Omg. Fred have bought the 2 flagships of Holland America! We finally get decent sized ships in the UK!

[Britboys]

1 hour ago, Dermotsgirl said:

I’ve been watching how the cruise companies have been performing during this crisis, with a view to booking, after the crisis ends, with the ones who did best in terms of customer service. Fred has done extremely well so far, hope he’s not going to spoil it now 

I agree with you that so far, Fred had been dealing with the Covid crisis quite well and better than many cruise lines. I am however concerned at how they are dealing with the ships changes. I had booked Boudicca for this May, which was obviously cancelled. We switched to another cruise on Boudicca next June, mainly due to the attraction of a double transit of the Kiel Canal. We booked direct and so far, have had no communication about this booking. I have received general 'mail-out' emails which have talked about the change-over of ships and itineraries but nothing at all relating directly to our booking. I suspect this is because they are making significant changes to the itinerary of my cruise because Bolette is twice the size of Boudicca. It is very frustrating to have reached 28th August and not heard anything when you know that booking for Bolette opens on 7th September.

If you are reading this Fred Olsen, get your act together please!

[JMyrtle]

Saga have also been very good, as each of our booked cruises cancelled they automatically refunded and I rebooked for something else. 

This one was the exception because we had run out of the options they offered for Fred and I cannot justify the expense of booking on the new Saga ships. 

Now for every Saga cruise we can have two on Fred, a cabins with a sea view or balcony is of no use for us as my husband is afraid of water! 

He can cope in an open setting such as bars, lounges and dining rooms because he can sit in the on sea days and get away from the windows so he cannot see the waves but he is most unhappy in the restricted space of a cabin. 

[Ulsteinvik]

23 minutes ago, Britboys said:

I agree with you that so far, Fred had been dealing with the Covid crisis quite well and better than many cruise lines. I am however concerned at how they are dealing with the ships changes. I had booked Boudicca for this May, which was obviously cancelled. We switched to another cruise on Boudicca next June, mainly due to the attraction of a double transit of the Kiel Canal. We booked direct and so far, have had no communication about this booking. I have received general 'mail-out' emails which have talked about the change-over of ships and itineraries but nothing at all relating directly to our booking. I suspect this is because they are making significant changes to the itinerary of my cruise because Bolette is twice the size of Boudicca. It is very frustrating to have reached 28th August and not heard anything when you know that booking for Bolette opens on 7th September.

If you are reading this Fred Olsen, get your act together please!

Did you book the cruise on 23 June 2021 during Kiel Week?

Fred Olsen told me that Bolette will not pass the Kiel Canal but the call to the port of Kiel will remain.

[tring]

7 minutes ago, Britboys said:

I agree with you that so far, Fred had been dealing with the Covid crisis quite well and better than many cruise lines. I am however concerned at how they are dealing with the ships changes. I had booked Boudicca for this May, which was obviously cancelled. We switched to another cruise on Boudicca next June, mainly due to the attraction of a double transit of the Kiel Canal. We booked direct and so far, have had no communication about this booking. I have received general 'mail-out' emails which have talked about the change-over of ships and itineraries but nothing at all relating directly to our booking. I suspect this is because they are making significant changes to the itinerary of my cruise because Bolette is twice the size of Boudicca. It is very frustrating to have reached 28th August and not heard anything when you know that booking for Bolette opens on 7th September.

If you are reading this Fred Olsen, get your act together please!

 

I have only heard of one person being assigned another cabin (as on these boards) and that seems to have been as a response to an enquiry from the person's agent, but notifications could well be on the way.

 

Have you seen the latest news on the CMV boards (original boss has bought the data bases etc and basically looks set to start up CMV 2 , when things get better) - quite a turn up for the books, but TBH I am not that surprised as someone had mentioned a few weeks back that the same had happened to the German arm of the company a few years ago.  It has sobered me somewhat regards Fred and I am wondering if all these sudden and not well thought out things which happened yesterday are the result of someone in Fred wanting to get stuff sorted quickly as they knew that news was about to break and thought people may be more likely to hold off with bookings etc. in the hope of an alternative.  I do not see CMV2 coming up until this is on the way over though and there looks like a good future for cruising.

