babs135

I've 'moaned' a few times here about the difficulty we were experiencing in contacting the travel agent and it was Port Royal who suggested emailing their customer service department which we did. I cannot for the life of me work out why it didn't occur to us to do this. Anyway, 5 days after emailing them we've had a call and have now transferred this year's New England and Canada trip on the QM2 to next year. As the original booking was a 5% deposit we have had to pay a little extra but as the cost of the cruise is actually slightly cheaper than this year we are not complaining. We did lose the $700 obc but were offered $300 so it's better than nothing. Fingers crossed that by the time we have to pay the balance next June there will be either a vaccine or at the very least some type of medication.

And I thought I was going to post the biggest number. It was 124 days but having transferred the booking to next year it is now 481 days!!

Ok, so I'm kind of bored this morning and the news stinks (and not just about the virus) so I thought I'd start a light-hearted thread. What's your best (free) upgrade? Ours was from an inside cabin to a balcony on a transatlantic crossing on the QM2. Best of all we didn't know until check-in when the lady behind the desk just casually said we'd been upgraded. When we asked where to, she just smiled, handed us our sea passes and said 'enjoy'. And we did!!!

Not sure how this will effect the industry, if at all. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/cruise-ship-study-shows-that-80-per-cent-of-covid-19-cases-on-board-were-asymptomatic/ar-BB14Gu1H?ocid=spartandhp

Do you think the shops will reopen along with other non essential shops in mid-June? Still waiting for a reply to a couple of emails sent to our agent, but if the shop is reopening they can hardly ignore us.

Ok, bear with me as I try and explain our situation. It is a Group Policy (rather than individual) with AXA PPP. To qualify you, your spouse or a close relative must be or was a member of the Armed Forces - all branches. You prove this by having the service number of the said person and then you join the Forcespensionsociety.org by paying an annual fee. Their insurance company of choice is AXA who add you to their policy. Price is extremely competitive and if you are worried that it sounds too good to be true don't. In 2018 DH took ill, was admitted to hospital and then declared unfit to travel meaning we had to cancel our Christmas cruise. From the first phone call it took just 4 weeks to get a refund less a small excess. At this point we had to declares DH's other health problems (not asked for when we took out the policy) but they still paid out. Pre existing issues Include diabetes and a minor stroke. I am a senior citizen but still have my late father's army paybook from when he served in World War 2 so time is not a problem. Hope this helps.

The 2020 holiday was booked in February before everything went pear-shaped so whether that will make a difference I don't know. We will just have to ask the question. Our insurance company do not ask for medical information, simply wanting to know if either of us has a mental health problem or is terminally ill.

Let's talk about insurance. I've just seen a question and answer which raised my eyebrows rather high. The question was by someone whose annual insurance expires next month and as they had just booked a holiday in Portugal next year he wanted to know whether to renew the policy now. As I always thought that you should have insurance in place from day one, I was surprised to read the answer was a definite No. Apparently as the FCO is still advising against non-essential travel at the moment any policy would be invalid until this changes. As we are hoping to transfer our cruise to next year and our policy expires in August I'm not sure where that leaves us. Will have to contact our insurance company for advice. Anyone else come across this?

Precisely. We simply did not know how to answer without being perceived to be rude but we did ask to speak to a supervisor who was unavailable so with a feeling that even if they 'found' the QM2 we had no faith in them and we simply walked out. This whole incident lasted over 15 minutes and we had kept asking if there was a problem. Perhaps they should stick to selling their own cruises (assuming that they can find them) and sending people to Ibiza 🤣

Where we live they are the only High street cruise specialist and up to now we've never had a problem with them. Once, armed with a price for a TA crossing and 4 nights in New York we decided to see if we could get a better price from a couple of well known travel agents. Thomas Cook quoted us £400 EACH more and couldn't give us a reason as to such a big difference in price. The other firm, who own their own cruise line so should know better couldn't even find the QM2 on the date we gave them!!!!! The agent asked if we meant the Majesty of the Seas 😱

Our travel agent specialises solely in cruises!! That's why we are getting frustrated at lack of direct contact. Switching the phones off denies us the right of direct communication. I realise that they are concerned about being swamped with calls, but surely careful screening could help.

But can you speak directly with her right now? This lack of direct communication is what is causing us (and almost certainly countless others) a giant headache.

Who knows anything any more? The agent has just got back to us...……with a reminder that our balance is due to be paid by mid-June!!! No acknowledgement of our request to amend the booking, etc. They have switched the phones off and all communication is on-line. As has been suggested, we will email them and see what, if any, response I get. (As mentioned in a previous post there is an online form for us to ask to amend our booking but that's all it is. There is no option to state how we want to amend it)

Just realised that you're from County Durham so why drive all the way to Dover when you can get the ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge and with a night's sleep under your belt you should be wide awake for your drive!!!!!

We are struggling to get through to our travel agent to transfer our booking to next year: Do you think contacting Cunard direct will have any effect? We're due to pay the balance in June for an October cruise and don't want to give Cunard any more money at the moment. Thanks for any advice.