QUEEN ANNE Maiden Voyages Postponed, starting May 2024

[Cruise Wonderland]

Due in part to unforeseen events that have occurred in recent years, the shipbuilding industry, like other industries, has faced numerous challenges including energy shortages and global supply chain constraints. As a result, for reasons beyond our control, our much-awaited new ship Queen Anne will be arriving later than expected and we have been advised that we must regrettably cancel her maiden season sailings departing from January 4, 2024, up to and including April 14, 2024.

 

We very much hope though that you can join us on one of Queen Anne's new maiden season voyages that will now start in May 2024. These voyages will be going on sale on December 6, 2022, for Cunard World Club members and on general sale on December 7, 2022.

[Solent Richard]

Beat me to it, received the email within the last hour.

 

Oh well, that's two Maiden's lost in the space of 6 months. I guess Cunard don't wish to repeat the Arvia experience closer to date.

 

[Solent Richard]

Every cloud has a silver lining. The Cunard email continues...

 

What does this mean for me?

We know that you will find this news as disappointing as we do. However, as you were due to sail on Queen Anne’s sold-out maiden voyage, we will be automatically moving your booking to the new maiden voyage over the coming weeks, and we will issue you with new booking details. This new seven-night maiden voyage will depart from Southampton on 3 May 2024 and will visit La Coruña on 5 May 2024 and Lisbon on 7 May 2024, returning to Southampton on 10 May 2024.     We very much hope that you will still be able to join us on this momentous voyage. If for any reason this new voyage is unsuitable, then please contact your travel agent or call us if you booked direct, on 0344 338 8633 (local call charges apply) before 25 November 2022 to let us know. Should you be unable to join us then you will be entitled to a full refund and a Future Cruise Credit (FCC) worth 10% of monies paid, which will be applied to your guest account (using your Cunard World Club number).

 

 

 

[Host Hattie]

That must be very disappointing for those due to sail on the first cruises but at least the decision has been made early.

[Solent Richard]

8 minutes ago, Host Hattie said:

That must be very disappointing for those due to sail on the first cruises but at least the decision has been made early.

Actually the only minor disappointment for us is missing the Lisbon overnight.

 

We would have loved to take in another Fado Dinner ashore ....

 

 

Now we get a second go at climbing the Torre de Hércules 😂...

 

[Victoria2]

1 hour ago, Host Hattie said:

That must be very disappointing for those due to sail on the first cruises but at least the decision has been made early.

More FCC!!! 😕

[Yorkshire Mike]

We booked a future cruise on QA whilst on our last QV cruise, only because Cunard have ended the future cruise downpayment scheme and now require an actual trip to be booked, and only after being given an explicit undertaking that the booking was transferable on the same conditions as many times as we wished.

 

The trip we booked was for April 2024 so has now been cancelled due to whatever issues have delayed the new ship.  Reading the notification email sent by Cunard suggested we would get a refund of the 350 dollar onboard deposit plus onboard credit to the value of 10% of the monies paid when we re-book.  That sounded like 35 dollars of onboard spend gained, offset by the rather larger loss of onboard spend gained by booking onboard.  So I rang Cunard to clarify.

 

The call was taken by a very pleasant lady named Andrea who didn’t know the answer but undertook to find out and call me back, which she did.

 

After speaking to someone more senior, she was able to confirm that should we re-book we will receive the onboard credit applicable had we made the booking onboard, and told me she had made a note to that effect on our account, but refused to confirm that in writing, and also that the onboard deposit level would not be honoured and we will need to pay whatever the going rate is if we do re-book.  Simply moving the original on board booking and maintaining the commitment made to us on board is not possible as Cunard have cancelled the trip booked.

 

If you are in the same situation you may like to call Cunard for yourself.

 

 

[bluemarble]

We were booked on Queen Anne's 13-night Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale departing February 8, 2024. It does not appear there will be a similar itinerary from Fort Lauderdale in Queen Anne's revised schedule as there is nothing about automatically moving us to a different cruise in the email we received. Our booking has been canceled and 10% FCC will be issued. I'll be interested to see the details of the revised schedule. Here's a note we received in our email about Queen Anne's replacement itineraries.

 

"We very much hope though that you can join us on one of Queen Anne’s new maiden season voyages that will now start in May 2024, and will include sailings from Southampton to the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, the Canary Islands, and the Norwegian Fjords."

 

Edit to add: We may know something about Queen Anne's replacement itineraries as discussed on the "2024" thread. No assurances that schedule will be going forward now though.

Edited November 9, 2022 by bluemarble

[ivanidea]

This is the 3rd cancellation we've experienced with Cunard over the last couple of years.  I just hope they will still honour our Future Cruise Deposit originally purchased back in 2018, which would've expire last September if we had not used it.

[Victoria2]

15 minutes ago, ivanidea said:

This is the 3rd cancellation we've experienced with Cunard over the last couple of years.  I just hope they will still honour our Future Cruise Deposit originally purchased back in 2018, which would've expire last September if we had not used it.

