Help from UK cruisers please

I am very tempted to book a cruise in Oct 2015 under the current offer which is very good value for a cruise I have been following. My problem is the risks involved in booking so far out. We have eldery parents with 'pre existing medical conditions' for which our travel insurance would not cover us either for cancellation or if we had to fly home. Who knows what's going to happen over a year away? My question is firstly what booking

deposit are we required to pay remembering we are in the UK. Also if we were to decide before final payment that the risks were too high could we transfer the deposit to a future cruise with only a small penalty or would we lose it completely? I realise that we also have to consider flights. Thanks.

I am very tempted to book a cruise in Oct 2015 under the current offer which is very good value for a cruise I have been following. My problem is the risks involved in booking so far out. We have eldery parents with 'pre existing medical conditions' for which our travel insurance would not cover us either for cancellation or if we had to fly home. Who knows what's going to happen over a year away? My question is firstly what booking

 

deposit are we required to pay remembering we are in the UK. Also if we were to decide before final payment that the risks were too high could we transfer the deposit to a future cruise with only a small penalty or would we lose it completely? I realise that we also have to consider flights. Thanks.

Deposits in the UK are currently £250pp and are non refundable on cancelation, balance is due to Azamara 90 days before sailing of course travel agents would require payment earlier although to offset this it is still possible to get some extra discounts from travel agents and recently we have managed to get an extra 8 - 10%.

We have been able to change cruises for a charge of £35 pp and I believe this is still the case, but of course this can change at any time so it would be best to confirm this with Azamara prior to booking.

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Hi. With effect from sailings starting 1st January 2015 the deposit per person is £250 due 90 days before your cruise. As regards transferring the deposit, I have been able to do that when booking directly, but this was in the days of having a personal cruise specialist based in the UK. Now that we have a service centre handling things via Guatemala I'm not sure if this us still possible. If you have a travel agent that you use it may be worth asking them as they can give you the definitive.

Phil

Thanks that is very helpful I suppose I need to talk to a good TA.

The deposit has only recently risen to £250 from £150. When this change was made I believe final payment terms were also amended and now final payment is required 120 days before sailing.