Legendary Crystal Cruises sets sail again. But is this what young cruisers want?
Crystal Cruises, one of the world’s most legendary liners, returns under Abercrombie & Kent ownership. But does this heritage brand work for today’s young professionals? Adam Bloodworth goes aboard to find out
Aboard the reborn Crystal Serenity you’ll find the first Nobu restaurant at sea, a signifier of the ship’s gleaming $150 million refurbishment. There are also gold-embossed suites with comfy beds that would feel airy and spacious on land, let alone in the middle of the ocean. But guests are all asking for one thing: “They miss the pea soup,” Jean, my butler, confesses. “People loved that pea soup… They’re going to have to bring it back.”
Such is the level of dedication of the Crystal Cruises clientele that a dish has gained cult status. Posh restaurants are all well and good, but when you go home for the weekend you just want home cooking and, well, when you go on Crystal Cruises, you just want the pea soup. One lady I met on board enthusiastically boasted that this was her 25th time with the firm, which started sailings in 1988.
I was gutted to miss the soup, but it was the future I was interested in. Crystal Cruises went under in 2022 but were bought by the luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent earlier this year. Having undergone a huge refurbishment, Crystal Serenity, the first of the ships to sail again, is taking passengers from this month. Virgin Voyages has done a lot to make cruising feel relevant to younger audiences, particularly for people of working age, but could Crystal appeal to millennial audiences?
I was sceptical and had never been on a sea cruise before. However, a not insignificant proportion of my inner circle had been gossiping about the return of Crystal. A cohort of Londoners I trust said that no one does cruising like they do, plus, Abercrombie & Kent, leaders in luxury touring, were on board. My curiosity got the better of me and soon I was ascending a gangway in Naples, looking up towards a beaming man on the gangway, his hand outstretched, cloaked by an even more beaming white jacket. “Welcome to Crystal Serenity, sir.”
Some things that happened in my first ten minutes on board: a man in black tie turned up at my cabin door and told me he was my on-board 24/7 butler. He told me he’d press my shirts, deliver me limitless champagne, and serve me canapés in the afternoons. He also smiled at me in the corridors every time I saw him in a reassuring fatherly way. It was the sort of smile that says everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be honest, by the end of the cruise Jean had become invaluable emotional support. Sod therapy, imagine having Jean at home.
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Also in the first ten minutes on board: a rather attractive pianist serenaded me one on-one as I made my way through the ship, telling me “good afternoon, sir” with the sort of smile, and technical prowess on the keys, that left me frankly needing a cold shower. If I’d had one, I could have spent a few minutes deciding which of the three shower heads I would use, and upon which marble shower ledge I should sit, to freshen up. (Yes, the shower in my room was the size of a steam room.)
Crystal has been tirelessly working to debunk the notion that cruises are old hat. Bigger suites, excellent restaurants and refashioned public spaces are fit for a modern era. Even the most basic double room comes with its own lounge area and a wall-sized window for decent sea views. To do all this, they hired a former Soho House brand manager to rethink what cruising should look like today, and the cluster of newly imagined public spaces aboard are certainly the sort of places I’d hang around in if they were in London. The suites are nice enough that you can spend hours relaxing in them as an activity in itself, without feeling you’re missing out on something on the top deck. I spent hours lording it up on my full-length sofa drinking champagne and looking out to sea. Who needs activities when you have this?
When I wasn’t drinking wine in my suite I was probably eating. Two new restaurants, Nobu and Umi Uma, have their curtains closed as a way of saying, ‘hey, we might be on a boat, and there might be great views, but look at our décor! We’re a gorgeous enough restaurant that you needn’t look at the views.’ I understand the intention, even if we did open the curtains anyway: the food and service is genuinely on par with restaurants in Mayfair. Both have set menus which change daily and daily-changing wine pairings. My favourite was neither of these, but the Waterside restaurant, which lives up to its name and then some: book a table on the edge of the ship for brilliant views out to sea. In here there’s absolutely exquisite modern cooking. I have no idea how the dishes are made this freshly when we’re at sea, but I stopped thinking about that as it felt like too much hard work, and just ate: pasta with anchovy, and a steak with king prawn surf ‘n’ turf, the steak on par with anything I’ve had in London. One night I double dinnered just because I was on holiday and I have absolutely no regrets.
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I haven’t even spoken about the exemplary top deck vibes, with swimming pool and hot tub, live music and panoramic views. The truth, though, is that all of these enhancements, funded by the cash and decades of experience of Abercrombie & Kent, are just a fabulous backdrop for the timeless joy that is cruising. Dour old boats with sad buffets and tiny cabins made the idea unattractive, but now that it can be done in style, there’s an incredibly good reason to enjoy the feeling of being at sea.
Humans have an undeniable attraction to water. We’re born into it, spend our weekends walking along it, and haemorrhage our bank accounts to live near it. As Ratty says to Mole in The Wind in the Willows, “there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Dare I say it, but many of us have stressful jobs and our own mental health challenges. A few days spent staring at the ocean is an intensely calming experience and that is why cruising will never go out of fashion, although, of course, the industry faces challenges with carbon output as we all face up to questions about climate change.
There are other challenges too: the on-site excursions aren’t quite yet at the quality Abercrombie & Kent would like them to be. The practicalities of the tourism industry mean tours with local guides can get booked up by travel operators years in advance, so it’ll take a year or so for the day trips to become as bespoke as Crystal would like. And some of the on-board entertainment couldn’t quite reach the heights of the world-leading food. But the wine experience I took in Tuscany certainly left me sated, and sloshed, and I even took some photos like a poseur in front of the old masarea we visited. What more could you want?
Later, back aboard, an island shifted slowly past my masseuse’s window. Afterwards, I hit the sauna and watched that same island, still drifting past, which felt like a hypnotic experience as the waves of heat rose from the sauna. It was one moment of peace before the organised chaos of night, when a DJ was playing on the roof. By the small hours one guy jumped in the pool fully clothed. My preconceived notions of people sitting around playing bingo felt impossibly far away.
Book Crystal Cruises yourself
Crystal offers cruises all over the world. As an example, sail on board Crystal Serenity for 10 nights from Miami to San Juan on November 13th from £3,500pp based on two people sharing a double guest room on an all-inclusive basis including airport transfers. Excludes flights. The Sapphire Veranda Suite Adam stayed in costs £6,600 per person