Getting ready …
In 10 days my husband and myself will be sailing the Rhine on Crystal Bach…getting super excited!!
Unfortunately, we received an email on March 6, just 3 weeks before our sailing, that the departure time from Basel was moved ahead from 8 pm to 5 pm. All aboard time would be at 4:30 pm.
That totally freaked me out as our flight arrival time at Basel is 2:30 pm on the departure day. So I sent an email to Crystal regarding the sudden change and they replied that if we missed the boat then we’ll have to pay for hotels but they would try their best to assist. That’s a “typical” reply from the cruise company. So my warning is NOT to arrive on the same day as embarkation! They even gave us the emergency number of the “Ravel” though we are sailing on the “Bach”. Crystal’s pre- and post-cruise customer service and communication is definitely below par, as seen from a few of the past incidents. Get a good travel agent to make sure that everything goes fine before the actual sail date. Look at the route map below that shows our sailing from the official Crystal site that says “Danube River” instead of “Rhine River”. Numerous little mistakes like that are all over the Crystal website.
Hopefully we won’t have to use the contingency plan.
Travel with Wismergirl 