It's a Wrap!

We've been home for a few days now so here are some final thoughts on our first river cruise.

First of all, it was great and we had a fabulous time.  We loved traveling with our "psychiatrist" Ms. Cathy Kris, she's loads of fun and the best travel partner ever. 

Before we left I had a bunch of questions and some concerns regarding this cruise, the following are my conclusions related to some of them:

1. Did I miss the ocean and the ocean-going experience? Yes I did, but this all fell into perspective once I realized that river cruising is not ocean cruising and that the two should not be compared, they should be appreciated for the things that make each form of travel unique.  To me, the biggest advantage of river cruising is reaching those special landlocked places that might otherwise go unvisited, for example Budapest.

2. Did the Mozart live up to expectations?  Big time. From the refurbishment (you would never know this was a 25 year old ship) to the food (all made on board using the freshest ingredients) to the service (there is always someone around ready to do your bidding).  The food was outstanding, better and more consistent than on the ocean ships, despite the limited menus.

3. Was it all perfect? no, there were a few issues like a flooded cabin halfway through the cruise, like the showers that leak (a lot) no matter what you do to prevent it, like the botched Culinary excursion upon arrival in Vienna, but this is really nitpicking. Overall, it was a very successful sailing despite the small shakeout issues.

4.  Unfounded concerns? yes, like the number of electrical outlets in the standard cabin (only 1 US type but quite a few European).  There are so many USB ports to charge phones, iPads, cameras, etc. that I never missed the plugs.  I did take an adapter and used it once.

5.  The fixed windows cabin. We had paid for a French balcony cabin but shortly before the cruise Crystal told me that they had no cabin for us in that category (oversold I suppose, compounded by the late-in-the-game reconfiguration of the suites which resulted in fewer balcony ones).  They offered suitable compensation which we accepted and gave us a fixed window (bottom of the window is at water level) instead.  Bottom line, I would pay the extra money for the balcony on any future river cruise for two main reasons: 1. About half the time during a cruise the window will be smack against the dock wall or another ship (rafted) and therefore the cabin will be in darkness.  2. I love fresh air and would like to have the option of opening the balcony door.  Also, the views from the fixed window are limited (you can only see the water when standing up close to the window) and it would be nice to admire the scenery from the cabin when sailing during the day (a few times during the cruise). Some people had commented that one spends very little time in the cabin during a river cruise and therefore having a balcony is not a necessity, but we found that we wanted to spend some time in our cabin, particularly in the afternoons to get some rest away from the public areas.

6. Underutilized areas? the pool and whirlpool! We soaked up in the whirlpool three times at the end of hot and tiring days and we were the only ones there. There is a nice "relaxation" area with a few comfortable lounges and big windows facing the river and I never saw anyone there either.  I assume this area may get more use in the cold weather sailings.  Also the Sun Deck seems to never have too many people on it but again this could be due to the heat with many people choosing to stay indoors.

7.  Anything missing? we love baths and we missed having a bathtub (only PH and up have them). It would also be nice to have Blue open for dinner and with a tapas style menu (such as Tastes).

8.  Demographics? similar to Crystal's ocean going ships.  We were definitely in the minority, with many passengers in their 60s and 70s and a three or four multi-generational groups.  The majority was North American with some European, South American and Asian groups, probably in that order.  Well over half of the passengers were past Crystal cruisers.

9.  Crew.  First rate, several outstanding like our cabin stewardess Mihaela and many of the servers whom we truly enjoyed interacting with.  I expect that once the other river yachts roll out in the next couple of years and the pool of trained Crystal crew grows the experience will resemble that of the ocean ships even more.  Deserving of special note are of course Mark Farris who is doing a great job and is an awesome ambassador for the Crystal brand and also Christian Mondaca who's running the restaurants so well.

10.  Disappointments?  only one.  The much advertised Wider speedboat, which was supposed to be offered by invitation only to Crystal Society members (past Crystal cruisers) for special boat rides, never materialized.  We learned on the last day that it was available to anyone for a fee of euro 180 per person (and as far as I could tell this was never communicated to the passengers).  I really was looking forward to this, not sure why this wasn't done as advertised, I would have even paid the fees if I had known. I suspect that it may have had something to do with the fact that there were so many Crystal Society members on board.

11.  Would I do it again? certainly but only for very specific reasons, like a Christmas Markets or a very special destination not reachable by sea or not likely to form part of a land trip.

Finally, kudos to Crystal for rolling out a very polished product when, according to a manager on board, barely 4 weeks before the inaugural sailing it seemed impossible that the ship would be ready.  They are doing a great job and I assume some of the inevitable issues will get smoothed out in the next weeks.

For now, good bye from the three amigos!

Days 9, 10 & 11 - Majestic Vienna

The list of famous people sprung from Vienna (or Wien), the Austrian capital, is long and illustrious and spans many centuries of greatness in the arts, architecture and science, but it is not surprising that a city as charming and beautiful as Vienna would inspire and elevate the minds and hearts of so many to such soaring heights.

We arrived in Vienna much later than anticipated, close to 5 pm rather than 2 pm. Partly because it seems we spent more time than usual in one of the locks, and partly because the Crystal Mozart is heavy.  This appears to be the result of a difference of opinion between the engineers and the designers of the ship, a battle the designers clearly won.  The Mozart's beauty and understated elegance are due to a large extent to the abundance of natural stone used throughout, and this makes her, well... a slug.

