Fee Free Changes for January Cruises - Anyone worried about Omicron and has a cruise booked

[howmuch!]

May have been posted already, but only just seen this myself on the Tui website - 

 

• You can make a change fee-free from now up until 14 days before your departure date if:
-You’re due to travel between 1 January and 31 January 2022

[ferretktf]

I'm travelling on 30th Dec ...

 

I have two positions to mull over

• I'm not worried about catching Omicron personally (triple vaxed and ultra cautious - wear FPP3 masks etc.)
• With the boat only around ~50% full,  I'm comfortable that I can socially distance (was certainly not a problem on my Marella cruise in October)

On the contrary though

• am worried about Spain banning UK
• am worried about others bringing Omicron onto the boat - not as I say as a risk to my health, but more that the numbers may end up destroying the Cruise as - as I witnessed in October - far too many people are completely lax when on holiday - heavv social mixing and miniscule mask wearing

biggest concern is Spain not letting us in though so I guess - to a large extent - it is all out of my hands anyway

Edited December 18, 2021 by ferretktf

[howmuch!]

We sail 4th Jan but have similar thoughts. If Spain don't let us in, it would have the advantage that we could have a refund or possibly some 'added benefit' from Tui to change to a later cruise.

 

Moving the cruise before Tues for us means paying a few hundred pounds more for one later in the year.

We have 3 days to mull it over, unfortunately you are past the 14 day deadline. Chances are we'll move it, then it will get cancelled!

 

[colint17]

We also are sailing around the Canaries on 4th Jan and, unless Covid restrictions make things impossible, will continue with this cruise unless Tui cancel it. We have already had 3 cruises cancelled, one with Celestyal and two with Tui.

 

Looking at the future cruises on offer the deal we got originally round the Med then free cruise transfer to the Canaries, I couldn't come near matching the price if I cancelled.

[Medeba]

22 hours ago, ferretktf said:

I'm travelling on 30th Dec ...

 

I have two positions to mull over

• I'm not worried about catching Omicron personally (triple vaxed and ultra cautious - wear FPP3 masks etc.)
• With the boat only around ~50% full,  I'm comfortable that I can socially distance (was certainly not a problem on my Marella cruise in October)

On the contrary though

• am worried about Spain banning UK
• am worried about others bringing Omicron onto the boat - not as I say as a risk to my health, but more that the numbers may end up destroying the Cruise as - as I witnessed in October - far too many people are completely lax when on holiday - heavv social mixing and miniscule mask wearing

biggest concern is Spain not letting us in though so I guess - to a large extent - it is all out of my hands anyway

Just the thoughts we have but we're due on the Christmas cruise.  With the news about Germany this morning you have to wonder if Spain might follow suit.

[ferretktf]

I am hoping that Spain hold out for a little longer - it is a bigger financial impact to them due to the volume of Brits who spend the winter months in Spain.

 

However, they closed the doors to Brits on 21st December last year so they do have a precedent.

 

Additionally - ok for you but not for us - as you will have seen, strong indications that the UK will go into a two week lockdown on Boxing Day - equiuvalent to Stage 1 in the Spring.    I've looked back at those previous restrictions and travel for holidays was not permitted during that lockdown.... so that is another threat to people looking to travel in the last week of December or the first week of January.

[di T]

We are due to do the canaries 14 nt cruise January 24th, I tried to move to January 2023 same cruise but was over £700 more, can’t move to any other dates in 2022 as have 2 Celebrity and 2 Royal Caribbean cruises booked. All this uncertainty takes the shine off planing.Stay safe everyone

[Devonian]

In expectation of a post Christmas lockdown we have rebooked our 9th January Caribbean cruise for Boxing Day, in the hope that we can escape before any lockdown starts. Same itinerary and same cabin grade - but now £700 less than we originally paid. Fingers crossed that we will be in Barbados this time next week…

[howmuch!]

Today was our last day to cancel our Jan 4th cruise free, so as OH has type 1 diabetes, we decided to cancel and move to an All Inc hotel holiday for late April. We are hoping the Covid situation will have improved by then.

 

Hopefully, Tui lady will have done it all correctly, as it was changed via phone call. We have the email for cruise cancellation, and the new booking confirmation, but £1370 refund not shown on either!

[B17]

I am on the Christmas Cruise and feel like its now out of my hands.  From what we understand if we wanted to change the booking now we would be penalised as it being treated as a cancellation ... I was hoping it would be just an admin fee?  So we will just have to go with the flow.  

My biggest concern is  catching something on board and not being able to get back home on the return date

[howmuch!]

I think that is more or less what everyone is concerned about, and the main reason we changed while we had the option. There's lots of discussion regarding being debarked on P&O threads.

 

I was tempted to wait for Tui to cancel as I think either Spain will stop us coming, or we will eventually be in some sort of lockdown situation before 4th Jan, but I didn't want to take the risk.