 

I messaged Fred on his official fb page about our lack of emails about the ship replacements and that has now been sorted.  With my final thanks to the person who dealt with my message, I did mention that the lack of deck plans is causing problems, so lets see if anything happens regards those.  Nothing like a bit of pressure to yield results, and I am sure I will not be the only person querying it.  My thoughts are returning to the loss of the cruise lines that were previously our favorites and our wishes for Fred to survive this, so chances are we will stick with our booking for next July as long as cabin allocation and Itinerary are reasonable (and we see a deck plan), but after that we will have to see how Fred fares when cruising resumes.  Sadly I can see a lot of cost cutting in all cruise companies.  One line we will not be sailing with is CMV though.

 

I just hope Fred gets his act together as well.

[tring]

5 minutes ago, Ulsteinvik said:

Did you book the cruise on 23 June 2021 during Kiel Week?

Fred Olsen told me that Bolette will not pass the Kiel Canal but the call to the port of Kiel will remain.

 

Interesting, can I ask how you got that information from him and when?  Did you ring or message him for instance?  I have tried asking about our call to Bordeaux and only had delaying tactics used - but that was not in the last few days. 

[Britboys]

22 minutes ago, Ulsteinvik said:

Did you book the cruise on 23 June 2021 during Kiel Week?

Fred Olsen told me that Bolette will not pass the Kiel Canal but the call to the port of Kiel will remain.

Thank you - yes, that is the cruise I am talking about. That is kind of what I have assumed - but it will also entail significant change to the overall itinerary due to the extra sailing time required to sail around the Jutland Peninsular and through the straits of Denmark. As I said above, it would be nice if Fred Olsen contacted us with an update.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Britboys

[Britboys]

11 minutes ago, tring said:

 

I have only heard of one person being assigned another cabin (as on these boards) and that seems to have been as a response to an enquiry from the person's agent, but notifications could well be on the way.

 

Have you seen the latest news on the CMV boards (original boss has bought the data bases etc and basically looks set to start up CMV 2 , when things get better) - quite a turn up for the books, but TBH I am not that surprised as someone had mentioned a few weeks back that the same had happened to the German arm of the company a few years ago.  It has sobered me somewhat regards Fred and I am wondering if all these sudden and not well thought out things which happened yesterday are the result of someone in Fred wanting to get stuff sorted quickly as they knew that news was about to break and thought people may be more likely to hold off with bookings etc. in the hope of an alternative.  I do not see CMV2 coming up until this is on the way over though and there looks like a good future for cruising.

 

I messaged Fred on his official fb page about our lack of emails about the ship replacements and that has now been sorted.  With my final thanks to the person who dealt with my message, I did mention that the lack of deck plans is causing problems, so lets see if anything happens regards those.  Nothing like a bit of pressure to yield results, and I am sure I will not be the only person querying it.  My thoughts are returning to the loss of the cruise lines that were previously our favorites and our wishes for Fred to survive this, so chances are we will stick with our booking for next July as long as cabin allocation and Itinerary are reasonable (and we see a deck plan), but after that we will have to see how Fred fares when cruising resumes.  Sadly I can see a lot of cost cutting in all cruise companies.  One line we will not be sailing with is CMV though.

 

I just hope Fred gets his act together as well.

There are another two people who have posted on Fred's fb page that they have been given their cabin allocation on the new ship. It wouldn't have been too difficult for Fred to e-mail pax that will be affected by itinerary changes - even if just to say that they will need to make adjustments to our itinerary due to the change of ship and will be in contact again as soon as they have finalised arrangements.

Yes, I have seen the stuff about CMV. Whilst there are moral questions about the situation, I do hope that they restart - it would be good for Fred to have some competitors.

[Britboys]

Rotterdam is now anchored off of Scheveningen - possibly saying a fond farewell to fleetmates Zaandam and Nieuw Amsterdam who are anchored nearby. Amsterdam still appears to be in dry dock at Botlek.

[tring]

14 minutes ago, Britboys said:

There are another two people who have posted on Fred's fb page that they have been given their cabin allocation on the new ship. It wouldn't have been too difficult for Fred to e-mail pax that will be affected by itinerary changes - even if just to say that they will need to make adjustments to our itinerary due to the change of ship and will be in contact again as soon as they have finalised arrangements.

 

 

Thanks - just seen the other comments now, I did not see them earlier this morning and late last night when I was looking at that site.  Sounds like the emails are going out now then, to be fair they did need time to look into the itineraries, but whether they should have had more together before saying the new ships would take over for the two older ones is a fair point.  I think the important thing is that they let people know the score regards itineraries and deck plans before expecting them to agree to a cabin change.  As we will be on Borealis, which goes on sale later, I expect we will not be among the first to hear.

