Compulsory move from booked cabin to one in a “higher grade”

[pennib]

We have had our booked balcony  cabin on Azura taken off us because of COVID protocols. We were told that we would be allocated another cabin in a higher grade at no cost to us and that this would be an enhancement to our 28 night trip. When we found out about the “new” cabin we were less than impressed and I have written to P&O to complain. The problem is that a higher grade can mean just moving to mid ships from where the chosen cabin was but we have been moved to R deck which is somewhere we would not book in a month of Sundays. As far as we are concerned the move is a retrograde step, not an enhancement. Has anyone else had this problem?

[Bill Y]

8 minutes ago, pennib said:

We have had our booked balcony  cabin on Azura taken off us because of COVID protocols. We were told that we would be allocated another cabin in a higher grade at no cost to us and that this would be an enhancement to our 28 night trip. When we found out about the “new” cabin we were less than impressed and I have written to P&O to complain. The problem is that a higher grade can mean just moving to mid ships from where the chosen cabin was but we have been moved to R deck which is somewhere we would not book in a month of Sundays. As far as we are concerned the move is a retrograde step, not an enhancement. Has anyone else had this problem?

I don't know what the situation is if you have ticked the "do not upgrade box" in your situation.

 

Over the years a cruise companies idea of what constitutes an upgrade compared to a customer's is often mentioned.

 

The moral of the story is do not tick the upgrade if a specific cabin is important to you. This is more important now with the introduction of conservatory suites on Iona

[Slugsta]

I believe that, even if passengers have checked the 'No upgrades' box, P+O are moving them if they want to keep areas free for potential Covid isolation. We have also seen at least one instance of someone who had booked an accessible cabin (on the day that bookings opened) having their cruise cancelled for the same reason 

[wowzz]

46 minutes ago, Bill Y said:

The moral of the story is do not tick the upgrade if a specific cabin is important to you. This is more important now with the introduction of conservatory suites on Iona

Nothing to do with not ticking the upgrade box. This is P&O moving pax for the purpose of quarantine protocols.  

[Bazrat]

Really depends how early they booked there cruise, if it was just recent I would be surprised that they would need to move them.

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, Bazrat said:

Really depends how early they booked there cruise, if it was just recent I would be surprised that they would need to move them.

Does not surprise me, P&O have not shown themselves to be quick off the mark with any changes, and their internal communications have never been particularly robust, especially if they were relying on IT to stop bookings of the newly quarantined cabins.

[Cruisemeister2002]

On many occasions we have been "Upgraded" and can't honestly say we have noticed the difference. Had we gone from an inside to an outside, or an outside to a balcony then I might have considered it an upgrade. Now if possible we say which cabin we want at the outset and say we don't want what P&O regard as an upgrade.

[Splice the mainbrace]

Many years ago we were 'upgraded' from a mid aft balcony cabin with cabins above and below to a mid ships one. The trouble was that the mid ships one was just below the swimming pool and sun bathing area, so from 7.00 in the morning the crew would be arranging the sunbeds on the deck and it was very annoying and intrusive. Always state no upgrade now.

I think that currently the allocation and number of covid isolation cabins is rather fluid depending on the expected situation and if they know that a number of new crew are joining the ship and need to isolate, but in these cases at short notice it should be a decent upgrade where possible. Maybe a substantial amount of OBC could be negotiated with them?

[Bazrat]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

Does not surprise me, P&O have not shown themselves to be quick off the mark with any changes, and their internal communications have never been particularly robust, especially if they were relying on IT to stop bookings of the newly quarantined cabins.

The experience we had on our last cruise was that everything ran extremely well, as for the communications onboard was handled really well, the problems was the islands themselves unable to decide what they wanted to do

[Bazrat]

1 hour ago, Cruisemeister2002 said:

On many occasions we have been "Upgraded" and can't honestly say we have noticed the difference. Had we gone from an inside to an outside, or an outside to a balcony then I might have considered it an upgrade. Now if possible we say which cabin we want at the outset and say we don't want what P&O regard as an upgrade.

We have never been offered an upgrade but we mostly book midship with balcony 

[pennib]

In reply to you all, we booked on the day the cruise came out( 2 years ago). Also we always state “ no upgrade” but we were told that this has been overridden. What can you do?

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, Bazrat said:

The experience we had on our last cruise was that everything ran extremely well, as for the communications onboard was handled really well, the problems was the islands themselves unable to decide what they wanted to do

Why are you commenting about shipboard customer service, which most people accept as quite good, when this thread is about shore based customer indifference. The confusion and concerns that the changes in quarantine location have impacted upon long standing bookings.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

Why are you commenting about shipboard customer service, which most people accept as quite good, when this thread is about shore based customer indifference. The confusion and concerns that the changes in quarantine location have impacted upon long standing bookings.

I quite agree. This is not an upgrade situation - a customer booked a specific cabin two years ago, and that cabin is no longer available. 

The OP has been poorly treated by P&O,  and all the comments about custoner service and upgrades are totally irrelevant. 

