Shhmanning

341 days 'til our next trip on Independence. Only disembarked two weeks ago and already excited to be going back.

Hi Lesley

I'm a bit late in joining this thread, but thought I'd share our experience of driving to Southampton from just outside Glasgow in July this year with our 28 month old daughter.

We decided to travel on the Friday and had booked into a Premier Inn just south of Oxford. We made this booking 6 months in advance and it only cost £69 B&B for a family room. I estimated 6 hours of driving for this part of the journey, so including a couple of stops I reckoned 7 to 7.5 hours seemed sensible. The journey was an absolute nightmare and took 10.5 hours!!! Not fun.

The drive to Southampton the following morning should have taken about 90 minutes but took almost 2.5 hours. Suppose that's the downside of travelling during school holidays.

On the way back we decided not to pre-book a hotel but just see how we got along and pull in to a hotel when we got tired. Amazingly we did the entire journey home in 9 hours door-to-door.

So I'd definitely advocate travelling the day before and always have a back up plan.

All the best

Scott

Evening all

I just wanted to provide an update on this to close out the thread.

So......after many emails between myself, Harding Retail and the Indy retail manager we seem to have reached an agreement. It appears that the sales person in question had their employment terminated by Harding upon return to Southampton, but they were quick to clarify that this was in no way connected to the issue we were raising with regards to the Gucci watch. However, even with this in mind, Harding were adamant that they were still unable to provide a replacement watch.

This conversation developed over numerous emails until the retail manager mentioned that he had authorised the use of the pre-paid envelope to return the watch for a replacement battery. This didn't quite sit right as the sales assistant had removed the back of the watch while we were in the store and fitted a new battery, but this did not fix the fault. Harding's attitude changed suddenly as it became apparent that they are not authorised to service or repair "premium" watches (their words, not mine) and they had, in effect, voided our warranty. Excellent!!!

So after many an email and much frustration, Harding have accepted all responsibility and are currently sourcing a brand new replacement which will be sent to us......complete with full warranty.

I have to say that once Harding realised that their staff member was in error, they were very quick to lift the phone and gave an unreserved apology, so good on them for that.

Strange how things develop.

Thanks to all for your input to this thread.

Scott

Hi TLC

We're also trying to get confirmation via RC but haven't heard anything back as yet. Was hoping this route might get us some confirmation.

Hi bogofman

The watch was a special gift for my wife as we'd had an absolutely amazing holiday and had been very lucky over a number of nights at the casino. She fell in love with the watch and was so disappointed when it stopped working.

UK T&Cs do apply and we have those as a backup (I.e. They send it back to Gucci and they spend the next 6 weeks trying to figure out what's wrong), but the process of being sent a replacement was seemingly so quick and straightforward that we went for that. It's now become a matter of principal.

Scott

Hi JMF

Thanks for the advice. I'll pop something over on that thread too.

Cheers

S

Evening all!! This is my first time posting here although I spent many months trawling the forums for advice prior to our first cruise.

I'm looking for a bit of help from anybody who may be browsing the forums from onboard the current Independence Mediterranean sailing. My wife and I were onboard the 16th July sailing and bought some watches from the "Gifts and Jewellery" outlet onboard. Unfortunately, one of the items, a watch for my wife, developed a fault while we were on board. After numerous trips back to the store to fix the problem our salesperson Richard said that he would give us a pre-paid envelope to return the watch directly to the retailer, Harding Brothers of Bristol, and we would receive a brand new replacement. He repeatedly said with confidence that there would be no problem with this.

Upon returning home we posted the watch away in the prepaid Royal Mail envelope and received an email from Harding a couple of days later saying that they could not confirm this verbal agreement and so could not honour it. I told the customer service rep to speak to their sales assistant Richard on Indi, but they came back saying that he no longer worked for them!!

This makes me very suspicious as I had been chatting to him late on the last sea day and he said that he was remaining on the boat when it sailed back out the following day, so I find it difficult to accept that this all changed within a period of about 18 hours. I should add that Richard was a very nice and extremely helpful assistant who did all he could to help us. My gripe is not with him, but with the poor service we have received from his company.

So basically, I just wondered if anyone currently on board had seen a tall, slim and very helpful English sales assistant called Richard in the store could you please let me know so I can get back to Harding and call them out on it. I think this argument could bubble on for a while, but currently they have my wife's very expensive watch and are refusing to honour an agreement which we took in good faith, and we are out of pocket by several hundred pounds.

Thank you very much for any help you can offer.

Scott