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Avalon - Myanmar - 2019


Rebel54
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I'm so bummed. :(. Will probably switch over to Vietnam. Waiting for my agent to talk to them about the discounts that I had on this cruise and them compensating for the inconvenience. :(

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  • 4 weeks later...
I'm booked on the Dec 18 southbound trip. I looked this morning and only 5 cabins are booked. Sure hope they don't cancel - presumably this is the last one...

I'm on November 8 and we have 7 cabins booked. I also notice that the discounts Avalon was offering for quite a while have been removed, which makes me even more nervous.

 

I did contact my travel agent a few weeks ago, and this is the response that I got.

 

"I have contacted reservation department. According tothem so far there is no sign of cancellation of this cruise.

The reservation agent Anna checked with the operationdepartment and at this time they are not cancelling this cruise.

They said if things change they will notify me beemail and calling"

 

 

I'm not going to worry about it until we get closer to final payment, or at least closer to the summer so that I could make some alternate plans for the autumn, but I will be disappointed if it doesn't go ahead.

 

 

On another note, Vantage has been sending regular emails touting their Myanmar trips; I assume that they are trying to fill the ship.

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I sent a message off to Avalon, this was their response:

 

Thank you for contacting Avalon. At the moment we have no plans for cancelling our 2018 Myanmar cruises. The main reason we cancelled our 2019 cruises was due to low customer demand.

If the situation in Myanmar changes and it becomes unsafe to travel, we will reevaluate the situation at that time. Our passenger and staff safety is our #1 concern. In the event we do need to cancel your cruise we will offer you a full refund. If you have booked your flights independently we will look at compensation on a case by case basis. If you have not already booked your flights and are worried about the cruise being cancelled, we recommend booking your flights with Avalon so as not to incur any additional cancellation fees.

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

I understand if they cancel for safety reasons, although things seem to have settled there a little for the time being... Hopefully bookings will pick up so they don't decide to cancel due to lack of demand. Time will tell...

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I sent a message off to Avalon, this was their response:

 

 

 

Thank you for contacting Avalon. At the moment we have no plans for cancelling our 2018 Myanmar cruises. The main reason we cancelled our 2019 cruises was due to low customer demand.

 

 

If the situation in Myanmar changes and it becomes unsafe to travel, we will reevaluate the situation at that time. Our passenger and staff safety is our #1 concern. In the event we do need to cancel your cruise we will offer you a full refund. If you have booked your flights independently we will look at compensation on a case by case basis. If you have not already booked your flights and are worried about the cruise being cancelled, we recommend booking your flights with Avalon so as not to incur any additional cancellation fees.

 

 

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

 

 

 

I understand if they cancel for safety reasons, although things seem to have settled there a little for the time being... Hopefully bookings will pick up so they don't decide to cancel due to lack of demand. Time will tell...

 

 

 

If they cancelled 2019 due to lack of demand, there isn’t a huge amount of demand in 2018 either.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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If they cancelled 2019 due to lack of demand, there isn’t a huge amount of demand in 2018 either.

 

Sounds like a good guess, and it may show that Avalon is willing to take a loss this year to protect those guests that have already booked.

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Sounds like a good guess, and it may show that Avalon is willing to take a loss this year to protect those guests that have already booked.

True, I have thought of that. But there must be a limit as to how low they can go; 7 out of 18 cabins on my cruise isn't a lot.

 

On the other hand, because of the Icelandic volcano in 2010 my Uniworld Tulips and Windmills cruise had only 47 passengers out of a maximum complement of 132 and it was really nice.

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If they cancelled 2019 due to lack of demand, there isn’t a huge amount of demand in 2018 either.

 

 

My thoughts exactly - that's what worries me. Only 5 cabins booked on mine so far...

 

Sounds like a good guess, and it may show that Avalon is willing to take a loss this year to protect those guests that have already booked.

 

I hope you're right!

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True, I have thought of that. But there must be a limit as to how low they can go; 7 out of 18 cabins on my cruise isn't a lot.

