olippold

Thanks for your responses. I should also have added we will be on QV (it's next year's Northern Lights cruise, so not sure how much use we'll get of the outside areas!)

We've cruised with Cunard several times, but always at Britannia level, but for next year we are splashing out and going for the full Grills experience. Therefore, I'm interested in what the differences are like. I know I can see the benefits listed on the Cunard website, but I'm more interested in the personal perspective - what sort of things stand out and make the experience? Was it worth upgrading to Grills?, and so on.

2 hours ago, bluemarble said:

Just in case it isn't clear, the 15% cancellation fee should be the amount of the deposit you paid at the time of booking. The fare for your daughter as the third passenger on your booking was presumably £800 for which you paid a 15% deposit of £120 at the time of booking. For Cunard bookings made under the standard terms and conditions in the UK, cancellations incur the loss of your deposit.

 

Is that fair? That's not really for me to judge. The terms and conditions are different in different countries. In the US, the standard deposit amount is a larger 25% but it is sometimes reduced to 12.5% and is often (but not always) refundable. And those who book today in the UK can take advantage of a lower 5% deposit instead of the usual 15% deposit. But the terms and conditions under which you booked presumably called for a 15% non-refundable deposit. So, as harsh as this may sound, I'm afraid it is what it is.

That’s correct - thanks for clarifying it

3 hours ago, PORT ROYAL said:

Think one agreed to the Cunard T&C when booking.

 

I’m not disputing that - it is more about the fairness of them. Plus I have no control over them - I have to accept them if I want to go on a Cunard cruise.

1 hour ago, Yaldi said:

 

Admin fee for amending booking versus compensation for contracted revenue loss.

 

The loss of a third person from the cabin is a loss of £800 revenue for Cunard. Swapping for someone else means Cunard will receive the contracted £800 revenue. I expect that’s the difference between the cost to you of the two options.

Yes, that is quite true, but then you could argue any cabin with 2 people is a loss of revenue if the cabin can hold 3

I've booked a Fjords cruise for this August with my wife and daughter, with the three of us in one cabin. Since we booked, near the end of last year, my daughter decided that actually she probably doesn't want to come, so I emailed Cunard to ask about cancellation charges. Cunard has responded that the standard fee applies which is 15% of the cost for my daughter, which comes in at just under £120. 

I appreciate that we have to pay some sort of fee for the inconvenience caused to Cunard, and the cost of administration, but I think this seems quite excessive given that there are still over 200 days until the cruise and the cabin will still be occupied by two of us. I don't believe there is even any need to reassign staterooms, since we don't have a stateroom assigned anyway. It doesn't seem right to me that the cancellation fee for the third passenger in a stateroom should be the same as the other passengers. Cunard suggested we could swap her for someone else for £20, so if that is the cost of changing one person, why does removing one cost so much more? Does anyone here have any views on this?

Thanks

Thank you very much for such a comprehensive review, I hope your wife is feeling better.

Thank you. She's still not great - whatever is was, it's pretty nasy!

I thought I'd review our recent holiday on the Queen Victoria to the Canaries over Christmas. My wife was actually ill for half of the holiday, but I'll do my best to be objective here, and will try not to let that impact on my review, except where I feel it's relevant.

We're both platinum members so have been on a number of Cunard cruises, but this is our first time on the revamped Queen Victoria. I have to say my impressions are generally favourable. I was worried about the Café Carinthia (one of my favourite spots to sit) being replaced by the Chart Room, but really it's no different during the daytime. The décor hasn't changed too much, and there is now a Godiva chocolates trolley parked outside, but that's about it. Incidentally, Cunard made a big thing about their partnership with Godiva, but I don't think I saw the trolley used once. We do now get Godiva pillow chocolates instead of the Cunard ones. I liked the new gin bar above the Chart Room (Midships Bar?), and had a very nice gin cocktail from there, and also the changes to the lido deck at the back, though the ship now looks a bit uglier from ashore. There's much more comfortable seating out the back now, including a lot of sheltered sofas. The only real negative was that they've replaced the general shop with a future bookings office, and crammed the shop products in the book shop, thus effectively ruining two shops in one stroke.

