned them as their revenue collapsed, Gerri had our backs and was with us every step of the way.  

When the bookings for this cruise opened in the evening Gerri was on top of this.  Gerri is truly a gem.  

We also are thankful to Gerri's assistant Gabby for all of her help. She has followed up on each and every item and continually provided us with updates.

Thank you again Gerri and Gabby.

Many thanks to Crystal Cruises personnel from many departments on land to those of you at sea.  Every one was supportive and helpful and followed up on each item.

Well, it's time to buckle our seatbelts as tomorrow is the start of a new adventure and we hope to make memories which will last a lifetime.   

Cheers,

Anne Marie & Keith