Crystal River Cruises Offers Bonus Commissions on 2018 Departures

Crystal River Cruises is offering a $250 commission bonus on each 2018 segment booked on the Crystal Ravel and Crystal Bach, as well as a $500 bonus savings for your clients.

The two vessels are new – the Ravel joined the Crystal fleet in April, the Bach last fall – but were scheduled to operate 14-night river cruises. The longer cruises weren’t selling well, so the company shortened them into six- to nine-night “getaways” on the Rhine and Danube rivers. “There is plenty of inventory between May and November,” Walter Littlejohn, vice president and managing director of Crystal River Cruises, told travel agents at last week’s top-producer gala.

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Fares start at $2,535. Such fares and bonus commissions are an opportunity for travel agents, Littlejohn said. “There are lots of opportunities for you to make a great commission and overrides toward end of year,” he said. “You put a client on Crystal River Cruises and it’s like an annuity.”

That’s because Crystal “brought true luxury to Europe’s rivers,” he said, in part because the company operates their own hotel services, restaurants and even the motorcoach service. The food is all brought onboard fresh, nothing is prepared in advance somewhere else.

“There are no mashed potatoes out of a box, no frozen breads that are warmed up, no pre-prepared soup, no pre-prepared desserts from a local supplier,” Littlejohn said. “It’s a la minute presentation. When the chef de partie gets your order for carrots, he begins peeling those carrots.”

The only items not sourced locally are flown in weekly – fresh lobster from Maine or Canada, and fresh oysters from France.

With 68 crew members for just 106 passengers, Littlejohn said Crystal also boasts the highest crew-to-guest ratio. Crystal’s four sister ships – also including Crystal Debussy and Crystal Mahler – are 135 meters long. “There are ships of that size that carry in excess of 200 passengers,” he said.

The Crystal river vessels also have butler service for all accommodation categories. The lowest category is called a “petite suite” and measures 188 square feet in size. About 70 percent of the rooms are the Deluxe Suite with Panoramic Balcony-Window, which is about 253 square feet. The panoramic window turns into a French balcony when the top half is folded down into the bottom half.