This was our first Christmas cruise, and the ship was very well decorated. Christmas music played constantly throughout the ship, but after a couple of days it became pretty unbearable. There were additional Christmas events such as the officers singing Christmas carols, and the visit of Santa Claus on Christmas Day. However, the latter event was ruined for us by my wife being ill - as we had our teenage daughter with us, we'd been invited along to meet Santa Claus, for her to get a present, and to have a family photo with him. But we arrived at the last minute, found nowhere to sit because a large number of the other passengers were also present, and my wife actually got shouted at by another passenger for daring to lean against a pillar and block her view. (This was before my wife had seen the doctor and was confined to her cabin.) This upset my daughter and we all had to leave before Santa arrived. The staff were very good though, and sent our daughter's present up to our cabin - she received a very nice portable Bluetooth speaker for her phone, and speaking of presents, everyone got a really lovely Wedgewood plate from Cunard as a Christmas present, which was much appreciated. I just feel the Santa Claus encounter could have been arranged a bit better - for example, reserving seating for the families that were actually invited there over those who came along to watch.

On the food front, there was a traditional Christmas dinner which was very nice. It didn't really differ from any other formal night though apart from the addition of crackers, and a couple of carol singers at the start. We were also presented with a menu in a folder that tied in with the design of the Wedgewood plate. Throughout the trip there were additional Christmas themed desserts, in the main restaurant and in the Lido. However generally I do think the standard of food has declined a bit, and I really think it is time for the dinner menus to be updated - they've been unchanged now ever since we first started cruising (and probably even before then), and I quickly became quite fed up with what was basically a fairly bland roast dinner every day. There are always alternatives, but they tend to be quite uninspiring. I think you get much more interesting choices on the lunch menu and in the Lido, so I wish they'd extend this to the main dining room. A few years ago we also thought the food standards were slipping, but they improved after that, so maybe the same will happen again. We were on a table for ten, but three of the people never turned up (or maybe it was always a table for seven set for ten - we never found out) and my wife missed half the meals so the table was half empty most of the time. Luckily the other diners on our table were great company. The waiters were as great as usual, though I think there are fewer of them. There are definitely fewer sommeliers, but this isn’t a new thing. In the Lido they've got rid of trays (to prevent people taking too much food and then wasting it, I think) and now seem to have more waiters available to fetch drinks and cutlery. I think generally it's a good system, but it does mean you make more trips to the buffet and so run the risk of having your table cleared away and losing your seat.

We don't usually go in for the on-board entertainment, but I need to mention the flamenco guitarist who was on board - Adam Westcott - as he was amazing! He played several sets in the Queen's Room during the daytime, gradually building a larger and larger crowd for each performance. He was also often to be seen around the ship and was very approachable. The first time we got quite poor seats so couldn't see him that well, and you really want to be able to see his hand movements, so the second time we went, we turned up very early and got front row seats. However, just before he was about to perform, the crew got a load more seats and put them in front of ours. We weren't really bothered, as we would still have a great view, but then, the staff asked us to move our seats forwards, as there was a large gap between the original front row (our row) and the new front row. We were happy to oblige and the staff helped (though I winced at them dragging chairs across the dance floor), but then we had a confrontation with a very angry man who said our chairs had been placed in his spot, and therefore they were now his chairs. We pointed out there was no way they could be his seats since we'd been sitting on them for the last half an hour and they still had our books etc. on them and after unsuccessfully attempting to grab them from us, he stormed off.

The captain (actually commodore) was quite visible throughout the voyage, would approach people and speak to them, so this was very positive - we have been on cruises in the past where the captain is virtually invisible. On the evening of Christmas Day, he had decided an oncoming storm could be a problem so we set sail at full speed all through that night and Boxing Day heading for La Coruna, which we arrived at a day early, missing the storm. He kept us informed of the change of plans throughout, and we were able to overnight in La Coruna. It was a bit bumpy leaving La Coruna the next afternoon, but not for too long.

Our final adventure was on disembarkation. We were due to disembark very early (8:15) so went straight to the theatre at 8:00. (We could have waited in the restaurant as platinum members, but didn't see the point for 15 minutes). However, due to bad weather, the ship broke free of its mooring and damaged the air bridge. The crew had to rig up two alternative gangways, but this took several hours and we were quite fed up by the end of it. It was clearly announced one of the gangways was very steep, so passengers who weren't so sure-footed should use the other gangway. This didn't seem to stop people risking life and limb by staggering down the really steep gangway with huge suitcases.

