What are our rights after our cruise was cancelled?
Simon Calder answers your questions on cruise cancellations, the cost of commuting by rail and flying with a disability
Q Is there any advice you can give Marella’s cancelled cruisers as we ask for total refunds? We were forced to leave Marella Discovery 2 a week early, causing huge distress. To add insult to injury, we weren’t even flown home to Glasgow. We flew from Montego Bay to Manchester and were put on a coach to Scotland, a journey that overall took 25 hours. Complete cancellation at the outset would have been much preferred. Instead, we have refunds for half, which won’t replace our lost holiday. Can you advise?
Lynne
A Sorry to hear you are one of many hundreds of people left high and dry by the abrupt cancellation of the Pride of Panama cruise that was due to start on 31 January from Montego Bay, Jamaica. Marella Discovery 2, a Tui vessel, was due to visit Port Royal in Jamaica, Cartagena in Colombia, Colon in Panama and Puerto Limon in Costa Rica. For many passengers already on the ship it was to be the second week of “back-to-back” cruises that combined for an idyllic Caribbean meander.
A spokesperson for Tui tells me: “We understand how frustrating the cancellation of the Pride of Panama cruise on Marella Discovery 2 would have been. The cancellation was due to a technical issue with our catering facilities, which impacted our ability to provide our usually high service standards onboard the ship.”
Passengers whose cruise was cut short will get “a per night pro-rata refund” and £300 in holiday vouchers. The pro-rata refund, as you say, means that if you paid £2,000 for the two-week cruise, you get £1,000 back. The attitude appears to be that passengers derived a week of enjoyment and therefore should be refunded only half of their money back, though many people I have heard from say that from the day the cancellation was announced their holiday was effectively over.
Aircraft were sent out to bring passengers home after their curtailed cruises. But instead of direct flights to Glasgow and Birmingham, passengers for these airports were flown to Manchester and Gatwick respectively and put on buses to the intended destination. For people in your position who spent many extra hours trying to get home, I have a morsel of good news. The Tui spokesperson tells me: “We are also proactively reaching out to those customers who did not fly back to their original airport, to offer them further compensation.”
Question via the latest Ask Me Anything at independent.co.uk/travel
Q Why is my commute fare between London and Bristol so unpredictable? One week the rail fare is £35, then it’s £85 or more. Buying weeks in advance doesn’t seem to help, and I live anxiously not knowing how much it’ll cost.
Gigi
A Booking five weeks ahead for an early morning departure from Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington on Great Western Railway, I am seeing a wide range of advance fares, mostly about £50 one way for the 90-minute journey – about £70 cheaper than the anytime fare. Coming back from the capital during the late afternoon/early evening rush hour, the typical advance fare is £40.
The availability and price vary according to the exact time of the journey, especially in the morning. But if you are getting tickets as cheaply as £35, I am impressed. However, you may be travelling at different times each day, which could be triggering the sharp variation in fares.
Advance tickets swiftly sell out. For close-in bookings when they have all dried up, obliging you to pay “walk-up” anytime fares, take advantage of the “Didcot dodge”. This is a “split-ticketing” ploy that is perfectly legal if your Bristol-London train stops at Didcot Parkway, which (as far as I can tell) they all do.
Buy one ticket to the Oxfordshire town and then a second to your final destination. Bristol to Didcot and Didcot to London are both about £37 for a standard anytime single, yielding a total fare of £74.70 compared with the Bristol-London price of £119.40 – saving £45 for exactly the same distance. This is the sort of nonsense that shows how much fares reform is needed.
Meanwhile, you might want to consider the long-distance coach option. Whenever London-Bristol fares look absurd, I take the bus. Yes, even on a good day it takes more than an hour longer than the train and is often subject to delays. But right now I am looking at tomorrow’s wide range of services on National Express (typically £11 one way), Megabus (£12) and Flixbus (£8 early on, then £20).
Question via the latest Ask Me Anything at independent.co.uk/travel
Q There has been lots of chat about replacing rail return tickets with two singles. I have a Network Railcard. As you know, there is a £13 minimum fare on weekdays. I can use it for a return trip priced at £20, which comes in at a handy £13.20 with the railcard. But if the ticket changes to £10 each way, the railcard will bring me no benefit. Will this change?
“Snoozing Badger”
A For people unfamiliar with the subject: Network Railcard have been around since 1986. They are for use only in the southeastern corner of England (a weird area that includes King’s Lynn in Norfolk but not Norwich, Worcester but not Swindon and Exeter only if travelling from London Waterloo). Because of all the restrictions they are chiefly of interest for people aged 31-59 who do not qualify for other railcards.
The Network Railcard gives the usual 34 per cent off train travel, but only from 10am onwards from Monday to Friday. Also, as you indicate, on weekdays there is a minimum spend of £13. The aim: to stop people using the card for short-distance commuting, and to incentivise discretionary journeys further afield. But there are anomalies – such as the one you mention, whereby it is worth using the Network Railcard for returns but not single journeys.
The government has the eventual aim of scrapping return tickets and making everything single-leg pricing – which, in many cases, will involve sharply reducing the current single fare. After some leaks to friendly press last weekend, ministers were expected to announce a widespread change. In fact, single-leg pricing is coming only to parts of the LNER network where it does not currently exist (Edinburgh, Newcastle and Leeds to and from London).
Bringing in single-leg pricing is a massive task, and I would be surprised if there is any widespread introduction before the next election, when a different party may take over and come up with a completely different plan. I am confident, though, that in the event of an overhaul, the Network Railcard terms will be adjusted as appropriate to try to stimulate leisure trips – and that you will be able to get a similar deal to now.
Q I have a disability that means I cannot fly long haul in economy class. The only way I could cope with a flight of many hours is to be fully reclined for most of it: staying seated would cause me great pain. But my budget cannot stretch to business class. I know airports offer assistance to disabled passengers but I am unaware of any airlines offering concessions or upgraded accessible, spacious and comfortable seats for disabled passengers. Can you find any way for me to travel long haul with my family?
Name supplied
A As you say, airports quite rightly provide a wide range of care for passengers with reduced mobility; in the aviation industry’s constant insistence on using acronyms whenever possible, they are known as PRMs. Airlines will also provide assistance to PRMs, including special boarding arrangements using ramps or “ambulifts”. But unlike other forms of transport, there is currently no obligation for carriers to provide additional space or bigger seats for those, like you, who can travel long distances only if they are fully reclined.
There is a strong ethical case for saying airlines should provide whatever facilities are needed for passengers with a disability, and if that means (as in your case) a free upgrade to business class, so be it. But at present the airlines say such a policy would be unaffordable. They insist they try to make every customer’s journey as comfortable as possible, and point to the possibility of requesting bulkhead seats. These are those at the front of the economy cabin that have a divided directly in front. They do not fully recline, but passengers with mobility issues can get in and out of their seat more easily without being impacted by someone reclining in front of them. Bulkhead seats are typically allocated within 24 hours of departure by a team who have details of passengers with medical conditions and who have requested the location.
I imagine this would be of limited benefit to you because of your condition. The other possible solution is booking additional economy seats, which some carriers such as Emirates, Etihad and Qantas offer. But generally this is all very last minute and the option is not guaranteed. Sorry I cannot be more optimistic.
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