Travellers from Yorkshire

We have booked.  

From the official website dated yesterday 9th April.

For all sailings between 1st July and 31st December 2020, we have reduced our balance payment due date down from 90 days to 28 days.

This means that cruises are secured with a 15% deposit until four weeks before departure, and guests have more time to make any decisions regarding their booking. With this in mind, we will also ensure that we let guests know of the status of their cruise at least four weeks before departure, in case their cruise is cancelled are altered.

For us this appears to be good news as we were scheduled to make an additional payment next month and were concerned doing so when advice is not to travel would adversely impact our insurance.

Hope this is to help to others.

Regarding paying by credit card to obtain s75 Consumer Credit Act protection, I don't know if you are aware but there does not appear to be cover should the total cost of the booking exceed £30,000.  This is the cost of the whole trip not the deposit paid.

For many who have booked this cruise or another "Grand Voyage" the booking cost will exceed this.

Glad you managed to get sorted satisfactorily.

Hello Jesssybell,

We are on the same cruise and are using the "free" annual Nationwide Worldwide Travel cover we have with our FlexPlus account which covers sea cruises.  You may wish to consider this as an option.

For this we have to pay £13 per month as an account charge, but this includes other benefits.

As my husband is over 70 years of age we had to pay a £65 additional fee for 12 months.  We also had to pay an additional £84 to extend the standard maximum trip length to exceed 70 nights as only trips up to 30/31 days are included as standard.

We could have paid extra, I seem to recall around £80 was quoted, to cover a sum in excess of £5,000 per person for trip cancellation, but as we have only paid 30% of the cost do far, which is less than that, we haven't done that do far.

Fortunately we do not have medical conditions which need to be declared so have no direct experience, but acquaintances who like yourselves have medically controlled conditions have told me it was beneficial to stick with them.

As an aside Nationwide are to introduce additional cruise cover, as an extra, from November to cover missed ports / missed ship etc.  As the price is not available yet we will contact them early in November and decide then.

We also use the debit card on the account in foreign ATMs - there is no charge, and the rate is not loaded.  We also use their Select Credit Card for fee free /"clean" exchange rates when travelling.

A message specifically for tartan exile 81.

We found this thread when researching a trip we have booked for January 2020 on Fred Olsen's Balmoral.

It is a similar itinerary to that you undertook a few years ago, it's a 70 night trip entitled South American Exploration.

We would like to thank you most profusely for taking the time to post (and load the beautiful pictures).

It has increased our excitement levels and also gave us many pointers as to the ports, the DIY opportunities and the availability of private guides.

Once again many thanks.

Keep enjoying your cruising adventures.

Margaret and Tony

Bb

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