Our late arrival meant that our scheduled excursion was condensed from the original 3.5 hours to barely an hour. We were rushed to Café Frauenhuber, Vienna's oldest coffee house and Mozart's frequent hangout (in fact, his last performance in 1791 took place there). 

There were about 20 of us on the tour. We sat down inside and it was stifling hot so someone suggested we sit outside where it was much nicer. Before we knew it, a waiter came out angrily yelling and waving his arms, telling us we were not allowed to sit there! We shrugged and went back inside and noticed that there were a couple of tables next to open windows so we sat there welcoming the slight breeze. We hadn't even put our things down when the lunatic came back yelling that we could not sit there either (mind you there were no other patrons in the place) so we went to take our "assigned" seats. You should have seen his face, this man was angry and very, very rude, but only a few minutes later he approached our table to take our order and he had magically transformed into Mr. Charm, all smiles and grace. Unreal. We were given a few short minutes to enjoy our Sacher Torte or Strudel and coffee and to top it off, as we were leaving the café a downpour started so we had to run through the streets back to our bus to be driven back to the ship in haste. All in all an unmitigated disaster of a tour which should've been cancelled.

Later that evening we had our Belvedere Palace Special Event. The palace was open only to Crystal Mozart's guests. We were greeted in the Sala Terrena with flutes of champagne or orange juice; we then made our way up the grand staircase to the exhibition rooms housing the work of various prominent Austrian artists, including the famous Klimt "The Kiss" and my personal favourite "Judith".  We then entered the Marble Room which had been set up for a concert. A ten piece orchestra, opera singers and ballet dancers gave a lovely performance, which was made even more special when a powerful lightning storm came down providing a very dramatic background to the music. This was indeed a special event which happened to coincide with my birthday. Happy Birthday to me!! Back on the ship close to midnight, a lovely buffet including a delicious goulash soup was waiting for us.

The next day we started out by taking a taxi to a local gym for Blake's workout. The place was hilarious, it had every weight lifting machine known to man but equally important, it had the most impressive collection of pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian Oak, in every imaginable pose. After the workout we decided to ride the public transit system back to the ship. It was painless due to the friendliness of a local couple whom we asked for directions and were kind enough to give us detailed instructions.

We had our last lunch at Blue and I was presented with a small but delicious birthday cake by head waiter Mattias, which he could not deliver the day before since we had skipped dinner because of a late snack.

That afternoon we went on a hiking excursion amongst the vineyards of Vienna.  This was a great tour which involved some pretty active hiking up and down the foothills of the Austrian Alps. The views were gorgeous as was the small town of Grinzing where we stopped for an Austrian refreshment of cold snacks and wine.

It was our last night on board and we had yet another amazing dinner followed by a hilariously awful one-man show which we left after just a few minutes. Our bags were waiting to be packed so we called it a night.

On every single cruise there is one thing we hate: disembarkation. It starts with having to leave the luggage outside the cabin before going to bed the night before, followed by a rush to have some breakfast and be off the ship by approximately 9 am. Once off the ship you're on your own man. It's all over, finito. It is generally a brutal and abrupt return to real life.

But on this river cruise? no siree; we only had to make sure we'd vacated our cabin by the most reasonable hour of 10 am, other than that, we were free to stay on board or come and go at our leisure until our included transfer to the airport scheduled for 5:15 pm. So we had a lovely breakfast, left our luggage on board and took off to explore Vienna on our own.

The three of us took a bus from the Millennium Tower station to the city centre where we wandered around the Ring Road and on to Stephansplatz and many other gorgeous sites. After a beer at Café Diglas we set off for Schonbrunn Palace.  Hot and tired we made it back to the ship at around 3:30, had a lovely lunch at Blue, sat on deck looking at the swans on the Danube and finally left for the airport. All is well that ends well and this was a marvelous way to end our first river cruise.

Days 7 & 8 - The Pearl of the Danube

Sailing into Budapest is one of those experiences that stay with you.  Spread on both sides of the Danube, Buda (the hilly side) and Pest (the flat side) offer amazing, inspired views that keep on coming. We had signed up for "Budapest in a Nutshell", a four hour tour which took us from Heroes Square and the main city park, replete with gracious structures and bronze statuary, to the other side of the Danube to magnificent Matthias Church, built in the gothic style in the late 14th century.

An afternoon discovering the city centre on foot was rewarded with some successful shoe shopping therapy. Wide, graceful pedestrian streets lined with restaurants and shops, beautiful architecture and friendly people.

In the evening we went to one of the special events put on by Crystal, dinner at a Michelin star restaurant of our choice.  We had picked Winekitchen and were part of a group of ten or twelve guests.  The five course dinner was amazing as were the paired wines, all Hungarian of excellent quality.  Following dinner we were taken for a nightlights tour of Budapest which revealed magnificently lit buildings and monuments together with large, happy crowds of people enjoying a warm summer evening out.

The following morning we went on a tour of the Parliament Building, the most splendid, over the top sumptuous and gilded government building I've ever seen.  Next was the Great Market Hall, which CNN has named the most amazing market in Europe. It was fun to shop for some of the ingredients for what will be my first Hungarian Goulash!

Budapest stole my heart with all its beauty and grace, it goes on the list of places to visit again one day.  Sail away was glorious and we were soon on our way to Vienna.