Vantage cancelling river cruise at the last minute due to "data breach"

[sharkster77]

Story in today's Boston Globe (available online) a couple, using vouchers from past cancelled cruises, had a Vantage tulip cruise cancelled less than 2 days before departure, blaming it on a data breach.  Nobody from Vantage contacted them---they say they learned of the cancellation on Facebook.  They had scheduled several days in Belgium, the 10 day cruise, followed by several days in Paris.

 

No where in the article (unless I missed it) is travel insurance mentioned.WHY, WHY, WHY NOT????

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/24/business/vantage-travel-abruptly-cancels-netherlands-trip/?p1=StaffPage

 

 

[NightFlight]

I have a trip scheduled for June 5 on Ocean Odyssey.  A little nervous but I do have travel insurance NOT through Vantage.  This company has gone down hill. I’m 

[Gourmet Gal]

Trip insurance is a must these days, especially for river cruises.

[Canal archive]

This seems a bit iffy to me have you contacted Vantage?

[sharkster77]

6 hours ago, Canal archive said:

This seems a bit iffy to me have you contacted Vantage?

?????  Why would I call Vantage?  I am NOT the people in the article I shared!!!

[Canal archive]

So you did and if I’d been able at the time to read the full article I would have realised. Still I wonder if it’s the same hackers who put a spanner in Scenics IT a few months ago. Which did seem to be worse in North America than in the U.K.

[Billybob79]

Something is up with Vantage and it cannot be good. We are scheduled to leave May 22 for South Africa and our tickets have not been paid for by Vantage. Even with insurance, unless Vantage declares bankrauptcy trip cancellation insurance will not cover the cost. The next scheduled departure for this tour is May 8 and it is not listed on the alternate website although another May 8 trip is listed as departing. Anybody else have an upcoming trip with Vantage?

[Shmoo here]

1 hour ago, Billybob79 said:

Something is up with Vantage and it cannot be good. We are scheduled to leave May 22 for South Africa and our tickets have not been paid for by Vantage. Even with insurance, unless Vantage declares bankrauptcy trip cancellation insurance will not cover the cost. The next scheduled departure for this tour is May 8 and it is not listed on the alternate website although another May 8 trip is listed as departing. Anybody else have an upcoming trip with Vantage?

There's a big discussion over on the Other Cruise Lines forum regarding Vantage (starts around page 8).

 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Shmoo here

[Canal archive]

Sorry to say that Vantage websites are down in the U.K. well at least on my systems. Fingers crossed for you all.

[sharkster77]

More Vantage problems, courtesy of this morning's Boston Globe:

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/27/business/customers-suspect-issues-with-fifth-vantage-travel-cruise/?et_rid=1923428317&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

34 minutes ago, sharkster77 said:

More Vantage problems, courtesy of this morning's Boston Globe:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/27/business/customers-suspect-issues-with-fifth-vantage-travel-cruise/?et_rid=1923428317&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter

Can't read because of paywall.  Was the ship seized?  If so, this sounds like the end of Crystal – ships seized for debts of company, never sailed again until auctioned off to new owners.

[Billybob79]

It looks like our trip to South Africa beginning May 22 is not gping as our plane tickets were cancelled on April 25 by Vantage. So sorry to see the company go under as we had 14 great trips with them, the last being a great trip to Egypt in December.

They probably overextended with the 2 ocean ships.

[sharkster77]

28 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Can't read because of paywall.  Was the ship seized?  If so, this sounds like the end of Crystal – ships seized for debts of company, never sailed again until auctioned off to new owners.

Oops, sorry about the paywall--some papers give you a set # of articles per month before you have to pay--guess the Globe doesn't do that.

 

Latest report is that the ship has left Gloucester, but instead of heading to Boston to pick up its passengers, it is headed north, perhaps to Canadian waters to prevent it from being seized??

 

Quite a mess.

[sharkster77]

16 minutes ago, Billybob79 said:

It looks like our trip to South Africa beginning May 22 is not gping as our plane tickets were cancelled on April 25 by Vantage. So sorry to see the company go under as we had 14 great trips with them, the last being a great trip to Egypt in December.

They probably overextended with the 2 ocean ships.

There were many grumblings when Vantage, last year I believed, launched a new ship while very many were still waiting for refunds.  

[sharkster77]

Yet another Globe reports states the company has lost $14 million in real estate deals as a result of bad advice.  A total of 4 or 5 cruises cancelled.

[Billybob79]

While there is information about cancelled cruises, there is nothing being posted about land tours being cancelled. We have to assume that our South Africa tour beggining May 22 has been cancelled based on our plane tickets being cancelled. Nothing from Vantage.

[Canal archive]

Cruisemaven.com has details of the boats Vantage own and use but don’t own. If anyone’s interested.

[CPT Trips]

3 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Can't read because of paywall.  Was the ship seized?  If so, this sounds like the end of Crystal – ships seized for debts of company, never sailed again until auctioned off to new owners.

“Vantage Travel, a Boston company that has canceled at least four cruises since April 1, appears to have at least temporarily diverted a fifth, as a ship that was supposed to leave Boston Thursday docked in Gloucester for most of the day, according to the online cruise tracking website cruisemapper.com.

The Ocean Explorer was supposed to take aboard as many as 160 passengers in Boston on Thursday for an 11-day cruise to Montreal, according to a temporary website set up by Vantage after a “data systems incident” last week took down its regular website and call center.

Whether the Ocean Explorer ever made it to Boston, and whether it took passengers on board on Thursday in either Boston or Gloucester, was unclear. The vessel was sighted in Provincetown on Wednesday, according to a Globe reader who passed along the information in an e-mail. Cruisemapper.com showed it going directly to Gloucester from Provincetown.”

[Canal archive]

She’s off Varmouth now, that’s USA not U.K. travelling at about 8 knots.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Canal archive

[Rrehfe4969@aol.com]

Boston globe now says public relations firm that represents vantage resigned yesterday because of non compliance with his request for more info in regard to web outage and cruises

[Daisi]

1 hour ago, Canal archive said:

She’s off Varmouth now, that’s USA not U.K. travelling at about 8 knots.

 

Yarmouth NS.... Canada. 🙂 

[Canal archive]

No off the coast of Main. Crikey how many Yarmouths are there.

[Host Jazzbeau]

CruiseMapper reports that "Ocean Explorer current location is at US East Coast (coordinates 43.22023 N / -65.77688 W) cruising en route to Halifax. The AIS position was reported 31 minutes ago." [i.e. 4:22 pm EDT Fri Apr 28, 2023]

 

Looks like they're trying to outrun the Sheriff!

[Billybob79]

The issue for the Ocean Explorer is whether it has passengers on board as Haifax is the first stop outside of the US.

[Canal archive]

When you put all the odd bits together someone’s going to have to outrun not only the sheriff the Marshall but also all those people who’ve lost out on their cruises and other holidays. The websites are still down in the U.K. 

Or you never know some entrepreneur may gallop to the rescue. Fingers crossed.