Onboard the Crystal Symphony During Its Return to Service

Peering out of my suite at Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik, a 19th-century hotel with views of the walled Old Town and the shimmering Adriatic just beyond, it was hard to imagine being thrilled to leave.

But I was about to board the Crystal Symphony, the second of Crystal’s pair of oceangoing cruise ships. A mere 18 months prior, both vessels had been repossessed in the Bahamas during the bankruptcy of the Chinese parent company. Yet now, after the Crystal brand had been purchased by the parent company of luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent, and the ships totally reimagined in down-to-the-steel refurbishments at Italy’s Fincantieri shipyard, we were to board for the first sailing, a cruise to Athens.

We weren’t quite done with Croatia just yet, though. To preview some of the shore excursions Abercrombie & Kent is planning to integrate with Crystal’s oceangoing cruise, a group of 15 boarded a luxury tour bus for the nearby hamlet of Orašec. There, in a stone house bathed in bougainvillea, we learned about the pressing of olive oil in a horse-pulled stone mill before sitting down for a tasting replete with baskets of fresh bread and plates of olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and fresh cheese produced on the estate.

Next, it was on to Mali Ston, a seaside village on the Pelješac Peninsula where a stone wall snaked up the hillside. Built in the 1300s to protect the region’s salt production, the Walls of Ston are second in size only to the Great Wall of China. At a nearby oyster farm, we sampled fresh shellfish before returning to town for a seafood lunch in the shadow of the village’s stone tower.

These are exactly the intimate touring experiences from Abercrombie & Kent that the relaunched Crystal is planning to integrate with the ocean cruise, explained Jacqueline Barney, Crystal’s senior vice president of global marketing, over a lobster appetizer in Osteria d’Ovidio, the new Italian specialty restaurant concept onboard.

Abercrombie & Kent purchased Crystal with the intent of returning it to its roots, with two tweaks to the brand—dropping “Cruises” from the name, and refraining from any mention of the word “luxury” in the line’s marketing materials. “If you have to say you’re ‘luxury’, are you really?” she says with a wry smile.

If anything, though, the ships are back even more sumptuous than they were before. The overall number of cabins has been reduced as some smaller cabins were made into suites. Going into drydock, Crystal Symphony had space for 848 passengers—now it’s just 606. The guest-to-crew ratio is now roughly one-to-one, and even though the ship was fully booked for our sailing, it felt about half full, with a noticeable lack of crowding in virtually all of the public areas. All room and suite categories now have butler service, although there are additional services and amenities provided in the higher suite tiers.

That space ratio is industry-leading in the luxury sector—and it was deliberate—says A&K Travel Group CEO Cristina Levis. The ship’s 84 cubic feet of space per passenger—and a crew complement just as loyal to the brand as the passengers. While the passengers were waiting for Crystal’s comeback, Levis says, so too were the crew who had worked onboard before the previous parent company’s bankruptcy. Some of them even declined contracts from other cruise lines in the interim so they could return immediately to Crystal when they received the call, the team says—she noted nearly 80 percent of the crew onboard were returning.

Later, on a tour of the ship’s refurbished staterooms, we learned that Crystal had gone to great lengths to balance a modern refresh of the ship with the Crystal experience that guests had known for years. Many suite categories come in two flavors—classic design, with more focus on wood paneling (and bathrooms with tubs), or a more contemporary refit (with larger showers replacing tubs).

Both ships had their casinos removed during drydock—a move that Levis said was already being reversed after swift and decisive guest feedback. Adding back the casinos won’t be a simple task, she notes, and there's no announced date for when the project might be completed.

There's another noticeable difference with Crystal Symphony that belies her history: Although the ship’s interiors are all brand new, the 1995 vintage means that her propellers are shaft-mounted, making for more noticeable vibration onboard compared with newer cruise ships (Crystal Serenity, built in 2003, has newer, smoother pod-mounted propulsion).

There are other ships in the pipeline, Levis says, with plans for four more ships—two oceangoing cruise liners and two expedition ships—to be built in a European shipyard in the coming years.

Guests can also expect the upcoming builds will maintain the same design aesthetic of Crystal’s senior ships—no wild amusements, no gimmicky onboard activities, nothing meant to fool guests into believing they're anywhere but a luxury cruise ship at sea. Guests might spend their days dining in Umi Uma by Nobu Matsuhisa, indulging in the famous black cod marinated in Saikyo miso with baby peach and young ginger, or in the main dining room Waterside restaurant with a sophisticated menu of both classic and contemporary dishes.

There’s also the typical cruise dining assortment—ice cream parlor, buffet, grill, coffee shops, and 24-hour in-suite dining (guests in top suites can order room service from Umi Uma or Osteria d’Ovidio), but all top-quality. For entertainment, aside from the line’s legendary White Party, there are production shows, an onboard movie theater, or an impressively wide selection of treatments in the Aurora Spa, including massages using coconut poultices or bamboo, cosmetic medi-spa services administered by a licensed physician, IV treatments for hydration and vitamin intake, teeth whitening, facials, and a full host of salon services.

In short, Crystal is back, in all its glory. And even if they won’t describe themselves as luxurious, their guests almost certainly will.