Extra night in London-help!

[hsheffield]

Out of curiosity, what happens if our flights are canceled and we do miss the ship out of London?

 

Our flights are booked through SS air: do they take responsibility for getting us to the ship?

 

[Gourmet Gal]

That’s one of the advantages of booking SS Air. 

[david63]

I don't know what the regulations are in the USA but in the UK if the flight is part of the whole package, i.e. it is paid for on the same invoice and at the same time as the cruise, then it would fall within the Package Holiday Regulations where in this case it would be SS responsibility to sort it out and/or refund you.

[cruiseej]

5 hours ago, hsheffield said:

Our flights are booked through SS air: do they take responsibility for getting us to the ship?

 

I'd rather say they take responsibility for your travel problem. They may or may not be able to get you to the ship, depending on the duration of the cruise and the ports involved. Hopefully they could get you to wherever the ship will be on the 2nd day, so you only miss one day of your cruise. But with air travel so tight right now, if your flight is canceled, it could take 2, 3 or 4 days to get you to your destination. If you have a 7-day cruise,  and they couldn't get you there until day 4, you'd likely just cancel the trip and they would refund you.

[hsheffield]

8 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 

I'd rather say they take responsibility for your travel problem. They may or may not be able to get you to the ship, depending on the duration of the cruise and the ports involved. Hopefully they could get you to wherever the ship will be on the 2nd day, so you only miss one day of your cruise. But with air travel so tight right now, if your flight is canceled, it could take 2, 3 or 4 days to get you to your destination. If you have a 7-day cruise,  and they couldn't get you there until day 4, you'd likely just cancel the trip and they would refund you.

very helpful-thank you. we're new to cruising so this kind of info is extremely valuable. I'm grateful for the cruise critic crowd!!

[nowornever]

Again, just try to get there 2 (or more) days early & enjoy your days in London while getting over jet lag. You won't be stressed about missing/changed flights or missing luggage & it's so very worth the few extra dollars, in the whole scheme of things, in the long run.   Maybe you're a repeat visitor to London, you haven't said, but if you've not been in a while, it's a good time to explore new areas while not feeling rushed.  One thing you can be sure of, your flights will  change between now & then.  It's a jungle out there.  Good luck with your decisions.

[Gastroinn]

On 7/16/2022 at 7:00 PM, hsheffield said:

I guess I am trying to book an extra night. We were not given an included night. 

 

As it now stands, we arrive in London at 6 am on the day the cruise departs. I assume SS will meet us at Heathrow and transport us to Southampton?

 

I'm trying to book SS flight and hotel so that we can arrive the day before so that we have a buffer just in case any of our flights are canceled. Seems like that's happening a lot these days!

 

On 7/17/2022 at 6:51 PM, Gourmet Gal said:

Just wondering which hotel SS is quoting?

Can’t really understand why you want to stay in London unless you’ve never been there? Heathrow is almost on the way to Southampton by road M25/ M3. C 1 hour/ 1 1/2 hr by car. Why not look at hotels en route to Southampton. Plenty of nice ones in that direction. Winchester and New Forest spring to mind and they’ll be muuuuch cheaper! London very busy at present we wanted to stay up this week but its Farnborough air show and that means London will be packed out….It just needs a big event somewhere nearby to close it out

 

[Gourmet Gal]

I’ve been to London dozens of times and am always happy to work into an itinerary.  Southampton, not so much.

[hsheffield]

It's not about visiting London so much as giving us a buffer in case flights are canceled. I'm hoping to avoid missing our ship departure! Appreciate the info about Heathrow and Southampton. If we can't get SS flights that make sense, that sounds like a great plan.

 

That being said, I love London. I've been dying to get back to the V & A for a while so if we actually do get in a day early, all the better.

 

Also found out that SS is quoting the Corinthia.  SS is charging $1100/night while the hotel charges $1300/night. Such a deal.

