Baltic cruises

[Fionboard]

Poor Ukrainians, feel so sorry for them.  Terrible situation. Wonder how soon cruise ships will stop going to St Petersburg, now that Mad Vlad has acted so despicably.  

[terrierjohn]

I imagine that all cruise lines will be making contingency plans for dropping SP from their Baltic cruises, if it relies on mad Vlad I doubt they will ever return. 

[Eglesbrech]

Regardless of what the lines are doing people are already cancelling. I have seen a couple of folks on other boards mentioning cancelling or rescheduling to 2023 Baltic cruises which were booked with St Petersburg as the main point of going.

 

St Petersburg will no doubt go but I strongly suspect that some ports in other countries in that region will also be quietly dropped.

 

[wowzz]

SPB currently bans cruise ships for Covid reasons anyway, so I would think most cruise lines would already have alternate itineraries planned out.

[tring]

We are booked on the Aurora 16 night, May 24th departure and I am just waiting for the fcdo to advise against all but essential travel to Russia after this morning's news.  Will be interesting to hear what Boris announces to Parliament at 5pm.  A virtual G7 to take place within the hour to co ordinate the response apparently.

 

There are a lot of very good, interesting ports on Baltic cruises other than SPB, so we are still looking forward to the cruise, probably with another port or two added.

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by tring

[tring]

We also have a great sympathy for the Ukrainian people as well as the ordinary Russian people.  Interesting comment by a BBC reporter earlier that, basically,  not all Russians are totally reliant on the Russian based news in this day of the internet.  He also said there are no demonstrations at present against Vlad, but there wouldn't be, would there?  How much effect this has on their lives will potentially have a great effect on what happens long term.  

[tring]

Just had this email notification from P&O.  They are obviously being hassled with lots of phone calls today:-

 

"We understand that the current evolving situation with Ukraine may raise some questions about your upcoming holiday.

We are monitoring this very closely and please be assured we will amend itineraries as necessary as the safety and wellbeing of guests and crew is of the highest priority.

Please do bear with us and visit our social media channels and website for the latest information, rather than contacting our Customer Contact Centre.

The P&O Cruises team"
 

[Denarius]

St Petersburg is a considerable distance from Ukraine and unlikely to be directly affected by the invasion of the latter. In principle therefore, there appears to be no reason for cruise ships not to go there as long as Russia will allow them to do so and as long as the Foreign Office does not advise against it. There is of course the separate question of whether cruise lines should continue to feed the Russian tourist industry, but this site does not deal in politics!

 

[Eglesbrech]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

SPB currently bans cruise ships for Covid reasons anyway, so I would think most cruise lines would already have alternate itineraries planned out.

Slightly disingenuous then that so many lines have been continuously / are still advertising a port they can’t possibly visit. They must have believed that restrictions would change in the near future as they have done elsewhere over time.

[Eglesbrech]

1 hour ago, Denarius said:

St Petersburg is a considerable distance from Ukraine and unlikely to be directly affected by the invasion of the latter. In principle therefore, there appears to be no reason for cruise ships not to go there as long as Russia will allow them to do so and as long as the Foreign Office does not advise against it. There is of course the separate question of whether cruise lines should continue to feed the Russian tourist industry, but this site does not deal in politics!

 

Indeed it is not related to the actual geography but more than likely to the politics, so we won’t go there.

 

 

 

 

[bbtablet]

My TA is already asking for the final payment in excess of £4.5k for the Aurora cruise R209 leaving Southampton on July 8th.

It would be helpful to customers, given the itinerary uncertainties, if P&O could reduce the final payment due date on Baltic cruises from the current 90 days before sailing to 30 days, just as Cunard did before Christmas re COVID uncertainty.

Otherwise I am paying for a cruise without knowing where it is going!

[wowzz]

6 minutes ago, bbtablet said:

My TA is already asking for the final payment in excess of £4.5k for the Aurora cruise R209 leaving Southampton on July 8th.

It would be helpful to customers, given the itinerary uncertainties, if P&O could reduce the final payment due date on Baltic cruises from the current 90 days before sailing to 30 days, just as Cunard did before Christmas re COVID uncertainty.

Otherwise I am paying for a cruise without knowing where it is going!

You need to get a new TA !

July 8th is, by my reckoning, 134 days away.  Asking for final payment now is scandalous.

Even if P&O reduced payment to 30 days, your TA would still be wanting payment 80 days early !

