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Itinerary change due to re-branding.


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CONTiNENTAL COASTS 27th OCTOBER. Have just received this email from Thomson/TUI re. itinerary change due to new rebranding. We now are staying in Tenerife overnight and missing Gran Canaria the next day BUT are calling at Gran Canaria instead of La Palma on the final day and are are being given 25 Pounds per person as compensation.

Dear Mr Lee,

RE: Your holiday to Santa Cruz Port.

Departure date 27-10-2017. Reference Number 4851991

We’re writing to give you some important news about your cruise holiday.

This week we announced that we’ll be setting sail with a brand new name later this year – Marella Cruises. It’s the biggest evolution in our company’s history.

With Thomson changing to TUI, and so many new adventures ahead on the horizon, we wanted a new name that reflected who we are and what we do. Marella is of Celtic origin and means shining sea. The sea is the place we call home so the name felt like a perfect fit. But rest assured, everything else you know and love about Thomson Cruises will stay the same – especially the genuine and friendly service you enjoy from our crew.

Of course, we’ll need to rename our ships too. And TUI Discovery 2 will be updated during your cruise.

What does this mean for you? Well, firstly, when you join the ship she’ll be TUI Discovery 2, and when you leave she’ll be Marella Discovery 2.To do this we need to stay in Santa Cruz overnight, which means we’ve made some changes to your itinerary. We’ve cancelled our call in La Palma, and moved Las Palmas to the end of the cruise to make sure you don’t miss out on visiting Gran Canaria. We can’t rename our ship without a celebration. So we’d like you to join us for a relaunch party in the atrium on Saturday night. This is in addition to our sailaway party and our Dress to Impress night, so make sure you pack your finery for all the festivities.

We’ll also be crediting your onboard account with £25 per adult to spend onboard as gesture of goodwill.

Your new itinerary looks like this…

Day Port Arrive Depat

1 Santa Cruz, Tenerife

2 Santa Cruz, Tenerife 23.00

3 Arrecife, Lanzarote 08.00 18.00

4 Agadir, Morocco 08.00 18.00

5 At Sea

6 Funchal, Madeira 08.00 18.00

7 Las Palmas, Gran Canaria 09.00 18.00

8 Santa Cruz, Tenerife 06.00

If you’ve got any trips or tours booked in La Palma, we’ll automatically cancel and refund them for you. Anything you’ve booked for Gran Canaria, we’ll move across to the new date for you. For new ones, meanwhile, visit our resident port experts onboard – Destination Services – for the full list of trips and tours.

We hope you understand the reasons behind this change and go on to have a wonderful cruise. If you’ve got any questions you can either visit your local travel shop, chat to us on Facebook by visiting www.facebook.com/thomsoncruises or give us a call on 0800 009 3870

The Team at Thomson Cruises.

Yours sincerely,

Bev

Change Control Executive TUI Group

 

We are staying in a hotel on Tenerife the night before we were due to sail. We may as well have had an extra (cheaper) night in the hotel and just booked a 6 night cruise. NOT happy!

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They must have known for months this was going to happen. Why tell customers with less than two weeks before they go. Am I being cynical in thinking that they have done it because it will be too late to book something else or cancel. We are on that cruise as well. Our plans for Saturday were to do nothing anyway - So it will be nothing in Tenerife. Shame that La Palma has gone though.

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I can understand why you are unhappy. La Palma is a lovely, laid back place to visit.

 

TUI really didn't plan any of this very well. They put "TUI" in front of the Discovery ships knowing that TUI Cruises are actually a separate company operating out of Germany. They could have just put "Discovery" on the ships from the start. Mind you, TUI cruises are not the most imaginative of companies - their German fleet ships are named Mein Schiff 1, Mein Schiff 2, Mein Schiff 3, Mein Schiff 4, Mein Schiff 5 and Mein Schiff 6. They obviously intend taking 'Marella' down the same route with "Discovery".

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TUI have introduced a innovation within the cruise world. Re-branding a boat whilst paying passengers are on board.

This as made the national press and media

 

Talk about profit coming before everything and I would bet THIS a start of things to come from TUI

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CONTiNENTAL COASTS 27th OCTOBER. Have just received this email from Thomson/TUI re. itinerary change due to new rebranding. We now are staying in Tenerife overnight and missing Gran Canaria the next day BUT are calling at Gran Canaria instead of La Palma on the final day and are are being given 25 Pounds per person as compensation.

Dear Mr Lee,

RE: Your holiday to Santa Cruz Port.

Departure date 27-10-2017. Reference Number 4851991

We’re writing to give you some important news about your cruise holiday.

This week we announced that we’ll be setting sail with a brand new name later this year – Marella Cruises. It’s the biggest evolution in our company’s history.

