Get ready to savor every bite.

Courtesy of Crystal

There it is. My absolute favorite dish in the world: chef Nobu Matsuhisa's black cod with miso. As it's set before me, I can't help but feel a tiny grin form on my face, knowing I'd be biting into a familiar but ever-delicious dish in mere seconds, made sweeter by the fact that I wasn't eating it in one of his famous haunts in Malibu, New York, or London. I was eating it in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

On a balmy summer day in July, I boarded the brand-new Serenity, a ship by the freshly relaunched Crystal Cruises. And when I mean fresh, I mean new with tags, paint barely dry, and a pool filled to the brim mere moments before I stepped aboard. Usually, I'd damper my expectations for a first-on cruise, but in this instance, I didn't have to. Because from bow to stern, including its flawless interior crew, it was already spectacular.

The journey back for Crystal Cruises has certainly been an epic one. In 2022, the cruise line's parent company was forced to auction off its two ships to settle debts, Maritime Executive reported. They were purchased by cruising and shipping icon Manfredi Lefebvre d'Ovidio. Lefebvre d'Ovidio purchased the ships through his other investment in Abercrombie & Kent (A&K Travel Group), an already well-known and beloved brand for luxury land excursions, bringing together two powerhouses for one stellar new product. However, Lefebvre d'Ovidio didn't give his team years to develop and renovate the two ships. He gave them exactly 12 months. And nearly to the day, the ships were launched.

Stacey Leasca

“Some whispered, some shouted ‘they will not make it,’ but here we are,” Cristina Levis, CEO of A&K Travel Group, shared at a group event the night of our departure. “What happened in the last 12 months, in my opinion, is exceptional.”

The cruise certainly has a lot of new going on, from updated, more spacious rooms and suites to new itineraries all over the world, including voyages through the Mediterranean, Europe, Canada, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Australia, and a newly revamped gym and pickleball court on the top deck. Its interiors now look more akin to a 5-star hotel out of the Belmond or Dorchester collection than a cruise ship. However, there are a lot of classics returning too, like some 80% of the company’s previous staff, including the return of Crystal veteran Günter Lorenz, the vice president of food and beverage operations, who’s been with the company since 1991.

“There’s been a big evolution,” Lorenz shared about the refreshed menus onboard as we sit basking in the sun through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Tastes, one of the ship’s eleven distinct dining venues, this one a bit more low-key than the others. “Firstly, people now know more about food,” he said, crediting social media for that, adding because of just how snap-happy travelers are these days, “plating is even more important.”

Though Lorenz noted that the company likes to stay on top of food trends, it’s also focused on providing its guests with mainstay classics, including buffets where guests can find almost any dish they’re dreaming about. In fact, according to Lorenz, the chefs onboard have developed nearly 6,000 menu items, making it entirely possible to spend a lifetime eating onboard and never have the same thing twice. And as much of that as possible is sourced locally in port.

“Our chefs can go out and get the freshest fish or seafood or vegetables they need,” Lorenz explained, noting that, of course, this is still a cruise line, so mass orders are natural. However, regionally sourced cuisine “is all possible.”

Courtesy of Crystal

And yes, all the dining here is outstanding, from the grab-n-go style buffet at Marketplace and the sit-down dining at Waterside to the Italian fine dining at Osteria d'Ovidio, right down to its ice cream shop, Scoops. However, if you were to book this cruise for one reservation and one reservation alone, it would have to be for Umi Uma, a restaurant and sushi restaurant by chef Nobu Matsuhisa that, much like the staff, has returned to Crystal bigger and better than ever.

"Nobu always says, 'If the guests want something, please try to do it. Even if we don't have it on the menu,'" Tokunaga Takashi, the executive chef at Umi Uma, said. "The most important thing is the guest."

As for what's refreshed at the restaurant, other than the decor, not much. And that's exactly what guests want. "We always put a Nobu signature plate on the menu," Takashi shared.

Here, those signatures include the aforementioned black cod with miso, which I tried to eat as slowly as possible, enjoying every morsel of the sweet meets savory, buttery smooth dish. This dish, after all, requires marinating the fish for at least two days, thus earning more than a mere moment on your tastebuds.

"We try to get guests smiling," Takashi says. "The yellowtail jalapeno dish is a signature to us. We make maybe a thousand plates a day of it. But for the guest, it may be a special day. This is maybe someone's birthday, a special event, a special date. That's why we always think this one single dish is the most important dish."

The bites from Umi Uma were, without question, the best onboard, but I'd be hard-pressed to find a meal I didn't devour with unadulterated glee throughout the sailing. I ate breakfast from the buffet on the back deck, watching as dolphins chased our ship from Italy to France, dug into freshly grated truffles over homemade pasta on an Abercrombie & Kent curated excursion in Tuscany after searching for the high-end mushroom alongside a local farmer and his truffle dog, Bianca, and went back for a personal record number of cones brimming with gelato at Scoops. And found myself surprised with bite after bite, thinking, really, this is all found on a cruise ship? Yes. And luckily for me, and you, it's all included in the cost of a ticket. (Sans excursions, of course.)

"My goal is when you leave the cruise, you should have gained two kilos,” Lorenz says with a laugh." And it's duty-free.”