 

On the other hand, because of the Icelandic volcano in 2010 my Uniworld Tulips and Windmills cruise had only 47 passengers out of a maximum complement of 132 and it was really nice.

 

When we did Avalon Prague to Paris in 2016, there were only 52 on our cruise. It was very nice. We were on the Artistry 2.

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Just picked this up - sorry to hear the news, both for holiday makers affected and also the local people who rely on tourism for a living.

 

We are booked on a one week Pandaw cruise from Bagan to Mandalay next January and have booked the international flights and a hotel in Yangon on a cancellable basis. I rang Pandaw a couple of weeks ago and they say those cruises will go ahead as they are so popular, though I do note that their minimum numbers are actually quite low anyway. I understand some Pandaw less 'run of the mill' cruises have been cancalled and I know from the holiday forums for Myanmar that the tourist numbers overall have been down this year, vs last year.

 

Our overall plans are to spend time in Yangon, Lake Inle and an overnight in Bagan pre cruise. Then a couple of nights in a Mandalay hotel, before flying direct to Chiang Mai in Thailand, to spend time there and in Bangkok before flying home from Bangkok. Having looked into what we have needed to, we would be confident that we could spend time in the various locations in Myanmar, staying in very good hotels (and purchase trips if we wish to do so), for considerably less than the price of the cruise. In fact we rather regret going for the cruise initially as we can fly between the main bases.

 

Just thought I would post this, which may be of interest to disappointed cruisers, who may be interested in making other arrangements. Pandaw would also make arrangements within Myanmar if preferred, though I must say at a very considerable cost cf doing ot yourself.

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We went to Burma about 20 years ago, when it was just opening up to tourism. We avoided paying money to facilities run by the junta as often as possible, figuring we were helping out the poor Burmese. Had a lovely time. But honestly, with what's happening there now I wouldn't go again. It's no surprise interest in tourism is flagging. Visiting a genocidal country isn't my idea of a dream vacation.

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We went to Burma about 20 years ago, when it was just opening up to tourism. We avoided paying money to facilities run by the junta as often as possible, figuring we were helping out the poor Burmese. Had a lovely time. But honestly, with what's happening there now I wouldn't go again. It's no surprise interest in tourism is flagging. Visiting a genocidal country isn't my idea of a dream vacation.

 

Visiting a country that has so very recently carried out ethnic cleansing is not my idea of any kind of holiday.

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  • 1 month later...

I talked to my travel agent again today, who called Avalon. The first trip they are selling is Sept 19 which means final payments are due in just over 3 weeks. They seem to be willing to go with the dates that are currently being marketed. I wouldn't mind a really small group (we have only 7 cabins booked and I'm a single) but it is still scary. I checked the dates for Pandaw, but the trip they have available doesn't end until the day after my flight home, and I doubt I would be able to change my flight because it is business class bought on points. I guess I just have to believe them when they say that they will run the trips. However, I will watch carefully what happens when final payments are due on the first sailing of the season.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It looks that the 2018 cruises are starting to fill up a bit. My November cruise has gone from 7 to 9 cabins sold, and some of the other sailings seem to have also had additional bookings, although there are still 4 sailings with 5 or fewer cabins sold. The first cruise that is currently being marketed starts in Yangon on Sept 19; the 90 day period for full payment is later this month, and that should begin to tell us something.

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  • 2 months later...
Wow! My Nov 2018 trip has 8 of 18 cabins filled, and many of them have filled up recently.

I'm not sure whether I believe it or not, but my departure is actually showing as sold out, unlike the other departures that are within the 90 days which say "please call". Anyway, it is definitely a go, so I will see when I get to Yangon.

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I'm not sure whether I believe it or not, but my departure is actually showing as sold out, unlike the other departures that are within the 90 days which say "please call". Anyway, it is definitely a go, so I will see when I get to Yangon.

 

Just keep an eye on things. Not sure what will happen if Trump takes any actions:

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/year-crisis-began-us-sanctions-myanmar-military-rohingya/story?id=57242819&cid=share_facebook_widget

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Yes, I saw it before when you posted. I continue to have mixed feelings, but I am still looking forward to it.

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