Thanks for all the great welcome greetings from everyone!

With just one completed and one advance booking w/Crystal, we are not 100% loyal to the line. At least not yet! I'm sure our day will come to sail RSSC, Silversea or Seabourn (if it would just hurry up a little!). But Crystal being our first cruise away from the mass market lines, we were certainly 'blown away' with their product.

Med4bike, to answer your question, we booked our next Crystal cruise through a large Internet agency. I normally steer clear of such agencies for lack of personal service. But since they were offering prepaid gratuities, shipboard credit AND the $400 Mastercard kickback, I thought I would give them a try. Luckily, I discovered they have a small staff that handles only the luxury cruise lines, which means I'm able to deal with the same agent throughout the entire process. And she has been just great. I'm not sure if the agency prepays gratuities for ALL Crystal sailings, but they do at least for all the ones I've seen on their website.

Kathy, we are in beautiful Walnut Creek!