This is our second Canaries cruise with Cunard, and we've found on both occasions that the demographic is much older than usual. We're actually in our late forties, so generally we expect the majority of passengers to be older than us, and we don't have a problem with that. However, on both Canaries cruises, I would say the average age was a lot higher than other Cunard cruises we’ve been on. This is something you should bear in mind if you're planning to cruise to the Canary Islands and you prefer a younger demographic.

So although our holiday was somewhat spoiled by my wife's illness (actually her holiday was pretty much completely spoiled!) I think we would have had a good time had she been well. We did find that we missed other family members more than we thought we would at Christmas, so I don't think we'll go on another Christmas cruise in the future. The recent refurbishment of the ship has mainly improved it and I would recommend cruising on Queen Victoria, though I do think we're now going to take a break from cruising for a few years!

That's quite a common psychological occurrence; it's termed "Confirmation Bias".

Quite true, though in my defence, I also heard some other people commenting on it.

Compensation ?? Because you got sick ? I find this concept beyond absurd. People get sick, at home, on vacation, on planes, in hotels, at Disneyland, in Times Square, at the Eiffel tower ~~~~~~~ everywhere.

And ?? somehow ??? compensation should come from S O M E W H E R E ????????

Normally I'd agree with you, but I'm suggesting the illness was already present on board - we've explicitly been told crew members that we were in contact with, and with what appear to be the same illness weren't given sufficient time off, i.e. they weren't allowed to have more than an afternoon off ill.I would say that if true, that is someone's fault.

We were on this cruise and have to say that we didn’t notice a coughing epidemic.

You probably wouldn't necessarily notice it unless you'd had the cough yourself! I hadn't really noticed it, but my wife pointed out all the people coughing to me, and once she'd pointed it out, I did myself notice a lot of people coughing.

Following on from the recent post about missed ports being compensated (BTW we missed Stockholm on a Baltic cruise a few years ago, and received no compensation, though we didn't ask for any), what about compensation where a cruiser becomes ill during the cruise and is confined to their cabin?

This has just happened to us on the Christmas Queen Victoria cruise to the Canaries. My wife became ill after 6 days with a very high temperature and cough that developed into bronchitis. She had to visit the doctor on Christmas Day and was confined to our cabin for several days. She therefore missed all the Christmas festivities; she was offered the Christmas dinner, but was unable to eat anything other than a few crackers. She's still ill now, almost 3 weeks later. We're making a claim against our travel insurance, but we can only get about £50 back against the cost of the visit to the medical centre and prescribed antibiotics. Cunard have said (when we spoke to the purser) that she cannot claim for the time ill and confined to our cabin. However, friends of ours have been in similar situations with Celebrity Cruises (though norovirus instead of bronchitis) and they received fairly substantial sums of money in compensation for their ruined holiday.

We feel that Cunard are fault here, either by letting someone board with something particularly nasty, or, more likely, by having the illness already on board. I love Queen Victoria and we've sailed on her many times, but at times it felt like a plague ship - coughing could be heard throughout the ship, by both crew and guests (and it was a particularly hacking cough, so not just your day-to-day cough), and when I visited the shop to buy cough medicine and paracetamol, I noticed virtually every other person in there was buying the same. We were told by a member of staff that they had had the same cough several weeks ago, seen the doctor and only been given 1/2 a day off. We had been looking forward to this holiday since spring when we booked it, paid a lot of money for it, and have basically had our whole Christmas ruined!

We're going to write to head office anyway, but it would be interesting to know other people's thoughts on compensation, and if anyone else was on the same cruise, and whether they noticed that levels of illness on this cruise seemed to be particularly high.

We were platinum (for the first time) on our QE cruise in August. We didn't get a separate disembarkation lounge so had to go Royal Court Theatre (we always seem to end up in there!) I assumed the reason was too many platinum guests, but I didn't bother asking to find out.

Interesting to note that you have a space in your VP for a middle name when I haven't. Are you in the UK?

