Colin_Cameron

Re: deer eating plants. We used to have a problem with them biting the heads off flowers, tulips in particular, until a neighbour hit on a solution. A chopped up chilli placed inside the heads of the first flowers to open each season. They only ate one.

 Well the weather is holding up here, and having missed my dad’s 90th a few weeks ago he had his first visitors in 10 weeks yesterday. My sister and her kids went over and spent an hour or so in the garden and I joined in on a video call. It’s quite an ingenious way to limit contact. If you can’t go inside to use the loo, visitors can only stay as long as they can keep their legs crossed!

Not sure how long it will be before we can travel and I can see him in person. 

Actually my sister is not his first visitor. He set off his ‘panic button’ the other day. When the alert company couldn't get any response on the phone they sent someone out to investigate. They rang the doorbell but got no answer. Then heard a noise at the back of the house and went around to find him, on the roof, replacing broken slates. He’d bumped his button by accident and hadn’t heard the phone ring when they called. 

At at least we know the system works!😁

3 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

Colin_cameron you are on 78 days  same as me, have you talked to Cunard to expedite it?

I think the same as you for the Cape Town - Southampton leg but a couple of days more for the Fremantle - Cape Town stretch. That was cancelled on Fri 13th March (in the UK, Sat 14th in Australia).

Haven't called in a few weeks but at that point almost nobody had a refund so didn’t see any point in chasing it again. Looks like there was a batch sent out over the weekend so I’ll give it another day. The carrier pigeon usually has to stop for a rest when heading this far north. 

52 minutes ago, Dahani said:

I have been notified by my TA that my refund is being credited to my credit card today. ...

... I did a Section 75 claim with my credit card. ...

Just to be clear Dahani, do you know if this is Cunard refunding your money, via your TA, or is it the TA refunding you money because of your Section 75 claim?

Either way, a resolution is good news. 

I’m both encouraged my the veritable flood of refunds coming through and discouraged by the fact that most, if not all, of them were due to sail after our’s, cancelled after our’s and the refunds claimed after our’s. I can only imagine how bazzaw is feeling!

50 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

Any waited 75 days or more ?

75 days today.

46 minutes ago, 8611202 said:

Glad to say I received my refund last week, 52 days after requesting it...

Hi 8611202,

Could you tell us which cruise this was for? When it was cancelled? Etc. etc.

Trying to work out what system Cunard are using to prioritise refunds, since we know they're not working chronologically. Or maybe they're just picking names out of a hat.

17 hours ago, sfred said:

 what is your best guess prediction of QE's location on 8 September?

Like you, part of me says #1.

But maybe something like #2 or #5 is the way to get things going again. Saling from Japan, with Japanese passengers, to Japanese ports, and finishing in Japan. Or sailing from NZ, with NZ passengers, to NZ ports and ending in NZ.

2 hours ago, Fishgirl01 said:

Hi, the cruise was booked for the 3 May directly with Cunard. The cruise was cancelled on 30th March by them ...

Well that answers the question somebody asked a few days ago, “Why can they not tell us what date they are up to with refunds?”

Because, despite what some people have been told, they’re not working chronologically. Not by cruise date, cancellation date or refund claim date.

Wonder what criteria they ARE using?

edit: Sorry jland, didn’t see your post until my screen refreshed after posting.

Great news Fishgirl01.

Could you tell us which cruise? When you or Cunard cancelled it? Etc. etc. You said the money was back in your account so that sounds like you booked direct, not through a TA?

Those of us who are passed the 70 day mark are curious.

Like a number of others on here we received an email on Monday re pre-purchased shore excursions, saying it had been refunded to our credit card and should show up on our CC statement within five days.

Happy to report that it showed up late last night.

Unfortunately it's only a drop in the ocean compared to cruise refund we're still waiting for. But it's a start.

P.S. This was one that Cunard emailed to say was cancelled and would be refunded, before the online claim form was available.

Hi Dahani,

You’re the only one I’m aware of that has been given a Refund Credit Note, hence my thoughts/questions the other day. 

Colin.

18 minutes ago, Bigmike911 said:

Another milestone. A haircut.

I think haircuts here are still along way off. Mine isn’t quite back to like it was in my college days, close to waist length, but some days it feels like it. 💇‍♂️

Good News. After a week in a coma, and over a month in hospital with the virus, a friend’s daughter has been allowed home. It sounds like great news until you’re told it’s likely to be a year before she’s fit enough to walk again.

At lunchtime I heard somebody on the radio downplaying the impact of this pandemic, saying something along the lines of, “It’s not that bad. It’s not like it was in the war.” I’m of an age where that implies WWII so I started doing some quick ‘back of an envelope’ calculations. He’s right. It’s not the same.

UK WWII casualties averaged 6,250 per month over the course of the war. Depending on which source you choose, in the UK, we’re approaching 50,000 deaths over the last two months, or 25,000 per month! Four times more.

If you only look at civilian deaths, after three months we’re likely to have passed the total number of civilian deaths from the entire six years of the war!

To say I’m gobsmacked would be putting it mildly.

1 hour ago, Camgirl said:

I chose that date for our wedding thinking it would be a good date for my husband, that he couldn't forget.

Our anniversary is two days after my wife's birthday. The theory being if I forget one there's no way I'll be allowed to forget the other.😃

1 hour ago, Dahani said:

I have literally just had a response from the TA to my email telling them I was going down the credit card charge back route.

