Hi Beav,
We are also Crystal ( and Radisson) cruisers and have been reading with great interest the comments on this thread as well as Ngaire's comments regarding her present Fam trip on Crystal. I am awaiting her overall review before I weigh in with my comments. Agree with your comments completely.

BTW, how do you obtain your $400 Mastercard "gift card"? We pay with Mastercard for all of our cruises.

On our last Crystal cruise this past Sept. we did obtain "prepaid gratuities" from our TA but not on previous Crystal cruises. When I asked my TA about this wonderful bonus for future Crystal cruises she commented that this was a Crystal special for this cruise only. Does your TA offer the "prepaid gratuities" on all Crystal cruises?

thanks