Crystal Serenity offers a luxury cruise experience with a personal butler for every passenger. Photo / Tiana Templeman
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like having a butler on your cruise holiday, now is your chance to find out, writes Tiana Templeman.
My husband and I have boarded Crystal Serenity for a luxury cruise and are about to find out what it’s like when the person unpacking your suitcase, picking up after you and plying you with treats isn’t your mum. Everyone on this ship gets a butler, including us.
We’ve only been in our suite for a few minutes, but one thing is already clear – this is going to be no ordinary holiday. Our accommodation is the epitome of casual opulence with plush furnishings, a separate living room and floor-to-ceiling windows. We’re still admiring it when our butler, Alexander Feo, rings the doorbell and introduces himself.
I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. Alexander is charming and trying his best to be of service, but we’re self-sufficient travellers and refuse every offer of assistance. Would we like our clothes pressed? No, they’re fine, thanks. Some more drinks in the mini bar? Thank you, but no. There’s already enough complimentary booze in there to last us for weeks.
“Can I open your champagne?” asks Alexander, gesturing to the gleaming silver wine bucket set up on the coffee table in the lounge.
We exchange a furtive glance. This sounds lovely but opening a whole bottle when we only want a glass seems wasteful, so we end up politely saying no yet again. Our poor butler looks crestfallen.
“There is one thing,” says my husband.
Alexander’s eyes light up.
“Could we have some more bottles of water, please?”
I suspect our butler is more accustomed to guests asking him to keep them fully hydrated with champagne, but he doesn’t miss a beat.
“Of course, call me anytime if you need anything else,” he says, and shows us how to dial him directly, using our in-room phone.
Cruise ship butlers are experts when it comes to getting to know their passengers’ preferences. When Alexander realises our service style is low-key and friendly rather than formal, he invites us to call him Alex and is more sociable and relaxed.
Each time our butler drops by our cabin, he makes time for a quick chat and a joke but never oversteps the mark by being too familiar. It takes a few days but his joie de vivre and natural graciousness encourages me to (finally) make a special request.
When my husband heads to the coffee shop to grab a sweet treat, I give Alex a call. Like all cruise ship butlers, ours looks after multiple cabins, so he’s attending to another guest when he picks up the phone. He promises to stop by later, but this proves tricky as we can’t plan the surprise when my husband is there.
Going above and beyond is what butlers do, and Alex is no different. He comes to see me on his break when he notices my husband leaving the cabin. It may have taken us a while to catch up but it’s worth the wait. Alex takes my simple idea and gives it the butler treatment, promising me he will create a night to remember. It is.
A few days later, I take my husband to the lobby bar for a drink as planned so Alex can prepare our stateroom. He’s waiting inside it when we return. The lights are low, and the dining table is set with white linen, a red rose, an electric candle and a scattering of shiny red love hearts.
Outside on the balcony, there’s another linen-draped table holding a cheese plate and a chilled bottle of champagne. Alex lifts out the bottle and flicks open the neatly folded white cloth hanging over his left arm. He wipes beads of moisture from the bottle’s surface in one fluid motion.
“May I open this for you now?” he asks, presenting the bottle for our approval. This time the answer is yes.
Alex has even managed to track down the Bluetooth speaker I requested because I’d left mine at home. I find out later he borrowed it from one of our housekeepers, who is kindly letting us use it tonight. Our three-course meal is served course-by-course by Alex, accompanied by matching wines and the romantic Spotify soundtrack I created.
Before our cruise we were worried that having a butler might feel weird or uncomfortable. But it’s more like having a well-connected friend who knows everyone who’s anyone. If we want a last-minute restaurant booking, our butler makes a few calls and makes it happen. When my husband needs to borrow a jacket, one appears in our walk-in wardrobe and is the perfect size. Alex also makes sure my chocoholic husband has a constant supply of the ship’s delicious truffles, without him even having to ask.
Unfortunately, there’s one thing that even an exceptional butler like Alex cannot do. Make our cruise go on forever so we never have to get off the ship.
The journalist travelled courtesy of Crystal Cruises.