Hi,
My wife and I booked the very good P&O cruise deal posted on this site recently. We booked on the 7th December (to depart 11th Feb), and booked 2 seperate cabins at £380 each (due to only wanting to buy 1 drinks package), so in total we paid £760. My mother was supposed to look after our 4 children, whilst we were on the cruise (We were not being mean, as already have a nice family holiday booked).
Now the problem being, my mother can no longer look after the children, as she has a medical appointment that same week.
So I can only see two possible options:
1. Cancel the cruise. If we did this, are we likely to lose the full amount paid - £760, as we paid in full. Is there a cooling off period, as we only booked 3 days ago?
2. Take the children with us. I think the cheapest we can pay per child is £380. So for the 4 children, this will cost £1,520. This is going to be more than I wanted to pay additionally really. Especially as it will likely mean that one of us will have to stay in the room with the children at night time, as they go to bed quite early.
Can anything please think of any other options, or let me know whetehr we can cancel without losing much money.
Many Thanks in advance
My wife and I booked the very good P&O cruise deal posted on this site recently. We booked on the 7th December (to depart 11th Feb), and booked 2 seperate cabins at £380 each (due to only wanting to buy 1 drinks package), so in total we paid £760. My mother was supposed to look after our 4 children, whilst we were on the cruise (We were not being mean, as already have a nice family holiday booked).
Now the problem being, my mother can no longer look after the children, as she has a medical appointment that same week.
So I can only see two possible options:
1. Cancel the cruise. If we did this, are we likely to lose the full amount paid - £760, as we paid in full. Is there a cooling off period, as we only booked 3 days ago?
2. Take the children with us. I think the cheapest we can pay per child is £380. So for the 4 children, this will cost £1,520. This is going to be more than I wanted to pay additionally really. Especially as it will likely mean that one of us will have to stay in the room with the children at night time, as they go to bed quite early.
Can anything please think of any other options, or let me know whetehr we can cancel without losing much money.
Many Thanks in advance
17 Comments
sorted by2. Assuming she won't be out of action all week, get another relation or close friend to fill in for the day of the appointment, I presume the kids will be at school so shouldn't be too difficult.
See section 38 (edited)
Have I misread?
The problem is we don't really live near family. My wife's family are all abroad, and I can only really ask my mum.
It is also difficult because it's half term, to keep 4 children occupied will mean taking time off work, taking them out and spending money, and normal food costs etc.
Kind of think if I am paying that much for someone to look after them, it will make more sense to just pay them to come on the cruise.
I just hope that I can book them without paying additional fees. Really need to speak to a person, and not by filling a form in.
Not sure if it's an option but maybe you could try to move to a future date and then cancelling when outside the cancellation period. But not sure if they'll let you do that?
Have you booked single cabins or surely you can add the kids on to the rooms for an additional cost/upgrade?
It has all been a bit messy really, and I am sure it is down to the particular circumstances, and not a reflection on SeaScanner.
Although I would say, the fact they will only correspond by email and not by phone causes issues.
So, I filled in an on line form, asking what happens if I want to add additional passengers. I received an email back, and there was quite a bit of back and forth emails. We did get to a resolution, and that we would have to pay an additional £1,518 for the 4 children to go. This was due to needing a cabin upgrade to 2 x LF Guaranteed Outside cabins (Originally we had 2 x PF Guaranteed Inside cabins). Reluctantly I decided to pay, as otherwise we would have lost the original £760 we had already paid.
The email from SkyScanner came through after 6PM and said the changes will be made the following day.
The following day, I paid the money first thing in the morning, only to get an email back to say the prices have now gone up, and we would have to pay an additional £566 to cover this, before she could make the changes. There was no budge on this, and I was told that prices change all the while. It is so annoying, as if I could have just spoken to them over the phone, it would have been resolved within 10 minutes. Instead it took two days, as after every email you send, there is a long wait until you get a reply.
It really has turned into what I wanted to be a nice relaxing cruise which was a bargain, has now turned into one that I have very negative feelings about, and has cost nearly £3k.
As I say, I think it just one of those things where anything that could have gone wrong, has gone wrong.