Borealis Returning to UK After Abandoning Journey to Caribbean

[1160451]

Just been told our Corinth Canal 10 day cruise on the Breamar in 2023 has been moved to April 2024. Same price, same cabin.

 

[Coravel]

35 minutes ago, 1160451 said:

Just been told our Corinth Canal 10 day cruise on the Breamar in 2023 has been moved to April 2024. Same price, same cabin.

 

I'm somewhat alarmed to hear that and wonder if it is anything to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine?  If so there may be an avalanche of cruises about to suffer the same fate.  

[tring]

1 hour ago, Coravel said:

I'm somewhat alarmed to hear that and wonder if it is anything to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine?  If so there may be an avalanche of cruises about to suffer the same fate.  

 

The poster reported in a post on the previous page of this thread that the initial cancellation notification was some time back.

 

I think the itinerary was at the end of the early 2023 fly cruise season, when Braemar was scheduled to go straight into the Med for a cruise or two on the way back from the Caribbean.  The whole of that fly cruise season was cancelled when they cancelled Balmoral cruises until May this year and Braemar until the cruises out of the UK in Spring 2013.  Fred have taken a very long time offering specific replacements for those cruises. 

 

[twotravellersLondon]

5 hours ago, Coravel said:

I'm somewhat alarmed to hear that and wonder if it is anything to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine?  If so there may be an avalanche of cruises about to suffer the same fate.  

 Coravel...

 

The Corinth Canal was closed between 13 & 19 November 2020 after the cargo ship "Nemesis" was grounded after part of the canal wall collapsed.

 

The Corinth Canal was again closed by a landslide in January 2021. Work was started to reopen the canal but more landslides in July 2021 stopped work all together and the canal has now been closed for well over a year.

 

Work was again due to start in January 2022. That was also postponed and another announcement was made on 10 February 2022 that work would begin "next week." but that's didn't happened but a plan to reopen the canal was laid before the Greek Parliament... with and estimated bill that had soared from € 9 million to € 30 million.

 

There seems to be no great doubt that the canal can be cleared but there is no certainty that further landslides won't close it again or that geotechnical studies will determine the canal sides are too unstable for the route to be reopened. (What makes matters so uncertain is that Greece has a couple of serious earthquakes every year.)

 

The latest that I know is that work to clear the canal did begin in late February. Estimated cost is now € 31 million Euros.

 

The "Greek Times" is a good source of news on this.

 

 

Best Wishes.

 

 

[Coravel]

Thanks for clarifying the situation.  I think I'm beginning to panic too quickly!