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To cut a long story short we booked a short cruise in the Med’ for October half term.
The cruise company have just informed us that they have “adjusted our itinerary”. They have moved it a week later to a completely different port..!!!!
This takes it beyond the school holidays so we can’t go. We can obtain a full refund of the deposit paid from the cruise company but we’ve already paid for our flights in full with Ryanair, who do not refund.
Im flabbergasted that the cruise company can do this, and although I have travel insurance I can’t find anything that matches these circumstances. Can anyone tell me whether this would be covered or whether the cruise company are liable for any of our expenses?
Ta
I reckon this is where the ATOL / package thing kicks in which you won’t have if you’ve gone full a la carte.
Did you ask your insurance?
Otherwise book alternative accommodation and have a different better time?
Cruise co unlikely to be liable for consequential losses so I guess it's incredibly bad luck for you.
Bit of naming and shaming on SM? Trading Standards, CAB?
Book a hotel near to the place that your plane is going to and have a much nicer time than being on a cruise ship.
You could get matching t-shirts with "I'm not going on that cruise"?
BA did this with our flights booked in December 21 for August 22. They altered them in May 22 and I had to reorganise the whole holiday around the change.
Yes I would expect the T&C of the cruise company to be watertight, they won't be responsible for consequential losses. Same as airlines, and yes it's a benefit of a package holiday, which has its own legislation as well as different T&C. It's basically why connecting flights or packaged flight+cruise costs a bit more, because the risk lies with the company to sort, rather than you.
Your best bet is calling insurance but I wouldn't expect them to help with non-refundable elements unless you've got very good travel disruption cover.
Travel insurance should cover this under cancellation or delay clauses. You will need to get confirmation on non refund of flights and cancel them. Done it myself when a hotel cancelled our booking.
The reason we can’t just have a nice holiday is that cruise started & finished in different ports:
Barcelona - Rome.
However, the cruise formed part of a longer holiday, which involved a few days in Barcelona followed by the cruise for 4 days to Rome. We would then spend a couple of days there sightseeing then travel to Florence for a few days then on to Venice for a few days before flying back from Marco Polo airport.
I can cancel the accommodation but we’re going to be out of pocket to the tune of around £600 in flights.
Additionally, my wife’s elderly parents were booked onto the cruise but a few days earlier starting & finishing in Rome. For whatever reason they haven’t had their booking changed, so it appears the cruise is still happening, just not picking up & dropping off in Barcelona. They will not go without us: the whole point of their booking was to be with us for a few days but weren’t up to the whole travelling about so opted for the cruise part only. In other words if they now cancel their cruise they’ll lose their deposit & will lose their flight money.
I’ve been watching a lot of Cruise trip videos and one of the top 5 tips they give is to get Cruise specific travel insurance for this type of stuff. I suspect your travel insurance will kick back, but it’s worth a try. Good luck