 

Thank you for your email.

Please rest assured the refund credit note does not replace your refund. This credit note is protected by ABTA ...

Hi,

I have a few thoughts about this.

1) Travel agents may be telling people their credit notes are protected by ABTA, but ABTA themselves seem less sure. According to their website, “Refund Credit Notes should be protected” (emphasis mine).

2) Are you sure that what you have is a Refund Credit Note? There are all sorts of criteria as to what qualifies, and I’m pretty sure a Cunard Future Cruise Credit does not.

3) Since you booked through a TA did you, like us, pay the TA who then paid Cunard? Guess who the credit card company are going to go after for the money? I wouldn’t be surprised if the TA tells you anything to steer you away from that route.

4) Are you (everyone) aware that ‘chargeback’ and ‘section 75’ are not the same thing? 

Not it trying to cast doom and gloom just promote a realistic approach to the situation.

Regards, Colin.

Hi LGC100

25 minutes ago, LGC100 said:

Have you not read #242 from Hattie The Host?

I Have. We both posted at the same time.

25 minutes ago, LGC100 said:

I suggest that you do because some people need the money now due to being in a financial situation that they didn't expect to be in.

I agree entirely. That's exactly what I said.

25 minutes ago, LGC100 said:

Not everyone is in a position to provide Cunard with an interest free loan. 

I didn't suggest that anyone was in a position to do so, or should have to do so.

I'm waiting for a couple of (what I consider) large refunds myself, but financially I'm in the same situation as I would have been had the cruises gone ahead. If I had a desperate need of that money today, I don't have it. Whether the cruise was cancelled or not.

There are people in a situation now that they didn't expect to be in (that would be all of us) and some may well need the money. But it's not the 'not getting it back' that is the problem. Had the cruise or holiday gone ahead they would still have been without the money. They would have had a holiday, but still no money.

13 hours ago, VK3DQ said:

 The only way left might be to sue for bankruptcy

There are two possible outcomes from that course of action.

a) Nobody gets anything.

b) Everybody gets nothing.

They may own some of their office buildings (or they may rent them) but I doubt that would even pay the lawyers fees. The ships (most? all?)  have been used to secure the recent loans to keep the corporation afloat. Which leaves what?

If you’re happy to settle for a one millionth share of the corporate goodwill then go ahead.

P.S. I miscounted the zeros on the back of my envelope. You’re probably looking at less than one ten-millionth share of not a lot.

After a month of almost constant sunshine things are now back to normal. Snow, sleet and hail.

There seems to some confusion over the latest (UK) government advice. Someone on social media summed it up much better, "The easing of restrictions doesn't mean the crisis is over. It just means we now have space for your body in the morgue."

On 5/7/2020 at 3:37 PM, SilverHengroen said:

The last monarch of the Stuart Dynasty, and Queen when the United Kingdom was formed in 1707.

Just to be pedantic and cause further confusion,  the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed in 1707. The United Kingdom didn’t come along until 1801, becoming The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1922.

The price they charged when? The day before it was due to sail? A month before?

There's six different grades of unobstructed balcony cabins. Cunard Fare? Late Saver Fare?

There are potentially dozens of different answers to your question, every one of them correct.

Sorry I can't help you, but some more info might help someone who can.

10 hours ago, lissie said:

Administered to the patient who has to produce an official record of same. Same as yellow fever has been for decades 

Hi Lissie,

I wasn't thinking so much about getting on the ship but more about getting off it. Are ports/countries around the world going to allow visitors on condition that they have a 'vaccination certificate', or are they going to want to wait until some proportion of their own population is vaccinated in case some infected visitor does slip through the net?

And, even if you are vaccinated, are cruise companies going to take you (or would large numbers of people want to go) to places where few people (or nobody) have been vaccinated?

Just thinking out loud.

7 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

...if they have to wait for a vaccine to be available worldwide.

Available, and administered to what percentage of the worlds population?

47 minutes ago, IB2 said:

That the Queen Mary 2 sailed back from Freemantle with nearly three hundred passengers who weren't fit enough even to be able to get on an aeroplane was patently absurd.

Absurd in that it wasn’t true.

What was the first thing that a number of them did upon arriving at Southampton? They got on a plane.

If there's to be any sort of 'social distancing' enforced then stairways would have to be either 'up' or 'down'.

Corridors would have to be 'one-way'. Say, forward on the starboard side, aft on the portside. Of course the person who's cabin is 'only four doors along' will make an excuse for going the wrong way then the people 'only six doors along' will join them. By day-two the system has failed. Do you install one-way turnstiles in every corridor at every lift/elevator lobby?

You'd have to quadruple the number of lifts/elevators (not going to happen), or limit their use in some way. Maybe only those 'medically unfit to use stairs'? But we've seen how well that sort of thing works. Of course, you could do away with them altogether and anyone incapable of getting from deck 2 to deck 13 a dozen times a day under their own steam isn't allowed on. That would certainly help in cutting the numbers onboard.

The number of people in the theatre would have to be cut to, at most, a quarter of current capacity. Assuming most people travel as couples, you could have two people, two empty seats, two people, etc. But you'd only be able to use, at most, every second row. So, four shows a night, but you can only attend on alternate days?

Does any of this sound like a cruise you'd want to take?