itsbigmal

Booked for Far East on a Celebrity ship a year in advance hoping to get the best deal through an agent, only to find the price we paid is now £950 cheaper, per person!!!!

We have come across a thing called Fluid Pricing which we are told by the agent is what they have to abide by when they priced the cruise for us. It's still 3 months till we sail so can't see that its a last minute deal.

We have been in touch with Celebrity and had a very nice email from them basically saying nothing they can do but they are sure we will have a lovely cruise an to get in touch with the agent. We have done this and all they say there is nothing they can do because of Fluid Pricing and we have entered into a contract at that price.

Well so much for booking in advance, what a waste of time and money, our cruise is spoilt months before we go. We have looked on line and some other agents have offered a cabin upgrade in some circumstances. With our agent, who are the cruise company we always use just are not interested, you just feel so ripped off.

Anybody had experience of this sales con???

Malcolm Porter

Well they finally paid out. Good for us but why did it take so many emails and phonecalls to sort it out?

Just to back up my other post about this cruise. When we were waiting for repairs in Venice, a letter was sent to our cabin stating they had raised a refund request for the missed Dragons Dungeon trip in Split (£82) and we would receive this in 5 to 7 working days, and to keep the letter as proof of cancellation.

Is anybody having problems getting the refund for the excursions that were missed due to the ship breaking down?

We have sent an email with all the details even down to the ticket numbers to TUI and had a reply asking for other information which we pointed out was all in the original mail that was sent. :(

We then received a mail days later saying "thank you for contacting us, please provide your Ref No. so we can assist you further". So we phoned the number supplied and had to go through all of our information again then we were told to hold the line, we waited for about 5 mins and were then told they were not aware of any issues with the cruise and to send a copy of the letter to aftertravelcustomersupport@tui.co.uk for them to investigate and yes we have put every bit of info we have on the mail, so unless they want my grandmothers maiden name we should be covered. :D

So fingers crossed. Watch this space!!!!

Also we did have a final cruise guest bill, but our card was charged more, but thats another mystery:(

We were told that the ship could be sorted at any moment and as they had the generators working for the hotel side of things we were told to sit tight and enjoy the ship!

As I said we had no propulsion it wasn't a case of bad weather, they didn't have a choice and had to stay, I understand it ignited the row about the case of trying to stop cruise liners going this way in and out of the port see link.

https://www.fleetmon.com/maritime-news/2018/22437/cruise-ship-marella-discovery-2-disabled-venice-hi/

Compensation is not an issue as we are not seeking any!

We know our way around Venice very well and it would have been nice if we were allowed off the ship!

But at the end of the cruise we were phoned by reception and told that the issue with the noise was a known problem and we were offered money as, and I am quoting "a goodwill gesture". If it is a known problem why not address it, the two occasions we did get a good nights rest the cleaning started at 06:00 not 03:00.

We had 8086 right in the middle of the rear, two weeks ago for a back to back 14-night Iconic Islands followed by Adriatic Explorer. A very large balcony and a good size cabin. The problems started about 3 in the morning on the first night with a cleaning crew dragging day and sunbeds above us on deck 9 they also jet wash and clean all the glass, we thought it was a thunderstorm. We complained at reception, filled in the suggestions slips and rang when the racket started every night, they said it would be investigated but on our two week cruise we only got two nights uninterrupted sleep!!!

We did have a phone call on the penultimate evening from reception offering us money for the disruption and they said it was a known problem. The morning discussion with the cabins to the side of us was always about the noise.

Also there was a problem with soot from the engines landing on the balcony and soon learnt not to sit on the chairs before the room was cleaned, we were told by the cabin attendant that they would clean our clothes at no charge.

Then to top it all we were in the Giudecca Canal leaving Venice, waving to the shore and passing boats, a party was in full swing to celebrate the first year of the Discovery 2 joining the Marella fleet with an opera singer starting to sing “Time to say goodbye” and the ship lost all propulsion so three tugs came to the rescue and dragged us back to the birth. This was at 18:00 we had to overnight it in Venice and finally were released after repair 14:00 the next day. This meant that we had to miss our docking in Split and made for a late arrival in Dubrovnik. For this we were all awarded £25 which we thought was a bit of a joke. I wonder if we have any comeback on this one?

These things really spoilt my retirement treat so sorry Marella but never again.

Beware of the aft junior suites on deck 8.

We had 8086 right in the middle of the rear, two weeks ago, a very large balcony and a good size cabin. The problems started about 3 in the morning with the cleaning crew draggin day and sunbeds above us on deck 9 they also jetwash and clean all the glass, we thought it was a thunderstorm. We complained at reception, filled in the suggestions slips and rang when the racket started every night, they said it would be investigated but on our two week cruise we only got two nights uninterupted sleep!!!

We did have a phone call on the penultamate evening from reception offering us money for the disruption and they said it was a known problem. The morning discussion with the cabins to the side of us was always about the noise.

Also there was a problem with soot from the engines landing on the balcony and soon learnt not to sit on the chairs before the room was cleaned, we were told by the cabin attendant that they would clean our clothes at no charge.

Go for deck 7 and you will at least get a nights sleep.