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What happens if your cruise is oversold - cc article


Eglesbrech
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Cc have a really good piece on cruise ships and overselling. Generally they say that it does not happen a lot compared to airlines etc but it does indeed happen, occasionally.

 

Has anyone ever been bumped from a P&O cruise? (Other than the mass bumping from Adonia recently)

 

We were not bumped by Celebrity but they wanted our cabin and offered a lot to get it. In that case it was win win as we were happy with the deal.

 

Any other experiences of this?

Edited by Eglesbrech
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Cc have a really good piece on cruise ships and overselling. Generally they say that it does not happen a lot compared to airlines etc but it does indeed happen, occasionally.

 

Has anyone

 

 

 

There are people on here who would love that to happen to them. Not having to go on the cruise and being able to moan about P&zombie.

 

Never heard of this happening on P&O.

 

 

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There are people on here who would love that to happen to them. Not having to go on the cruise and being able to moan about P&zombie.

 

Never heard of this happening on P&O.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

No I have never heard of it on P&O either but then by definition the people it happened to are not onboard to tell others it has happened and they may not travel with whichever line did it again. I am sure however that they would make their feeling know on FB or here if they used either and nothing to date that I am aware of.

 

Cc quoted some people who had been bumped the day before travel (not P&O)

 

Personally I would not be happy, wasted flights, wasted hotel room etc.

 

I am however open to a bribe to change my room:)

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Sorry this is slightly off-topic, but we were bumped from our berth in Istanbul by HMS Illustrious because HM The Queen was using it as a floating residence (we were on Holland America then). And we were bumped from our hotel room in Sydney by the Thai royal family. Never known it for a cruise ship cabin though.

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I know someone that was bumped off a ppackage holiday (not cruise based) and he was able to get back from them every incidental expense he could think of,. including hotel room the night before, travel to London, loss on exchange rates of his foreign currency, cost of letters and phone calls sorting out the dispute, even the costs of books and videos (it was a while ago!) that he had bought in advance to research. Airtours' (they were the holiday company, not the travel agent) last attempt to get the price down was to say he still had the books and videos so they didn't need to pay - he offered to let them come and collect, and they caved in.

 

But that's the point of bumping UK passengers under UK contract law. Consequential losses become the liability of the holiday company, because it's a binding contract.

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We were due to fly to the Far East for a three week cruise when we were offered all our money back and a free cruise to the value of the one we were booked to travel on by Princess Cruises. Would you believe my other half refused because of limited annual leave. I was very tempted to take up the offer.:(

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We were due to fly to the Far East for a three week cruise when we were offered all our money back and a free cruise to the value of the one we were booked to travel on by Princess Cruises. Would you believe my other half refused because of limited annual leave. I was very tempted to take up the offer.:(

 

If they offered that much they must have been desperate to get someone off the ship. I wonder what they do if everyone says no thanks I want my cruise?

 

The airlines are pretty ruthless about it, remember the ugly scenes a few months back as they physically removed a passenger.

 

I suspect that the cruise lines handle it discreetly to avoid bad publicity by just offering more and more until someone takes the bait.

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Irrespective of the reclaimed costs, however comprehensive, it's no consolation to those who have got precious annual leave with nowhere to go. They may get a late deal to somewhere but it's not their first choice of holiday as that was the one they'd booked and lost.

 

As we're retired we have flexibility with holiday dates but even then with other commitments it's often a bit of a juggling act finding the right window with a preferred itinerary. Of course I'd be more than happy with an upgrade but I think it's right that compensation (as in example above with Princess) should be worth far more than the cost of the holiday plus on-costs which would really just be a refund with no acknowledgement of the emotional and practical impact. There is the disappointment and effort of getting organised to go to then just return home - no, definitely significant compensation needed to sweeten the blow. And to be fair, in this situation people have a very good case to 'moan' - it would be wrong to infer it's an unjustified reason for complaint as, in some cases, even with compensation a different cruise may just not be suitable.