With Thomson changing to TUI, and so many new adventures ahead on the horizon, we wanted a new name that reflected who we are and what we do. Marella is of Celtic origin and means shining sea. The sea is the place we call home so the name felt like a perfect fit. But rest assured, everything else you know and love about Thomson Cruises will stay the same – especially the genuine and friendly service you enjoy from our crew.

Of course, we’ll need to rename our ships too. And TUI Discovery 2 will be updated during your cruise.

What does this mean for you? Well, firstly, when you join the ship she’ll be TUI Discovery 2, and when you leave she’ll be Marella Discovery 2.To do this we need to stay in Santa Cruz overnight, which means we’ve made some changes to your itinerary. We’ve cancelled our call in La Palma, and moved Las Palmas to the end of the cruise to make sure you don’t miss out on visiting Gran Canaria. We can’t rename our ship without a celebration. So we’d like you to join us for a relaunch party in the atrium on Saturday night. This is in addition to our sailaway party and our Dress to Impress night, so make sure you pack your finery for all the festivities.

We’ll also be crediting your onboard account with £25 per adult to spend onboard as gesture of goodwill.

Your new itinerary looks like this…

Day Port Arrive Depat

1 Santa Cruz, Tenerife

2 Santa Cruz, Tenerife 23.00

3 Arrecife, Lanzarote 08.00 18.00

4 Agadir, Morocco 08.00 18.00

5 At Sea

6 Funchal, Madeira 08.00 18.00

7 Las Palmas, Gran Canaria 09.00 18.00

8 Santa Cruz, Tenerife 06.00

If you’ve got any trips or tours booked in La Palma, we’ll automatically cancel and refund them for you. Anything you’ve booked for Gran Canaria, we’ll move across to the new date for you. For new ones, meanwhile, visit our resident port experts onboard – Destination Services – for the full list of trips and tours.

We hope you understand the reasons behind this change and go on to have a wonderful cruise. If you’ve got any questions you can either visit your local travel shop, chat to us on Facebook by visiting www.facebook.com/thomsoncruises or give us a call on 0800 009 3870

The Team at Thomson Cruises.

Yours sincerely,

Bev

Change Control Executive TUI Group

 

We are staying in a hotel on Tenerife the night before we were due to sail. We may as well have had an extra (cheaper) night in the hotel and just booked a 6 night cruise. NOT happy!

 

We have done over 20 Cruises with Thomsom but Colourful Coasts on the 27th will probably be the last, the Thomson standards have fell dramatically latlely, waiters not smart anymore, only 3 courses, may as wll be in a canteen, drinks are now poor unless you pay the supplements and to top it all they are keeping us in crappy cool santa cruz overnight while they paint the name on the boat.:mad:

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It beggars belief that Thomson would re-brand to TUI and then to Marella in the space of a few short weeks and at all the additional expense. Even more so that they are doing some of it whilst pax on board and missing out published ports of call, and then giving away some 1000 pax x 5 ships x £25 each for putting up with it.

Perhaps this is where Thomson well known record of incompetence comes from?

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It beggars belief that Thomson would re-brand to TUI and then to Marella in the space of a few short weeks and at all the additional expense. Even more so that they are doing some of it whilst pax on board and missing out published ports of call, and then giving away some 1000 pax x 5 ships x £25 each for putting up with it.

Perhaps this is where Thomson well known record of incompetence comes from?

 

I think the compensation will only be for the TUI Discovery 2 guests as she will be the only one to be renamed 'in service'. The other 3 ship (Discovery, Celebration and Dream) will be renamed during their maintenance periods at the end of October/early November. Neither the Spirit or Majesty will be renamed, even though the Spirit is returning for a summer season next year.

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It beggars belief that Thomson would re-brand to TUI and then to Marella in the space of a few short weeks and at all the additional expense. Even more so that they are doing some of it whilst pax on board and missing out published ports of call, and then giving away some 1000 pax x 5 ships x £25 each for putting up with it.

Perhaps this is where Thomson well known record of incompetence comes from?

Thomson has rebranded to TUI. They have brought in a sub brand for cruises called Marella. So there is only one change in each ship's name.

The change from Thomson to TUI was heralded in 2016. The sub brand of Marella was clearly to eliminate Thomson from the cruise division and to define it as a sub brand like Sensimar etc.

It is unfortunate for those on D2 next week, but it seems that the change is taking place at a time of minimum inconvenience, not that will be of solace to those affected.

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TUI have introduced a innovation within the cruise world. Re-branding a boat whilst paying passengers are on board.

This as made the national press and media

 

Talk about profit coming before everything and I would bet THIS a start of things to come from TUI

 

Not quite an innovation as I know of at least one other renaming in service back in the 90's. Cunard renamed the Crown Dynasty to Crown Majesty whilst in service! Took the crew and contractors all day during a repositioning cruise to Alaska.

