Wayne Gerber

Age: 41 to 50
Occupation: Computer Specialist
Number of Cruises: 3 to 5 Cruises
Ship: Crystal Harmony
Itinerary: Alaska Inside passage 

Great ship  probably the best food I have ever had!

While there were some misses on the food they were pretty rare!  The steak, lamb and fish were all superb. This is the first cruise i have been on where all the desserts tasted as good as they sounded on the menu! The staff is probably what sets Crystal apart from other cruise lines.  They could not do enough for any passenger.  The staff also goes along on the shore excursions to ensure that there are no problems.  The room steward we had was excellent and our room was made up within 20 minutes of us leaving the room.  We ordered coffee for breakfast with danish etc.. The rolls were still warm from the oven when we received them!

The waiter in the local bar where we waited for dinner time was excellent,  the waiters prepared a plte of appetizers for you and brought it to you without being asked and they came by to ask if you wished more.  The steward who worked in the Lido area where the breakfast buffet is served was excellent always stopping by to see if we needed anything and wanted to bring us more coffee juice etc...

Our waiter in the dining room was OK he seemed to be confused by the fact that the women at our table could make up their own mind and wanted to see the dessert menu, he was average at best.

The ship itself is 10 years old and while it was in dry dock in 1995 and just recently, has more little bits of rust here and there than any other ship i have been on.  This was really odd in that the inside of the ship was kept extremely clean as you would expect, however we had rust on the trim around our stateroom window as well as the windows in several common areas, the stanchion on deck 7 and 11 where we walked all had rust at the bottom!

The Lido area where breakfast is served is too small for how many people eat there this is due to the fact that they added the Kyoto and Prego restaurants took over 1/2 of the Lido area.  Breakfast in the dining room was OK but there is not the selection as the buffet had of fresh fruit.

Lunch Buffets are even worse they set up in the pool area with one line that every one has to go thru if you just want one item people will not allow you to "cut in" for that one dish.  The food at the buffet was very good but it is not really worth the efforet to stand in line, in my opinion. 

There is no midnight buffet, instead waiters carry trays of appetizers all around the ship to offer to passengers, this si a much better arrangement in my opinion.  To make up for this they do one grand buffet lunch in the main lobby and then you go into the dining room to eat.  The only complaint I had with this was that they had allowed 30 minutes for picture taking before people could eat, at the end of 20 minutes they let people start to eat, this to me was very poor as I was in the middle of taking pictures when people started to destroy what i was taking pictures of! 

Shore excursions were all handled well and were priced reasonably, the descriptions were good as far as the degree of difficulty they were all geared toward someone who was elderly.

Going to/from the airport was handled the best of any cruise I have been on.  The people met us at the gate when we got off the plane as opposed to meeting us at the baggage claim.  When it came time to leave the ship we were sent to the Fairmont Hotel

which is located at the airport where we were served a very good buffet lunch and then went downstairs to get our bags and checked in went thru customs  and flew home.

We visited Hubbard Glacier , we had the Glacier all to ourselves when we were leaving the are 3 other ships all cruised in at the same time!

At Glacier National Park we were their alon again and a HAL ship came in to see the Glacier as we were exiting we stopped/slowed at a few more point by that time the HAL ship had caught up with ours they spent probably 1/2 the time there that we did.

I feel that it is important that you check to see how long you will spend at the Glaciers if you are comparing cruise ships!

on a scale of 1-10 i would rate this cruise a 9 based on the ship itinerary and the weather which was perfect!

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