We took the Balmoral cruise L2229, French Rivers and Bordeaux, from 25th October to 4th November 2022. Our third cruise with Fred, and we were particularly attracted by the river passages to Bordeaux and Rouen, as we have never been on a river cruise.
All started well; a last-minute upgrade to a suite at a very attractive price, and we liked the ship very much. BUT - when it came to the river passages, all four were in total darkness. Not the daytime transits shown in the brochure, at least once in each river you would have thought, coming or going, but none of them. There were some issues for the ship - bad weather in one instance, a sick passenger helicoptered off in another - but nothing done to give us even one river transit in daylight. So not at all the experience we had been hoping for, and which other passengers had told us about from earlier cruises, of see people out to watch us go by, wave flags, us seeing the scenery in daylight, and so on.
So we thought we’d write to Fred to express our disappointment, which we did. And since whenever you complain, you should have in mind what you might ask in recompense, we thought about that; and decided (somewhat to our own surprise) that nothing short of a total refund would do. As we needed to be back in the situation where we could go again on a river cruise, and get the experience we had hoped for, which Fred had not supplied.
The answer back from Fred was that they would do nothing. No recompense at all. Nix, nada, nil. Even our travel agent was shocked, and contacted Fred again on our behalf. Still nothing, still a brick wall. Just a comment that as they weren’t giving anybody else who had complained about it anything, it was only fair to those passengers that they didn’t give us anything either.
Which has got to be the world’s most extended definition of ‘fair’ - to be equally unfair to everyone who complained. But did of course mean Fred had let slip that we were far from alone in our disappointment.
We had the Cyprus cruise in January 2023 booked before all this, on the dark and gloomy Bolette; wish we hadn’t now, but we don’t want to forfeit the already-paid-for fares.
I doubt we’ll sail with Fred again after that, though. We did find from the final cruise log that the cruise had morphed into ‘Tastes of Spain and France’, perhaps out of embarrassment, but the taste in our mouths from this experience has been a nasty one. We think ‘the old Fred’ would have treated us better; but it is seeming like ‘the old Fred’ is gone 😢