[wowzz]

2 minutes ago, bee-ess said:

In the circumstances I would ask them to ask P&O to reduce the payment term to 30 days

would be 60 days for you to pay the TA. Worth a try.

But why should P&O do that just because one TAis unscrupulous ?

[wowzz]

8 minutes ago, bbtablet said:

I agree, and this is my last one booked with them - future ones are back with my previous TA. On checking the email from this frigid TA I see they are requiring the payment 120 days before sailing - it was on the orginal paperwork so I have no wriggle room. They justify it by saying they need time to batch-process the payment to P&O (in these days of computers?)!!!

Yes, my TA asks for payment just 7 days prior to the P&O date, and payment goes direct to P&O. 

[bee-ess]

4 minutes ago, wowzz said:

But why should P&O do that just because one TAis unscrupulous ?

Because as BBTablet says - 'Otherwise I am paying for a cruise without knowing where it is going!'

 

For similar reasons I have asked P&O both directly and via a TA to reduce the payment terms and both times they have said yes, once to 30 days direct and once to 60 days to the TA.

 

[bbtablet]

7 minutes ago, bee-ess said:

Because as BBTablet says - 'Otherwise I am paying for a cruise without knowing where it is going!'

 

For similar reasons I have asked P&O both directly and via a TA to reduce the payment terms and both times they have said yes, once to 30 days direct and once to 60 days to the TA.

 

Thanks to all for your comments. I am encouraged by your experiences bee-ess and am currently in chat with my TA over this. I will report back!

[Fionboard]

3 hours ago, tring said:

Just had this email notification from P&O.  They are obviously being hassled with lots of phone calls today:-

 

"We understand that the current evolving situation with Ukraine may raise some questions about your upcoming holiday.

We are monitoring this very closely and please be assured we will amend itineraries as necessary as the safety and wellbeing of guests and crew is of the highest priority.

Please do bear with us and visit our social media channels and website for the latest information, rather than contacting our Customer Contact Centre.

The P&O Cruises team"
 

I got this too. Would rather go elsewhere than St P as have been there so many times. Lots of alternatives.

[bbtablet]

Thanks to all for your comments. I am encouraged by your experiences bee-ess and am currently in chat with my TA over this. I will report back!

[bbtablet]

The TA have offered to halve the extra 30 days so now only a week or so longer than those who quoted 7 days between payment and the P&O direct deadline date.

We are waiting for news from P&O re rescheduling - this will be a big job with a number of cruises affected, so not holding my breath.

We will probably go whatever as we have lost 3 Caribbean cruises on the trot and now cannot afford to book there again!

 

Fioboard - we are the opposite! - been most everywhere else but never to the Baltic - left it to last (getting frail) - perhaps now too late for St. P.B.

Still, our holiday is totally insignificant against the pain and tragedy of those people involved in the "war".

Edited February 24, 2022 by bbtablet

[Londonpride]

Our problems are nothing compared to the poor people of the Ukraine. We are booked and paid up in full for the Baltic cruise on the Arcadia on 1st May. Our feelings are that in view of the aggression shown by mad Vlad we don’t wish to go to StP. Guess we shall just have to wait and see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[david63]

If push comes to shove and St P is taken out of the cruise, irrespective of what it is replaced with, section 40 could be invoked.

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, bee-ess said:

Because as BBTablet says - 'Otherwise I am paying for a cruise without knowing where it is going!'

 

For similar reasons I have asked P&O both directly and via a TA to reduce the payment terms and both times they have said yes, once to 30 days direct and once to 60 days to the TA.

 

You have been very lucky, I have tried to the same on 3 occasions now and got a firm no from P&O.

Can you please let us know what threat you made to P&O to achieve this miracle.

[Selbourne]

Great shame about St Petersburg as it’s spectacular but, even if it was permitted to travel there it would be total hypocrisy to do so. We can’t be subsidising a country that behaves as Russia is.

[wowzz]

I see that NCL have removed SPB from their itineraries for all of 2022.

I would imagine that all other cruise lines would follow suit.

[marlenecook]

I can’t imagine cruise lines keeping St. Petersburg as a port stop even if Ukraine is far away. American and British passengers are a significant percentage of most cruises. It would be insane to take a ship full of them to a country that’s at war with their countries. The American state department lists Russia as “do not travel.” Insurance would never cover a mishap with that in place and the cruise lines wouldn’t risk it.