[CruzinFeraBruzin]

11 hours ago, hsheffield said:

It's not about visiting London so much as giving us a buffer in case flights are canceled. I'm hoping to avoid missing our ship departure! Appreciate the info about Heathrow and Southampton. If we can't get SS flights that make sense, that sounds like a great plan.

 

That being said, I love London. I've been dying to get back to the V & A for a while so if we actually do get in a day early, all the better.

 

Also found out that SS is quoting the Corinthia.  SS is charging $1100/night while the hotel charges $1300/night. Such a deal.

I'm hoping to stay at the Corinthia next May after our cruise next year.  Right now, we are booked in the lower tiered Simply hotel because Silversea hasn't made the Grand option available yet.  My SS Rep told me when it becomes available, he can easily switch it.  We will be there for 3 days and its a beautiful hotel in a great location.  If you want to visit the V & A, you may want to stay for 2 days, the 1st day getting over the jet lag and the second for touring.  Like Gourmet Gal, I've been to London several times when I was younger, but this will be the first visit for my husband.  There is so much to see and do.

[RetiredandTravel]

If you haven't been we also found Churchill's bunker/war rooms to be fascinating.

 

 

 

 

[hsheffield]

Update:

 

Agreed to the $1170 for one night at the Corinthia since I understood that would not incur a deviation fee for changing my flights to get in one day early.

 

Guess what?

 

SS wants to charge $150/person deviation fee for going in a day early despite staying at their hotel.

They also want $1750/person for additional airfare.

 

Grand total: $4900 in extra charges to go one day early.

 

For that much money, I'll take my chances on flight cancelations.

 

 

[hsheffield]

correction: an additional $4970 for one extra night

[Gourmet Gal]

Interesting.  Had your original ticket already been issued?  In that case it’s no surprise the fare has gone up.  If you had booked the ticket yourself and then changed it, it probably would have incurred a change fee and additional fare difference.  What is surprising is the deviation fee for staying in an SS hotel.

 

Good luck with your flight! Perhaps we’ll meet onboard.

[hsheffield]

no tickets issued as far as I know. 

 

this process has been a mystery to me. I asked for Delta when I booked, but they cobbled together a mix of other airlines. not sure what's going to happen now.

 

I'm not planning on staying at the grand hotel or accepting the extra charges for flights to accommodate staying at the hotel but I'm not sure what SS will do when I reject their proposal.

 

I'm not feeling the warm fuzzies for SS right this minute. 

 

 

 

[ronrick1943]

We’ve stayed at some Marriott hotels in London much cheaper than the $1,000 a night.  Check around, you’ll find a few.  We just flew into London for a connecting flight LHR is a mess to connect but we did it without a problem.  We also connected in Dallas to get to London—had we missed the connection they had 5 other flights going out that day.

[Port Power]

12 hours ago, hsheffield said:

no tickets issued as far as I know. 

 

this process has been a mystery to me. I asked for Delta when I booked, but they cobbled together a mix of other airlines. not sure what's going to happen now.

 

I'm not planning on staying at the grand hotel or accepting the extra charges for flights to accommodate staying at the hotel but I'm not sure what SS will do when I reject their proposal.

 

I'm not feeling the warm fuzzies for SS right this minute. 

 

 

 

My goodness there are some outrageous prices being quoted here.  Last cruise out of Southampton, we stayed at an inexpensive hotel near Heathrow Airport (Hilton, etc. Leonardo is actually very good if you don’t need Intercontinental standard.), reached by taxi. The next day we took a private car transfer to the ship.  All of this for way less than one night in a more expensive hotel.  Around  US$435 today, not including dinner.  After all, it is just a bed for the night.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Port Power
Intuitive text. Or intrusive!

[FauxNom]

I agree that fares might have gone up a lot; they certainly have for trips I'm shopping. But good lord, how can Silversea justify charging a deviation fee when you're paying for arrangements that get you there with a safe buffer? You'd think the company would welcome travelers arriving a day early!