Yes, I am - see attached screenshot

I don't have a middle name, so when I book I always leave it blank. On the VP for my upcoming voyage it now shows my middle name as "NA" so I'm guessing Cunard have put that in for "Not Applicable". I can't change it, but I'm pretty relaxed about it being there - after all, they've put it in, not me!

They're "poor travellers" in that they don't like travelling by car much! What I'm trying to do is see if it's possible to please everyone, but I suspect we may have to split up. Certainly a small minibus with a tour guide would be my preferred approach since we could tailor it to our requirements.

I'm not sure I understand what it is you want to do.

 

It's a minimum of 4 hours just to drive from Reykjavik to the 3 main sites of the Golden Circle and back to Reykjavik. If you have folks who can't ride that far without getting sick then perhaps they shouldn't go. Have the teen do some research to see what the sites look like and see if they are interested in the tour or not. You will pass by horses en route to these sites that you can see up close (they are usually fenced in near the road).

 

Not sure what the "poor travellers" part is, either. Are you trying to save money? or is it more of a "whoa is me" poor thing?

 

You can save money by self driving (roads are well signed) but you will learn SO much more with a tour guide. Especially in a smaller minibus type tour than in a huge tour bus.

Hello,

We'll be in Reykjavik for 2 days this August and would like to do some sort of Golden Circle tour. There are 5 of us but the catch is 2 of our party don't like driving around and can get car sick, and 1 is a teenager who could quite possibly find it all very boring! So with that in mind, is there any sort of way to see some Golden Circle highlights with the minimum of driving, and preferably throw in some Icelandic horses as well (viewing, not riding) for the teenager? Or am I simply asking the impossible?

Thanks,

Oliver

Its a bit like gambling in a casino the house always wins..

Of course if it were like gambling, they might consider my price monitoring akin to card counting and rapidly eject me, pausing only to break my legs on the way. :)

Hello,

We received an email recently offering free upgrades on certain cruises next year (Inside to Balcony and so on). We've actually already booked a cruise next year (Q614 on the QE in August) and as this cruise is included in the offer, I thought I'd see how much I might have lost out. The answer is not at all.

I booked this cruise a few months ago, which is almost a year in advance. That's quite unusual for us, as we've never booked more than 6 months in advance before, but I've noticed that cruises we've been looking at have been selling out much more quickly. For example, we did a Fjords cruise in August 2014 which we booked earlier that same year, whereas the same cruise in August 2015 was fully booked almost a year in advance. We do have a teenage daughter and need to ensure all the Zone slots aren't already taken, so that will have had some effect on the availability shown to us.

But as I booked this cruise early, and I was interested in whether it's better to book early or late, so I decided to occasionally check on the prices and see how much they changed. The following shows some examples of the balcony prices (all in GBP):

13/10/15: Ranging from 2,799 (CB) to 3,399 (BA). Our grade (BE) is 3,199. No Early Saver option.

4/11/15: 3,199 (CB) to 3,649 (BB, BA sold out). BE is now 3,529 or 2,829 for Early Saver.

25/11/15: 3,349 (BF) to 3,479 (BB). BE is now 3,379 or 2,979 for Early Saver.

22/12/15: 3,499 (BF) to 3,549 (BB). BE is now 3,519 or 2,979 for Early Saver.

Currently, with the new offer, the prices are:

29/12/15: 3,199 (BF) to 3,549 (BB). BE is now 3,199 and no Early Saver options any more. (Note inside prices are also 3,199). I assume BB is excluded from the offer for whatever reason.

So the balcony prices have gone down, but not by very much, and the BB price is unchanged. I haven't been monitoring Inside prices at all, but would they really have been so close to the balcony prices all the time? I'm wondering if the Inside prices have been hiked for this promotion. Normally If I bought items at a sale, there'd be a (legal?) requirement that they genuinely have to have been at the full price for a certain period of time, but I'm not sure if this applies to cruises due to the constant price fluctuations. It just doesn't seem right to me that you're paying more than you would 2 months ago yet supposedly getting a free upgrade. It looks particularly bad if you compare against the Early Saver option, which has now been removed!

Oliver

We ate there last night having pre paid. They said we could ignore the prices and just order whatever we liked.