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Took the crew and contractors all day during a repositioning cruise to Alaska.
Was this done at sea? We aren't sailing until 24 hours later than planned so the paintwork can be done - now have a one night stay on a static floating hotel plus a 6 night/4 port cruise instead of a 7 night/5 port cruise..
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We have done over 20 Cruises with Thomsom but Colourful Coasts on the 27th will probably be the last, the Thomson standards have fell dramatically latlely, waiters not smart anymore, only 3 courses, may as wll be in a canteen, drinks are now poor unless you pay the supplements and to top it all they are keeping us in crappy cool santa cruz overnight while they paint the name on the boat.:mad:
I can agree with most you are saying but the drinks are not a lot different than fourteen years ago, in fact they have on the new ships returned to the good old days, unfortunately you are correct about the staff mainly because they are using some Eastern Europeans replacing the Philippine's . Your are also correct about the food but they have no objections if you ask for an extra coarse.[emoji2]

 

Sent from my VF-895N using Forums mobile app

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We have done over 20 Cruises with Thomsom but Colourful Coasts on the 27th will probably be the last, the Thomson standards have fell dramatically latlely, waiters not smart anymore, only 3 courses, may as wll be in a canteen, drinks are now poor unless you pay the supplements and to top it all they are keeping us in crappy cool santa cruz overnight while they paint the name on the boat.:mad:

 

Sorry to read you are unhappy, excusable because of the insensitive way they have handled the changeover on discovery.

 

IMO the standards have not fallen dramatically and they are falling on other cruise lines as well because of cost cutting. I had more than 3 courses on Discovery this summer and the included drinks package is very good. I don't understand the bit about waiters smartness, to be honest I don't notice what they are wearing.

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Was this done at sea? We aren't sailing until 24 hours later than planned so the paintwork can be done - now have a one night stay on a static floating hotel plus a 6 night/4 port cruise instead of a 7 night/5 port cruise..

 

Some of it was done at sea (name on lifeboats, lifebuoys etc.) but the majority was done during a long call in Los Angeles. IIRC it was a home port day Cunard gave the guests who were continuing the cruise to Alaska were given a complimentary tour in order to get them out of the way. Not for me as I was working onboard the ship at the time.

Edited by bishop84
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Sorry to read you are unhappy, excusable because of the insensitive way they have handled the changeover on discovery.

 

IMO the standards have not fallen dramatically and they are falling on other cruise lines as well because of cost cutting. I had more than 3 courses on Discovery this summer and the included drinks package is very good. I don't understand the bit about waiters smartness, to be honest I don't notice what they are wearing.

I agree, the food, drink and service was excellent on Discovery this year.

I sympathize with those who are affected by the renaming, but on the bright side the weather forecast for Santa Cruz, Tenerife, next weekend is 27 degrees in sun.

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I can agree with most you are saying but the drinks are not a lot different than fourteen years ago, in fact they have on the new ships returned to the good old days, unfortunately you are correct about the staff mainly because they are using some Eastern Europeans replacing the Philippine's . Your are also correct about the food but they have no objections if you ask for an extra coarse.[emoji2]

 

Sent from my VF-895N using Forums mobile app

Whats wrong with the (predominantly ukranian) east european staff ???, the dominance of phillipino staff ended years ago and you might be suprised how many of the staff you take to be phillipino are actually not

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Whats wrong with the (predominantly ukranian) east european staff ???, the dominance of phillipino staff ended years ago and you might be suprised how many of the staff you take to be phillipino are actually not

 

 

 

 

Maybe not but they all certainly have a better attitude than some of the Eastern Europeans we came across on Spirit and Majesty this year. These ships seem to have more of them than on Dream or Celebration

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  • 2 weeks later...

We were onboard this ship last week and first things first the staff onboard are absolutely amazing. So friendly and happy they really add to the experience.

 

Sadly the experience before hand had already tainted the trip. I was told 3 different reasons for the change to the itinerary. Their customer service team did not care at all and the extra day in Santa Cruz was pretty boring and really put a bit of a downer on first few days of the holiday. I have photos of the work being carried out on the boat to rename it.

 

TUI keep telling me it was for "reasons beyond their control" but it obvious its wasnt. I have spoken to ABTA and will be following through with the complaint.

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The first time we came across Eastern European staff on board was on Majesty a few years ago where we found them quite reserved. Last month we were on the Dream and we found the Eastern European staff very friendly and helpful but some of the male 'Philippinos' very dour and uninterested. Every female member of staff of whatever nationality was very happy and friendly.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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We heard from the Filipinos that they earn less than the Eastern Europeans and they weren't very happy about it

The Filipinos are paid in dollars and the Europeans in Euros at the same amount Don't think I'd be happy either ☹️😖

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