Three? This will be our seventh or eighth. Bearing in mind we book at least three a year, it might even be nine or tenth! I've lost count.🙂

Like Y. Mike, we booked to get the onboard deal with a view to transferring it.

 

Can't be xxxed  [a rude word for can't be bothered] bothering with any faffing. We'll  see what our wonderful agent comes up with and probably just accept the contribution to a bottle of wine's worth of FCC.

[molecrochip]

Just to add some colour, the reason for the delay is the shipyard struggling to source certain materials and parts.

 

In the past week, 2 MSC, 2 Norwegian and now 1 Cunard ship have had their delivery dates put back. No doubt there are others yet to be announced.

[3rdGenCunarder]

13 hours ago, bluemarble said:

We were booked on Queen Anne's 13-night Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale departing February 8, 2024. It does not appear there will be a similar itinerary from Fort Lauderdale in Queen Anne's revised schedule as there is nothing about automatically moving us to a different cruise in the email we received. Our booking has been canceled and 10% FCC will be issued. I'll be interested to see the details of the revised schedule. Here's a note we received in our email about Queen Anne's replacement itineraries.

 

"We very much hope though that you can join us on one of Queen Anne’s new maiden season voyages that will now start in May 2024, and will include sailings from Southampton to the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, the Canary Islands, and the Norwegian Fjords."

 

Edit to add: We may know something about Queen Anne's replacement itineraries as discussed on the "2024" thread. No assurances that schedule will be going forward now though.

 

I had booked that one, too, as much for a winter cruise as for the new ship. It might have been fun to see if anything special was done for maiden calls, but it is what it is. I don't know that I'll bother to book something else on Queen Anne. Not sure what my next Cunard voyage will be.

[schattenfell71]

I have to say that we only have booked the maiden voyage because of the "maiden voyage". So for us it may be better to travel in May instead of January.

 

But I can really understand all of your thoughts about the situation.

[Solent Richard]

52 minutes ago, schattenfell71 said:

I have to say that we only have booked the maiden voyage because of the "maiden voyage". So for us it may be better to travel in May instead of January.

 

But I can really understand all of your thoughts about the situation.

 

Yes, as I said in my comment above (#14) , there is a 'silver lining'.

 

Like you, it was booked as the ship being the destination though of course the overnight in Lisbon would have been attractive.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Solent Richard

[Wonky]

Do we think it’s safe to assume that we will be able to book the rest of the ‘24 Cunard itineraries on 6th December too?

[sogne]

2 hours ago, Wonky said:

Do we think it’s safe to assume that we will be able to book the rest of the ‘24 Cunard itineraries on 6th December too?

according to QA cancellation email and WC rep on QM2  the answer is yes

[Germancruiser]

Ah good, maybe that gives them time to rethinking the prommenade deck plans. LOL. Sorry though for those who were booked on the canceled Maiden Voyage!

Edited November 11, 2022 by Germancruiser

[david,Mississauga]

On 11/9/2022 at 8:17 AM, ivanidea said:

This is the 3rd cancellation we've experienced with Cunard over the last couple of years.  I just hope they will still honour our Future Cruise Deposit originally purchased back in 2018, which would've expire last September if we had not used it.

 

I hope they will do that for you as they did for us last year. We had a voyage cancelled which would have been just a couple of weeks before the four-year expiration of the future cruise deposit. Cunard honoured it for a voyage this year, which would have been almost five years since the deposit was booked. It  seems only  fair.

[richard_london]

The email says we have until 25th November to decide.  I wish we could book for the rest of 2024 as at the moment i don't know whether to cancel or not.  Not being able to have the option to shift to another cruise into 2024 is disappointing from Cunard.

 

I have another cruise just a few days before (also with Cunard) so it would be a mad rush to get back from one and ready for the other.  I don't know if Cunard would allow me to cancel the earlier cruise so I can keep the Queen Anne maiden.  

Edited November 12, 2022 by richard_london
Typo

[sogne]

Full refund for 2 QA cancelled cruises received today.

[8611202]

We are still waiting for our refund for March 2024 cancellation. Is anyone else in this situation? We won’t be able to book a future cruise without the associated  FCC, FCD and monetary refund being made. A call to Cunard confirmed that our refund still hadn’t been actioned. 

[RJChatsworth]

We had a QA Med 2024 cruise cancelled by email on I think 9th November.  I received a cheque through the post for the deposit last Saturday expecting it to be returned via the Amex card I’d originally used to pay the deposit.  I rang in about the FCC (10% of original deposit) and was told that it would take another 2 to 3 weeks to appear against my account.  I had booked directly with Cunard.

 

Last time I wished to book a voyage using an unprocessed FCC there was no problem booking directly with Cunard.  I paid a deposit less the FCC and received Booking Confirmation on this basis.  The FCC was processed some weeks later.