 

I saw a comment there from someone late last night saying to her agent she thought there should be upgrades.  Their agent told her that when the ships go on sale they will be priced higher than we have paid.  Well Fred never were the cheapest on release of cruises, but will be very interesting to see what happens next year regards available space and revised prices.  I do have a hunch about that for some reason.........

Edited August 28, 2020 by tring

[tring]

40 minutes ago, tring said:

 

I messaged Fred on his official fb page about our lack of emails about the ship replacements and that has now been sorted.  With my final thanks to the person who dealt with my message, I did mention that the lack of deck plans is causing problems, so lets see if anything happens regards those.  Nothing like a bit of pressure to yield results, and I am sure I will not be the only person querying it.  

 

 

Just got a reply for my message about deck plans as follows:-

 

Deck Plans aren't quite ready for us to share yet. They will be soon though!

If you do have any queries regarding the cabins you are moved to, please don't hesitate to contact our Reservations or Guest Services teams - they will be happy to talk you through what they can

Kind regards,

 

If we all have copies of the HAL deck plans they may be able to talk us through that, but as mentioned previously by someone, we will all want to know what is above/below and otherwise around the cabins as well as the location.  Sounds like they will be more helpful than they were with the person who reported the problem here, so lets hope they are.

[Ulsteinvik]

1 hour ago, tring said:

 

Interesting, can I ask how you got that information from him and when?  Did you ring or message him for instance?  I have tried asking about our call to Bordeaux and only had delaying tactics used - but that was not in the last few days. 

I asked them on Instagram if they call in Kiel and they gave me this answer. But full details will be released next week.

[JMyrtle]

 

This is all Fred will tell my agent

 

"Please see your new confirmation from Fred Olsen, new deck plans will not be available until the 8th September, so we will have to wait till then to view the cabin location" 

 

 

 

 

[tring]

39 minutes ago, JMyrtle said:

 

This is all Fred will tell my agent

 

"Please see your new confirmation from Fred Olsen, new deck plans will not be available until the 8th September, so we will have to wait till then to view the cabin location" 

 

 

 

 

Thanks .  Does not sound good, but perhaps worth ringing or messaging Fred directly.  The booking will have to be sorted via your agent but they may respond to a direct querie about which deck aligns to which on the HAL deck plans.  If not I would be inclined to not agree to anything, until it is made clear what is what.  We would still not know which parts of the ships will become the Morning Light Pub, etc.  So if below a public deck - like deck 3 is, confusion still reigns.

 

Must say I am pleased we are booked on Black Watch as seems to be Boudicca that is being sorted first, so we probably have a bit of breathing space.  Fred seems to have re scheduled the Keil canal cruises on Boudicca and at least one of those has been taken off sale.

 

[Britboys]

1 hour ago, JMyrtle said:

 

This is all Fred will tell my agent

 

"Please see your new confirmation from Fred Olsen, new deck plans will not be available until the 8th September, so we will have to wait till then to view the cabin location" 

 

 

 

 

There is a recent post on their fb page to say that deck numbers are different. Deck 3 on the old ships will correspond to deck 1 on the new, deck 4 to deck 2 etc etc. They haven't said anything about actual cabin numbers though.

[JMyrtle]

This what my travel agent was told by Fred this yesterday so I guess that's it until Tuesday now. 

 

"When I spoke with Fred Olsen yesterday they did advise that when deck plans are released cabins can be changed, they advised that if we changed them now & the cabin numbers have been changed by Fred Olsen there is a chance that the cabin you change it to could be worse than the one they had allocated. I think it’s a bit of a catch 22 situation. It doesn’t help that they have changed cabins and we still do not have deck plans."

 

You are not being a pain, it is important that we get the holiday right for you.

Edited August 28, 2020 by JMyrtle

[Britboys]

3 hours ago, tring said:

...Must say I am pleased we are booked on Black Watch as seems to be Boudicca that is being sorted first, so we probably have a bit of breathing space.  Fred seems to have re scheduled the Keil canal cruises on Boudicca and at least one of those has been taken off sale.

 

Hmmmm. Interesting that you can't book the April one online but mine in June is still there...🤔

[tring]

5 hours ago, Britboys said:

There is a recent post on their fb page to say that deck numbers are different. Deck 3 on the old ships will correspond to deck 1 on the new, deck 4 to deck 2 etc etc. They haven't said anything about actual cabin numbers though.

Yes, so the deck numbers are the same as on the HAL deck plans.

 

It looks like cabin numbers are staying the same.  There is s 4 digit cabin number showing on a picture of a new invoice someone had received and posted on FB.  Fred would have to change all the door numbers otherwise. 

