When you watch a video of Tina Turner singing "Simply the Best" in her legendary 1990 Amsterdam concert, you could be forgiven for wondering if she was singing about the crews on the Crystal Symphony and Serenity.
In a world of five-star wannabes and luxury claims raining down all around, Crystal walks the quality walk.
At least, that's been both their reputation and my own impression, based on two previous sailings. But it has been a while, so I was back onboard the Serenity, on a sailing from San Juan that flitted about the Caribbean for 10 days, returning to Fort Lauderdale.
The last time I was on a Crystal ship, I witnessed one little detail I had not seen on any of my previous 124 sailings. As passengers began disembarking, crew members who I knew were off-duty showed up on the pier and at the gangway entrance to personally say goodbye to their new "friends." There were lots of hugs and kisses.
Having worked for one of the major lines, I know that you can't get crew to volunteer to do that during their time off. This has to come from the heart.
But I began wondering if in this age of pricing pressures and strong competition, Crystal would really be able to match its advertising claims. I had my doubts.
Not that cruise advertising bears much relevance to truth. Finding hype in the cruise industry is about as difficult as finding lobbyists working the halls of Congress.
But Crystal, with only two ships and fewer than 2,000 guests at any one time, somehow manages to underpromise and overdeliver so consistently that it remains virtually unchallenged as the midsize luxury leader.
On this sailing, I was determined to find out how this can be. After all, you pay for all your drinks on these ships. Standard cabins are just cabins, not suites, and you have to actually tip the people who serve you. To further distance itself from the five-star cruise designation norm, Crystal makes guests select either the main or later seating in the dining room.
So, on paper at least, one might argue that Crystal is a line with five-star pretensions but without the hardware to carry it off. Then there is the sheer number of guests. Can you share a luxurious, intimate experience with a thousand fellow passengers?
I wanted to find out what is at the root of the Crystal mystique. Are they really that good? How do they overcome their constraints to so dominate the consumer polls in Conde Nast Traveler and Travel+Leisure?
As I journaled what I observed onboard, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Gen. Colin Powell: "If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception. It is a prevailing attitude."
I kept a diary filled with "Crystalettes," little matters that other lines often simply miss. Here are a few excerpts from my notes:
• On the transfer from the Crystal pre-cruise hotel in Costa Rica to the port, special seats were blocked out for children so they could enjoy the best views.
• The cruise director was so appealingly unintrusive that we wondered where he had been trained. Public address announcements were dignified, brief and professional.
• Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" has become Crystal's theme song. In each port, his mesmerizing voice wafts over nearby passengers aboard lesser brands as the Serenity pulls gently back out to sea.
• The specialty restaurants are, in my opinion, the finest at sea. On the Serenity, the Silk Road is guided by famed chef Nobu Matsuhisa. I would book another trip on the Serenity solely for a chance to try, once again, the chef's signature broiled black cod with miso. But savvy diners can sit at the Sushi Bar and order from 35 or so sushi specials. This would be a $300 dinner experience for two on land, and I doubt that the service would be nearly as good or the setting as unique and relaxing.
• The library is well stocked and staffed by a gentle librarian who seems to have read every volume in her care. I heard her make some excellent recommendations to some pretty challenging inquiries.
Each of these things added to the experience, but none explained why Crystal wins all those awards when measured against ships of smaller size and better staff-to-guest ratios, especially when they are not as inclusive as most of their five-star competitors.
I thought I might find the answer during this cruise, but by the end of the first day, I realized that the Crystal "secret" lies thousands of miles away.
For three hours on embarkation day, I sat on the Lido deck, quietly observing what was going on around me.
The Filipino deck and wait staff approached just-arrived guests and, amazingly, remembered their names. They started talking about their last cruise together, recalling details that made some of the passengers wonder, after they walked away, how they could possibly remember "with all of the passengers they meet."
Every new guest was subtly approached by a crew member who formally introduced himself. He would then call over some of his colleagues for more introductions. In less than one hour aboard ship, the guests had made new friends among the crew, after which they had someone who would watch out for them as well as a small team that would know them by name and anticipate their needs.
While this scenario was unfolding, a white-uniformed Norwegian officer would occasionally walk through, signaling that the operation of the ship was in good hands.
But in the end, the Filipino crew is Crystal's secret weapon. They wage an ongoing stealth campaign to endear themselves to each and every passenger.
So, Crystal's secret is not hidden below decks or in some corner of the ship. It turns out that the secret to Crystal's extraordinary service springs from the Intramuros district in Manila, where the line's owner, NYK Line, a global Japanese firm, has established its crew-training center. NYK-Fil Management trains Crystal crews at the Manila facility and in Iloilo in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.
NYK-Fil, and therefore Crystal, maintains a strict policy: Crew must undertake rigorous training for a period of six months or longer before being deployed.
In June 2007, NYK-Fil and local partner TDG opened a new college-level training facility in Calamba, Laguna, about an hour south of Manila. This institution, which trains Crystal crew members, is considered the finest facility of its kind in the world.
The NYK philosophy of service is based on the Japanese principles of kaizen and kaikaku. Kaizen represents the belief in continuous improvement. Kaikaku is the never-ending journey for innovation and radical change. Kaizen, particularly, is an attempt to bring back the thought process to large-scale business endeavors. Workers use the scientific method to make recommendations and to eliminate policies that serve no purpose. The Japanese concept of kaizen is credited with, to use just one example, Toyota's success.
NYK's training emphasizes that when these ancient approaches are brought together in harmony, the path to true excellence begins.
For 10 days on the Serenity, I was allowed to follow that path. It led me from one of the world's best ships to a series of buildings in one of Manila's oldest neighborhoods.
That's where you learn to be "Simply the Best."
Contributing editor Richard Turen owns Churchill and Turen, a vacation-planning firm that has been named to Conde Nast Traveler's list of the World's Top Travel Specialists since the list began. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.