[CruzinFeraBruzin]

We booked our trip a couple of weeks ago directly with Silversea.  We are arriving 1 day early into Rome and staying 3 days after in London (all in Silversea hotels)  - no deviation fees and no additional upcharge for business class flights which are the posted business fares $699 pp each way.   Our trip isn't until April 2023 aboard the Dawn, so perhaps deviation fees come into play the closer you get to sailing.  The last time we travelled (March - May 2022), we requested United flights when we booked the trip and got United flights with no upcharge.  Again, that was directly with Silversea, not thru a TA.  It's a shame you can't speak with someone directly at Silversea to confirm all the facts given to you by your TA.  There are a lot of folks on this forum who swear by their TA's after having bad experiences dealing directly with Silversea, but I guess we've been lucky so far.

Edited July 22, 2022 by CruzinFeraBruzin

[Observer]

3 hours ago, CruzinFeraBruzin said:

 There are a lot of folks on this forum who swear by their TA's after having bad experiences dealing directly with Silversea, but I guess we've been lucky so far.

 

I swear by my Silversea cruise consultant after having bad experiences dealing with several different TAs.  The worst experience with a TA was when s/he mishandled arrangements and sent me the agency invoice (with evidence of the ~ 20% TA commission paid by the cruise line) rather than the passenger invoice. 

[Gourmet Gal]

There are plenty of bad TA’s out there.  I’ve been very lucky to have found an excellent one.

[alithecat]

@hsheffieldI went through a similar experience. When I expected to use SS Air but didn't have flights yet, I asked to go a day early and booked the SS hotel. I was not charged either a deviation fee or anything extra for the transfer from the airport.

 

But then later, when I received and rejected their awful flights and asked for the ones I wanted, I was told it would cost an extra $2280pp plus a $150pp deviation fee -- you got a bargain at $1750pp!

 

I cancelled SS air and booked myself.

 

I know some people on this Board have had good luck with SS Air, and we have in the past, but I am increasingly seeing more people who are not happy with their assigned flights. I know that air travel is much harder these days, with all the cancellations, delays and increased costs. SS is probably doing the best they can with the contracts they have now.

[CruzinFeraBruzin]

53 minutes ago, alithecat said:

@hsheffieldI went through a similar experience. When I expected to use SS Air but didn't have flights yet, I asked to go a day early and booked the SS hotel. I was not charged either a deviation fee or anything extra for the transfer from the airport.

 

But then later, when I received and rejected their awful flights and asked for the ones I wanted, I was told it would cost an extra $2280pp plus a $150pp deviation fee -- you got a bargain at $1750pp!

 

I cancelled SS air and booked myself.

 

I know some people on this Board have had good luck with SS Air, and we have in the past, but I am increasingly seeing more people who are not happy with their assigned flights. I know that air travel is much harder these days, with all the cancellations, delays and increased costs. SS is probably doing the best they can with the contracts they have now.

alithecat, I completely agree.  Although I was able to get flights on United where we have our miles account, the flights were not the original ones we originally requested; however I was allowed to search for alternatives with more connections and chose ones they were able to book.  What irritates many is their flights have unreasonably short connection times going thru international airports.  When they give you a 1 hour connection to go thru customs and navigate your way to the connecting flight who's gate is on the opposite side of the airport, its going to make a lot of people, including us, unhappy.

[alithecat]

@CruzinFeraBruzinwe had a different issue. We are flying from San Francisco to Santiago for an Antarctica cruise. SS routed us through NY going (with a 4.5 hour connection) and Toronto returning. It made no sense for us to risk flying into winter storms. 

[hsheffield]

the saga continues:

 

I rejected the $5K proposal and said please just book the route/dates for which I've already paid.

 

Return flight from Lisbon booked through a 1 hour layover in Frankfurt.  I'm not at all confident we can make a flight with only 1 hour in between-have these people been to Frankfurt airport?? That's assuming the flights are on time (they were 35 minutes late today.) Not to mention that we are flying 3 hours in the WRONG direction to get back to the States. 

 

Then we're booked from Frankfurt to Dulles, but no flight to our gateway city of Charlotte.