Crystal Serenity: 10 Things to Love

Crystal Serenity docked in Nassau (Photo: Gerry Barker)

By GERRY BARKER

In the history of cruising, few cruise lines have commanded guest loyalty like Crystal. It’s not uncommon to find guests who have cruised over 100 times, and some, 200 times (the record, by the way, is 403). There’s even the well-known story of “Mama Lee” who actually lived on Crystal Serenity for over a decade.

You can imagine what a shock it must have been when Crystal’s parent company, Gentling, declared bankruptcy in 2022, placing the future of its beloved fleet in limbo.

Enter A&K Travel Group — the parent company of Abercrombie & Kent — which acquired the Crystal brand and quickly set into motion a $150 million refurbishment for Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony. And like the phoenix, both started sailing again in what has to be the comeback story of the year.

Still, the big question waiting to be answered was what would returning guests think about the “new and improved” Crystal? To find out, and see the changes for ourselves, we set sail on Serenity on a cruise from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This was our second sailing on Serenity. In 2019, we were onboard for a 15-day, Caribbean holiday cruise, and had a chance to take a brief tour the “new” Serenity a month ago. We now had eight days to get reacquainted.

​Here are 10 things that we loved our cruise on Crystal Serenity:  READ MORE