Holyhead tour missed- tour operator not happy

STATEMENT FROM BUSYBUS

Dear valued clients and friends

18 BusyBus staff were approaching the quayside of Holyhead this morning after a 2-hour drive (leaving Liverpool at 4:30am) with a fleet of 9 vehicles and guides when, at 6:07am, we received the catastrophic news of the decision to cancel the arrival of your ship, the Caribbean Princess.

The weather conditions at the time were showery with moderate wind and clear visibility. The sea looked relatively calm and we have tendered many times in far worse conditions. The forecast was showers with 24mph wind until 8am but from then onwards we were looking forward to a bright, partially sunny, calm day with 8mph winds. We could actually see the cloud seam coming our way with blue skies beyond validating the forecast. In fact, during our journey back to base we entered bright sunshine at 7:50am along the coastline.

On this basis we have challenged the decision to force a "day at sea" on the passengers. We are aware that a day at sea is significantly more profitable for the company than a day ashore, especially in ports like Holyhead where many savvy travellers organise their own shore excursions rather than using the ships.

We have the track of the ship that shows it sailing into rough conditions which could, naturally, convince passengers into agreeing it must be unsafe to tender and, thus, justify a decision to abort arrival on the excuse of “weather and/or safety”. Please see the attachments.

We are also aware that the potential to abort a port was conceived yesterday evening departing Liverpool with an announcement that the journey to Holyhead would be choppy. When we heard this reported to us last night we were suspicious of the intentions today. Nevertheless, we needed to continue as normal and thus walk right into the disastrous commercial losses we’ve had imposed on us.

We are, therefore, deeply cynical that the decision to abort Holyhead was of commercial origin and will issue any further updates as we receive them but sincerely hope that Princess Cruises will at least act responsibly in providing you all with some onboard credit to ease some of your pain and disappointment. I am sure they can spread some of their commercial gains of today with you.

This statement doesn’t help in reversing anything but I felt it necessary to share in what I hope will be received as empathy and sorrow for not being able to show you our beautiful and exciting part of the World with our award-winning tour.

Now onto the nitty-gritty: BusyBus is a reputable, honest, hard-working company with customer service at its priority. You can imaging we have spent nearly a year planning for today with 300 of you intending to use us. The mountainous administrative task ahead in documentation and commencing refunds will commence tomorrow and I would ask you bear with us whilst these are processed. Each of you will be communicated with and notified when your refund has been transacted so please rest assured and continue with your holiday without worrying about this administrative task. We have it in hand.

On behalf of all our 18-strong team currently sat at a McDonalds in deep despair and sorrow we wish each and every one of you a wonderful further cruise.

Kind Regards

Peter Rosenfeld

Managing Director

M: 07977 463965 | T: 0844 585 4444 | E: peter@busybus.co.uk | http://www.busybus.co.uk

BusyBus Ltd, Cheshire, England CW6 9BP

That is very unfortunate for the business concerned and the passengers as well. Often we don't think of the affect on local businesses when ports are cancelled. Can anyone on board add any detail?

wow, this company drove quite a distance to provide for shore excursion; only to have the ship not dock. Too bad.

Very sad, these folks depend on tourism for their income and I'm sure the season for tours from cruise ships is quite short.

Risky maneuver from this business.... biting back at the hand that feeds it

Risky maneuver from this business.... biting back at the hand that feeds it

Please explain. The "hand that feeds it" are the cruise ship passengers that booked independently and have been assured that they will receive a refund. The cruise line excursions are booked with other providers.

Regardless of anyone's view as to whether or not this was an appropriate email for them to send (I kind of liked it :D), I think based on their long experience they must have felt very strongly that the decision to bypass the port was unwarranted. Just to be clear, I'm not second guessing the Captain, just providing a potential rationale.

This is a very popular company. We took one of their tours a number of years ago and very much enjoyed it.

Was the tour for yesterday or today? Just looking at the weather there. It did seem windy.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observation/gckxq8ehx

http://www.yourweather.co.uk/weather_Holyhead-Europe-United+Kingdom-Isle+of+Anglesey--1-33682.html

I doubt the ship missed the port so that there would be increased revenues. The ship also makes a lot of money from excursions. That 10 percent of the passengers had booked with this company leaves a lot of passengers who would have booked excursions through the cruise line.

