uktog

You could get a clue last night on the Paroc website if you clicked on their marine references. Interesting today they have taken the pages down but I do remember Royal Caribbean Advernture of the Seas was one

Edinburgh to Athens return from Venice £3613 for two in business with BA or £2281 economy

Just checked - it was £3800 for Europe - my TA pointed out we could currently get to New York business return for that 🙂 We both think the figures were wrong!

It is so frustrating because it is not working for our agent who is trying every combination - the business class flights for the two of us would have been around £2000 and there was messing around with room availability so your friends are very lucky

Thanks Ivi - unfortunately Azamara look like being unable to help partly because of issues with the agent being able to get a hold of someone who has sufficient knowledge to put the flights togehter

Yes they have cancelled other cruises but they were not happening in the immediate future, you had time on your side and was a standard redeployment in many ways. This is a very different situation, there are some guests already en route. For those of us trying to find anything that works into the date its not a good situation. Whilst there might be last minute discount on elements of the holiday the airfares are through the roof and for us flying from a regional airport where the schools have just gone on holiday availability even being very flexible is virtually nil. A 30% voucher which you have to use in 12 months doesnt cut it, sorry

'i suspect the current agents do not understand the subtlety - you will find out at the ship. Given that your "finance" is driven from your reservation number it is not stateroom driven. You would have the same folio number each cruise going forward

Given the reason for the problem, vessels launched a year ago or coming back out from dry dock a year ago are also affected. The difference is they have "sailing certificates" but their owners will now realise these certificates could be withdrawn, they have a serious safety issue and can they continue sailing knowing key panels are now not considered to be fire retardant. Explora were ready for guests (albeit probably with a few rough edges we would have tolerated. The last 24 hours has been a roller coaster trying to find anything that would fit

Seaware does offer the option to combine reservations and I know when talking with Ryzard last year, this was something they wanted to see happen onboard so guests could carry over their OBC and not have the issues some b2b guest have. However I did not envisage you would lose out on OBC from how he spoke

If you look at the panel suppliers website you get a sense of who is affected. It also involves other shipyards so includes Royal. You just wonder who were the last 45 ships to be built or have a major refurbishment. From what I’m hearing, in every other way, although running a little late they were ready for the inaugural which does give comfort to those of us who were told yesterday by some posters that we should have known better. I think I’d now rather be on a ship that’s panels are 100% compliant than one currently cruising with non compliant panels.

Absolutely agree, our last few cruises since 2022 we’ve had four different hotel directors from the poor to the excellent “old school”. Tomaz is undoubtedly in the latter category and really understands customer service and good hotel management. You need both of these and to be visible to be a good HD at this level

I do wonder though given the obvious safety concerns if a cruise line will feel comfortable relying on certification of products that’s withdrawn. Some might see that as corporate negligence that risks manslaughter charges if heaven forbid a fire broke out and there were fatalities. In the UK, we still hurt from our Grenfell Tower disaster which was so bad because the cladding was not fire retardant to the correct standards.

Always have the agency name on credit card charges when we book - same happens with Viking, Azamara, Celebrity so I dont read anything into that.

Is it Groundhog Day- weren’t we talking about the data quality four months ago 😀

I could have waited too I thought we were two months clear and were happy to accept rough edges (we’ve November booked as well). It’s the late realisation there’s an issue and the very poor recompense that hurts most folks

But some people didn’t book an inaugural it became the inaugural

It gets even better, my travel agent tells me sh called today and was assured the cruise was not cancelled. She helped the agent on the phone....... They have found the email Explora sent - it was sent overnight to a generic email address which for a large cruise agency is frankly appalling. Something like this should be a priority escalation route that is used I have advised my agent I do not think the 30% is acceptable and will she communicate this to Explora

Thats good to know - I have seen the "voucher" is only valid for 12 months so if we were limited to one ship and have existing commitments elsewhere, we would struggle. Lets hope it is just a website issue

Major UK agencies have not yet been advised and one is not very happy at all. I started to think ahead and there are no cruises now showing for Explora 2 on the website - maybe a glitch or maybe we have a knock on... hope for everyones sakes it is a glitch

I have to say for now two things do not impressed me. Firstly, although the cruise line was very happy to email me direct to encourage me to do online check-in which I have done and they know I have done they have not contacted me direct to tell me that the Cruise is cancelled. There may well be a lot of people in the UK, who do not know partly because the announcement has come out after travel agents have closed. It will be interesting to see if my travel agent this morning had actually had any notification. Secondly, obviously everybody has to get a full refund of their costs including flights and that is being given, but the additional sweetener is only a 30% voucher. For people like me who are self-employed, I don’t have the flexibility I need to find something today or go without this holiday completely and try and rebook work in. By the time I am able to use the 30% off voucher we are into 2024, where Explora is pricing is high and I really don’t think for all the inconvenience I’m going to have to work through this 30% is a fair reflection, and I’ll be getting my travel agent to make that point for me. From what I’m reading elsewhere the reason the ship can’t sale is because of a safety issue relating to materials that were used in some part of the fit out that are not compliant so that is clearly a failure of process somewhere down the line and for now, I don’t think it’s fair I should take such a hit for that reason. Maybe I’ll feel differently in a few times first time. If my travel agent has found me something fantastic elsewhere.

Thanks I will speak to my agent this morning hoping that offer is available in the UK

Oh well, here endeth my report on the Explora 1 inaugural I will update on my experience on how they handle making this situation right for us and how quickly we see the refund

Thanks - gutted. Given that we have spent all evening trying to find our replacement trip for now - time off is precious - 30% certainly does not cut it for us But for now I have to concentrate on finding a replacement holiday and hope we find something we like

Thanks, it was there this morning so that is an update 😞 Although strangely I can do a dummy booking including room allocation still so who knows

The Southampton change seems to indicate rather than arriving on Friday and hosting the press Saturday and Sunday they will be running in late Sunday (hopefully) for the inaugural IF they can do that. Whats not so clear though is why Zeebrugge which was due to be the Tuesday stop and a relatively short stop from Southampton is not happening.