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We were due to fly to the Far East for a three week cruise when we were offered all our money back and a free cruise to the value of the one we were booked to travel on by Princess Cruises. Would you believe my other half refused because of limited annual leave. I was very tempted to take up the offer.:(

Given that you still had the three weeks AND an unexpected amount of cash to book a last minute deal, I would certainly have spent a day or two looking for alternatives before turning it down!

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Never heard of it on P&O but it seems to be a regular occurrence on the Princess boards.

 

We shared a table at lunch with two couples some years ago who had been bumped off a P&O cruise because of overbooking. They told us that they were obviously upset at first but that P&O had compensated them handsomely and that they were very happy with the arrangement. Both couples were retired so were able to take the offered alternative cruise offered by the company.

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We shared a table at lunch with two couples some years ago who had been bumped off a P&O cruise because of overbooking. They told us that they were obviously upset at first but that P&O had compensated them handsomely and that they were very happy with the arrangement. Both couples were retired so were able to take the offered alternative cruise offered by the company.

Exactly, it depends on how you handle it.

 

My only experience of overbooking was on a flight back from Miami a few years ago.

 

The flight had been delayed a couple of hours, so people were already slightly grumpy, and then there was a tannoy announcement the flight was overbooked.

 

However the announcement was made to let people know they were seeking volunteers, how much they would be paid, and the overnight arrangements and flight the following day.

 

The only complaints I heard was from the people who hadn't been able to take up the offer.

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How you handle it will depend on your personal circumstances and your ability to make alternative holiday arrangements. We had P&O cancel a cruise on us at almost no notice whatsoever, in fact we only found out about the cancellation by chance two days before.

In our case we certainly weren't compensated for in any way. In fact both my wife and my daughter lost leave as a result of the cancellation and certainly weren't happy bunnies. We informed friends who were going on the same cruise of the cancellation and they were actually packing their cases when we phoned them. At first they were relatively relaxed about it thinking that the discount on a future cruise later that year was generous, only to discover that the offer was from generous when they came to book.

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Given that you still had the three weeks AND an unexpected amount of cash to book a last minute deal, I would certainly have spent a day or two looking for alternatives before turning it down!

 

 

 

Doesn’t quite work like that. They want an answer almost immediately so if you refuse they can move on to someone else.

 

 

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In 2012 we booked to join Arcadia in Sydney to return to Southampton on her world cruise.

A week before we were due to fly out our TA phoned to say P&O had overbooked and were looking for volunteers to cancel, receive a full refund and a future cruise(s) to the same value.

P&O gave us the weekend to think it over. On the Monday we accepted the offer.

I remember feeling quite upset when the day came that we should have flown but I had a big grin on my face the following year on our free cruise.

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How you handle it will depend on your personal circumstances and your ability to make alternative holiday arrangements. We had P&O cancel a cruise on us at almost no notice whatsoever, in fact we only found out about the cancellation by chance two days before.

In our case we certainly weren't compensated for in any way. In fact both my wife and my daughter lost leave as a result of the cancellation and certainly weren't happy bunnies. We informed friends who were going on the same cruise of the cancellation and they were actually packing their cases when we phoned them. At first they were relatively relaxed about it thinking that the discount on a future cruise later that year was generous, only to discover that the offer was from generous when they came to book.

 

Did they give you a reason why the cruise was cancelled, was it overbooking or something else? If your friends were cancelled too was it a ship wide issue or just because you had a linked booking.

 

Still very disappointing regardless of the circumstances but some are more understandable than others eg engine failure, weather etc

 

For me overbooking is just greed by any company and it is becoming a bad habit in the travel industry. As a small example we booked extra leg room seats in a flight and they had sold them all twice, we got ours as we checked in on line and it was generally those who checked in at the airport that got bumped to DVT class seats.

 

I was not aware that P&O ever did this but the examples above show that occasionally they do as well.

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