We also had a wonderful tour with this company. Excellent tour company.

Very tough on them, who depend on tourism in a short season.

I doubt the ship missed the port so that there would be increased revenues. The ship also makes a lot of money from excursions. That 10 percent of the passengers had booked with this company leaves a lot of passengers who would have booked excursions through the cruise line.

I agree with you. I believe that the Captain did what he felt was right. Wind affects a large cruise ship and he did what he had to do to keep people safe. Why risk PAX safety. There is a big difference between a weather call from a tour operator and a cruise ship Captain. I go with the Captain.

I find their email to be in very poor taste.

They choose to be in a business with a short season and where there are risks. One of the risks is that their customers may have to cancel due to many reasons, with weather and mechanical issues being two of the most common. I think their choices are to suck it up and deal with it or to change their business plan. To drag their customers into a beef they have with Princess is petty and unprofessional.

Also although the Captain has the final say in many cases, its also in consultation with the port, shoreside ops, etc.

I completely understand where the tour operator is coming from, because they didn't see any adverse conditions..

That said, at the zoo where I volunteer, we have a tethered balloon ride. I can't count the number of screaming complaints when the balloon is not operating due to wind because there is no or minimal wind at ground level. That's because they can't see the 30mph gusts at 150 feet that would whip them around like a pendulum. Same at the shore, when people complain about red flag conditions because they can't see the rip currents that would drag them to their deaths...

We can't know the factors involved, but sometimes its what we can't see that is the most risk, and we have to leave it to the professionals (who will not always make the right call - but hidsight is always 20/20.

Now, one thing that annoys me is when they oversimplify the explanation. In regards to my example above, when the staff just says 'Wind' when asked why its closed, thats when the yelling starts. When they say 'We're sorry but there are some wind gusts above 150 feet that make it unsafe to operate" a lot less complaints.

If the Captains would be more clear about why diversions happen, less people might get upset. Takes a little more effort but usually worth it.

I highly doubt that it was a conspiracy against the passengers, and or independent tour operators or to gain added revenue. You mentioned it was a tender port. I have been in some of those tenders with slighty choppy seas and the ride has been pretty wild..

I am truly sorry for your disappointment but safety of the ship and passengers has to be a priority. The captain and crew are trained professionals with years if experience. They do not make these calls lightly.

Wait, they drove two hours to meet the ship? Is the ship's normal docking location in a ridiculous spot such that every tour operator has to drive two hours? Or was it merely a bad decision on their behalf to set up operations in a spot that left them at a disadvantage to service this particular dock?

Especially in a tender port, the ship doesn't just have to worry about getting in, they have to worry about getting everyone back on board and getting out. If the forecasts had worsening weather through the day, that can be a big factor in the decision whether or not to cancel.

Dear Busybus,

You take care of the bus and the Captain will take care of the ship and passengers. Missed ports are a fact of life in the cruising community...

Weather rules

The decision to abort a port is based on a number of factors, including weather, tides, and conditions for the entire day, not just at disembarkation. Passengers have to be able to get back to the ship in relative comfort.

Several years ago, I was on a Hawaiian cruise and when we anchored off Lahaina, it was a gorgeous, sunny, calm day. Mid-afternoon was a different story. A violent storm blew up at about 3pm as hundreds were getting back to the pier to tender to the ship. I got on a tender at about 3:15pm when it hit. We shoved off as people ran for cover and spent the next hour and a half in an enclosed tender that was motoring up a wave, teetering and then slamming down the other side. Most passengers and some of the crew were seasick. We had to persevere as the ship up-anchored, turned around and re-anchored, and the three tenders before us disembarked. For many, it was a very frightening if not terrifying experience. At the very least, extremely uncomfortable. Should the Captain have canceled to port? Those in the tenders would have said, "Yes!" but imagine the outcry if he had. After all, it was perfect weather when we arrived at the port.

I find their email to be in very poor taste.