 

[tring]

2 hours ago, Britboys said:

Hmmmm. Interesting that you can't book the April one online but mine in June is still there...🤔

 

Yes I had noticed that but they may be doing it in date order.  Also as it had been mentioned that you are still going to Kiel, so the itinerary may not be so radically different as the April one.  The Canal may not be such a deal breaker for some others if they had been through the canal before.  It is a pretty common route on Fred's ships. I assume you are still waiting to hear about your cruise, which is a shame as it will presumably be after the weekend now.  I wish you a good outcome though.

[JMyrtle]

I thought they would be keeping the cabin numbers otherwise as you say it would mean replacing them all on the cabin doors

[Britboys]

48 minutes ago, tring said:

 

Yes I had noticed that but they may be doing it in date order.  Also as it had been mentioned that you are still going to Kiel, so the itinerary may not be so radically different as the April one.  The Canal may not be such a deal breaker for some others if they had been through the canal before.  It is a pretty common route on Fred's ships. I assume you are still waiting to hear about your cruise, which is a shame as it will presumably be after the weekend now.  I wish you a good outcome though.

Yes, Ulsteinvik said at post #161 that it would be next week. They will need to change other parts of the itinerary as well to take account of the long sail around the Jutland Peninsular. The original itinerary had overnights in Kiel, Amsterdam and Antwerp. With the extra distance now involved, I doubt we will get all of those...  My cruise buddy and I chose this itinerary very specifically for the canal as it is something different and we are both lucky enough to have done a lot of cruising over the years but neither of us have been through the Kiel Canal...

[Britboys]

39 minutes ago, JMyrtle said:

I thought they would be keeping the cabin numbers otherwise as you say it would mean replacing them all on the cabin doors

Having looked at the HAL deck plans, the cabin numbering system seems pretty bizarre...

[ovccruiser]

Aren't you lot impatient 😄  8 months away at least before your cruise and you can't wait a month to find your cabin, makes me smile 😄

[Britboys]

4 hours ago, ovccruiser said:

Aren't you lot impatient 😄  8 months away at least before your cruise and you can't wait a month to find your cabin, makes me smile 😄

It's always nice to be able to put a smile on someone's face!

[Britboys]

22 hours ago, JMyrtle said:

This what my travel agent was told by Fred this yesterday so I guess that's it until Tuesday now. 

 

"When I spoke with Fred Olsen yesterday they did advise that when deck plans are released cabins can be changed, they advised that if we changed them now & the cabin numbers have been changed by Fred Olsen there is a chance that the cabin you change it to could be worse than the one they had allocated. I think it’s a bit of a catch 22 situation. It doesn’t help that they have changed cabins and we still do not have deck plans."

 

You are not being a pain, it is important that we get the holiday right for you.

If they allocated you a new cabin and then changed the cabin numbers, they wouldn't change your cabin again - just the cabin number!

Anyway, I received a letter from Fred this morning. Unhappy with the cabin reallocation - original cabin on lowest deck, bang-on midships. New cabin on lowest deck, 10 cabins from the bow!

As expected, significant changes to itinerary as Bolette too large for Kiel Canal. No apology for the changes, just telling us how lucky we are to be sailing on the 'new' ship and they very kindly won't charge us any extra! Canal transit x2 removed, Travemunde removed, overnights in Kiel and Amsterdam removed. Replaced with Copenhagen and Hamburg.

Will need to contact them early next week.

[tring]

1 hour ago, Britboys said:

If they allocated you a new cabin and then changed the cabin numbers, they wouldn't change your cabin again - just the cabin number!

Anyway, I received a letter from Fred this morning. Unhappy with the cabin reallocation - original cabin on lowest deck, bang-on midships. New cabin on lowest deck, 10 cabins from the bow!

As expected, significant changes to itinerary as Bolette too large for Kiel Canal. No apology for the changes, just telling us how lucky we are to be sailing on the 'new' ship and they very kindly won't charge us any extra! Canal transit x2 removed, Travemunde removed, overnights in Kiel and Amsterdam removed. Replaced with Copenhagen and Hamburg.

Will need to contact them early next week.

 

Oh no.  That sounds an extremely bad deal, sorting cabin alone certainly does not anything like deal with the matter from what we can see, given the level of your disappointment.  Does that mean you will not even be visiting Amsterdam or Keil for Keil Week, which I think it was?  Have you mentioned this on the other site were posts are being made?