[Bazrat]

14 hours ago, wowzz said:

I quite agree. This is not an upgrade situation - a customer booked a specific cabin two years ago, and that cabin is no longer available. 

The OP has been poorly treated by P&O,  and all the comments about custoner service and upgrades are totally irrelevant. 

Ok what would you have done in the situation there cruise like ours was booked precovid, until you actually pay the final balance there is nothing they could have done apart from contact everyone than wait for replies, if some had chosen to swap dates they might not bother to respond, so you would than be in the situation of last minute changes.

 

[Bazrat]

If my memory serves  me correct you was the one in your opinion the cruise I have just been on would not go ahead, my post was to say they don’t do a bad a job of organising things as you might think, most decisions are made at head office and in our cruises case they handled it well 

[silkworms]

The whole point of this problem is that people have had to be moved because of the cabins being put in the quarantine area, which nobody

can do anything about because of the situation.  
 

However, it is totally unfair that having paid a select price in order to

choose a cabin and marked ‘do not upgrade’ that you are now in a 

cabin you have not chosen. You have ended up with a saver/guarantee

type cabin but have paid many hundreds of pounds more because of

paying a select price. The very least P and O should do is up the obc or

allow cancellation and reimburse.

[Les_ldh]

17 hours ago, pennib said:

In reply to you all, we booked on the day the cruise came out( 2 years ago). Also we always state “ no upgrade” but we were told that this has been overridden. What can you do?

I had exactly the same experience with the cruise I have just returned from, where they “upgraded” me from a prime location to Riviera deck directly under one of the bars. I wrote (via my TA) explaining that this was not acceptable but I would accept any cabin on my original deck. I also stated that if they could not find me an acceptable cabin I would be cancelling (obviously this would have a cost implication). They got back to me within a couple of days with an acceptable cabin on my original deck, so it is possible. Sailings seem to be around 2/3 capacity at the moment so it shouldn’t be too hard for them to find you something that you’d be happy with. I would suggest a well thought out and polite email explaining your grievance. If you booked through a TA all the better, but if not then direct to P&O.

 

Hope this helps a little.

Les.

[amajaa]

18 hours ago, pennib said:

In reply to you all, we booked on the day the cruise came out( 2 years ago). Also we always state “ no upgrade” but we were told that this has been overridden. What can you do?

 

How annoying 

 

Ring them ASAP and say there was no way you wouid ever book a cabin in that position. See if you can get them to change it. They will probably take ages getting round to answering your letter.

 

I always smile when people don't read the whole post and jump in with an answer, like saying you should not have ticked the upgrade box when the post clearly stated  it was to do with quarantine procedure. Although I have to say why have P & O left it this long to move people when keeping sections free for quarantine has been known about for a few months now. 

[jeanlyon]

Yes agree.  We were "upgraded" once.  From a D deck cabin that we had chosen to an A deck cabin that we wouldn't book in a million years.  Phoned them and they soon moved us back.  Mind you that was before Covid.

[Britboys]

Good customer service would have been an initial letter explaining the situation and promising a call from them to agree a new cabin with the passenger, dependent on availability....

[terrierjohn]

6 hours ago, Bazrat said:

Ok what would you have done in the situation there cruise like ours was booked precovid, until you actually pay the final balance there is nothing they could have done apart from contact everyone than wait for replies, if some had chosen to swap dates they might not bother to respond, so you would than be in the situation of last minute changes.

 

We had paid our final balance 3 months prior, but it was only 4 weeks before the cruise that P&O cancelled our booking.  Because they had amended the quarantine zone, and as our cabin was accessible and there were no alternatives available, our cruise was cancelled.

However I am not certain what point you are making.

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

We had paid our final balance 3 months prior, but it was only 4 weeks before the cruise that P&O cancelled our booking.  Because they had amended the quarantine zone, and as our cabin was accessible and there were no alternatives available, our cruise was cancelled.

However I am not certain what point you are making.

Neither am I.  Just gobbledegook !

[Ardennais]

22 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Neither am I.  Just gobbledegook !

Well said.

[Cruisemeister2002]

On 11/13/2021 at 1:37 PM, silkworms said:

The whole point of this problem is that people have had to be moved because of the cabins being put in the quarantine area, which nobody

can do anything about because of the situation.  
 

However, it is totally unfair that having paid a select price in order to

choose a cabin and marked ‘do not upgrade’ that you are now in a 

cabin you have not chosen. You have ended up with a saver/guarantee

type cabin but have paid many hundreds of pounds more because of

paying a select price. The very least P and O should do is up the obc or

allow cancellation and reimburse.

I totally agree. Too many things currently are blamed on Covid. What it actually amounts to is bad organisation. P&O or for that matter any cruise line is aware of the current situation. P&O have put in place their "Protocols", Common sense says to me that if they set aside quarantine cabins then these should be exempted from being issued to passengers. As you say if you are paying £400-£500 more  for a Select Price and then can't pick your cabin or dining option P&O should be offering something else in turn. We have been to Lisbon Portugal on several occasions and apart from the last time we had had a transfer from Port to City. If they are going to continually cut back on what is offered to Select Price customers then they need to consider where to go.