Crystal Cruises
Crystal Cruises was formed by NYK in the end of the 1980's to sail worldwide cruises, different from most Japanese owned cruiselines that mostly keep their cruises closer to home. Although NYK operated just the modest Asuka at that time, they intended the new ships for the Crystal Cruises brand to be quite big for Japanese standards.
Crystal Serenity was built in St.-Nazaire at Chantiers de L'atlantique as yardnumber H32. Her tonnage is 68.870 and she is 241 meters long, 29,60 meters wide and her draft is 7,50 meters. She can accomodate 1080 passengers and 635 crew on nine decks. She flies the Bahamian flag and recieved a 5-star plus rating by Berlitz.
She is the biggest Japanese cruiseship ever built, although her captain is Norwegian and her crew mostly American and European (from around 40 different countries). On the 7th of july 2003 she floated out as the thirth ship for Nippon Yusen Kaisha's Crystal Cruises, 36 percent larger than the Crystal Symphony.
Crystal Serenity looks quite different from other liners, mostly because the unusual placing of the lifeboats. This has two advantages, at first the promenade deck is clear of the obstruction and second, no single cabin's view is obstructed. In general, Japanese ships are outside-orientated. All Crystal ships, even this big liner, have an outdoor promenade that is really open and there is a lot of outdoor space for the passengers. This in contradiction to the big western cruiseliners that are mostly faced inside to get more money out of the pockets. But allthough she is an outside ship, the inside is very marvellous too. She recieved a five star plus rating by Berlitz and that is somewhat outstanding for a ship of this size, taking only 150 passengers more their her smaller fleetmates.
The ship is marketed as a familyship, but most passengers seem to be around 50. Crystal Serenity is a quiet ship, but you can learn to play the Yamaha keyboard in a room filled with 30 of these in the ships Creative Learning Institute, a unique classlike environment.
In 2006, the Crystal Cruises fleet was reduced to two ships when Crystal Harmony left the fleet. Besides Crystal Cruises, NYK had one ship under their own banner named Asuka. Because of this name, the small cruisedivision is also known as Asuka Cruise. When Asuka was transferred to Phoenix Reisen, the Crystal Harmony became Asuka II. At this moment, Crystal Cruises are talking about a replacement within a few years but they do not want to rush it. It is also not known or this new Crystal will be larger or smaller then the Crystal Serenity. But we can really look forward to a splendid new Japanese liner when she will be sailing, that is for sure.
