This reminds me of that old ploy used by some guests at the Beverly Hills Hotel (which reminds me a lot of Crystal, all saccharine and over-stuffed fluff) where a poolside lunch guest would arrange ahead of time for someone to call them, just so they could get paged in a very public way and let all the other guests hear the sound of their own name.

The Crystal CC fans mention this forced name remembrance more than any other feature they value about their Crystal Experience. Nice to learn how this happens behind the scenes. This indeed is a money maker for Crystal, as their repeat passengers love it. Wow.

Maybe instead of trying to figure how much more each meal costs on Crystal, all other aspects being equal I should figure out how valuable it is to hear the sound of your own name parroted by an overly trained staff person. I guess for some this is priceless.

This forced name-recognition beats HAL ships, hands down. I don't think HAL would ever force their employees to learn the next batch of passengers names and familier by rote, just to suck up to them. HAL service is more spontaneous and genuinely friendly yet always professional.

HAL service people seem to genuinely enjoy their jobs, no matter who the passengers are. They know the art of hospitality first. It is in their make-up and I gather this is how and why they get chosen for their jobs in the first place. They don't rely on cloying memory tricks to establish fake rapport. They don't have to.