 

They choose to be in a business with a short season and where there are risks. One of the risks is that their customers may have to cancel due to many reasons, with weather and mechanical issues being two of the most common. I think their choices are to suck it up and deal with it or to change their business plan. To drag their customers into a beef they have with Princess is petty and unprofessional.

This.

I had to check the date on this thread because it sounded so familiar. Last year Oceania cancelled a planned stop at Holyhead, and some passengers started in on this same conspiracy theory -- but others pointed out that Holyhead is frequently cancelled because of the tender conditions. Here are two threads in the Oceania forum about Holyhead:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=47298236&highlight=holyhead

[see post 69 on]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2215665&highlight=holyhead

Frankly, this tour operator's attitude would give me pause. On the one hand it is reassuring that they seem to plan to refund everybody's money, but I am troubled that they want to push all the blame onto someone else. Is everything that goes wrong always going to be somebody's else's problem?

I consider it very unprofessional of this tour operator to send its customers such an antagonistic email about the cruise line. It's wonderful that they are kindly processing the refunds, but they should not have tried to stir stuff up with pax.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

I also find the email from the tour operator to be in bad taste. I would hesitate to use any tour operator that conveys that attitude.

Bottom line is that the cruise line loses more money when a port is missed then it makes in on board revenue. A large number of guests purchase excursions from the cruise line. The amount of money spent and the corresponding profits would far exceed any revenue made on board from alcohol, shops, casino, etc.

In addition the cruise line loses a bit of goodwill of its passengers when a scheduled stop is missed. Such a change is not made lightly. Counter to what the letter indicates.

I have removed this tour operator from my list of those that I would use in the future.

Checking the ships track the decision to abort the stop appears to have been made around 4 am. They were heading towards the port around that time frame and then turned to the south.

I checked the weather service for Holyhead. Counter to the tour vendors report of the weather being good enough to tender, the weather service indicated poor visibility up to 6am with moderate after 6am. However the wind speed was 33 mph with gusts up to 44 at 7am, with gusts still of 29 mph at 10am. The winds dropped after 10, but still easy to see why the port was aborted with the weather that was forecast for arrival time. The ship could have wasted 6 hours heading into port only to turn around.

The vendor could have see the same thing by checking the ship tracker, if he was concerned.

The wind and wave chart for Holyhead is currently showing 22 knot winds with 10 foot waves. So I suspect the waves would have been worse earlier today.

Busy Bus kept half of our money so not that big a loss for them.

On Princess tours, all was refunded. Princess lost much more than Busy bus.

It was very stormy, foggy, freezing cold on board (even our cabin was freezing cold). We got on line for a tender ticket at 6:30am (Elites , we are, got no priority. We were disappointed but glad Princess made the decision. Even though the tour operator said it wasn't that rough, he wasn't on our ship.

Tendering could have been awful.

Didn't hear much complaining on board.

thank you Princess for keeping us safe.

Busy Bus kept half of our money so not that big a loss for them.

On Princess tours, all was refunded. Princess lost much more than Busy bus.

It was very stormy, foggy, freezing cold on board (even our cabin was freezing cold). We got on line for a tender ticket at 6:30am (Elites , we are, got no priority. We were disappointed but glad Princess made the decision. Even though the tour operator said it wasn't that rough, he wasn't on our ship.

Tendering could have been awful.

Didn't hear much complaining on board.

thank you Princess for keeping us safe.

So after all of their complaining they are only refunding half, not all?

Busy Bus kept half of our money so not that big a loss for them.

On Princess tours, all was refunded. Princess lost much more than Busy bus.

It was very stormy, foggy, freezing cold on board (even our cabin was freezing cold). We got on line for a tender ticket at 6:30am (Elites , we are, got no priority. We were disappointed but glad Princess made the decision. Even though the tour operator said it wasn't that rough, he wasn't on our ship.

Tendering could have been awful.

Didn't hear much complaining on board.

thank you Princess for keeping us safe.

Thanks for letting us know this. :)

Now, I don't know why the tour operator is complaining. He made a 50% profit for doing nothing. JMHO.;)