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Back in January we booked a Cruise & Stay with Thomson.

Recieved a letter saying the ship is going into dry dock in a different location that she was scheduled for, therefore she goes in a week earlier, thus our cruise is cancelled.

Thomson have offered a full refund or we can go a week earlier & have £50pp on board spending.

My 50th birthday would have fallen half way through the holiday, now it would mean I'd be flying home on my birthday.

Would like to know your views on the compensation (if you can call it that), & does Thomsons offer seem fair etc?

Edit to add, we have priced the holiday up & it's £190 cheaper now going on the 2nd Nov compared to 9th.

Concerns also as to whether the crew etc will be up to scratch or will they be in run down mode?

I would say them offering a refund or an alternative is correct from their point of view.  Harsh on you and other customers I know, but I would doubt they will offer any compensation as they are giving you a choice.

I say this, because I work for an airline who like cruise liners have to re-schedule flights and all we offer is a full refund or rebooking and no other compensation.

its a bit of a downer for you , wouldn't be a p&o cruise by any chance ? , we were on the 'oceana' a few weeks ago and one of her cruises had been cancelled due to her going into dry dock early for some re-furb. work

as for the offer you've had personally i'd be going for it, we're regular cruisers and i can tell you from personal experience,  £500 is a hefty chunk to-wards your on board spend

I think they are being a bit mean with the onboard spend, you tend to get that with most cruises. I have only been on one cruise that that was with P&O and it was excellent. I would have thought a cabin upgrade would be better compensation.

David

LOL...£500 would be a no brainer!!  It's a Thomson cruise, with drinks All inclusive, so I guess we can spend it on an excursion or duty free.

I will give them a ring & try for an upgrade, and yes it will mean I get to have 2 birthdays now.

We are lucky we can be flexible as Russ is self employed, but I bet others are worse off than we are.

Quote: Originally posted by russandjax on 28/7/2012

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I will give them a ring & try for an upgrade

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Good luck, we have just returned off a Thomson cruise to the Norwiegian Fiords, we got the £50pp  onboard spend as part of an early booking offer. (see my comments on the recent Norway thread)

We booked our cruise at full price, buy the time we sailed there were cabins on offer for 50% of what we had paid for ours, simply not worth booking early, even with the 50pp onboard spend offer.

The drinks package is not entirely 'all inclusive' theres a surcharge on some drinks, and others you still have to pay in full. Most of the beers are from a can or bottle, only the draught Lager was available on our cruise, no John Smiths, leaving the Bitter drinkers not very happy to be left with only canned Boddingtons. The included wines and spirits were of non-descript brands, and the popular brands carried the surcharge, anything containing certain liquers such as Baileys were not included in the A.I offer.

knowing Thomson, i would very much doubt that they will refund the difference if you do decide to swop your dates to the week before which is now cheaper, more lightly that it will just be a straight swop plus your £50pp OBS. I would ask for it in writing from them before agreeing to the change, they tried to pull a similar trick on us a few years ago when they cancelled our wintersun holiday to Majorca, we were better to rebook ourselves than accept a transfere for the same price to another one of their hotels which at the time they were offering in their late deals for £200pp less. we cancelled, got our money back, and rebooked the late deal with £400 off what we would have originally paid on our 21 night stay.

Julia

let me get this striaght ....

you booked a cruise and for arguement sake lets say it cost you £1200 each, going on 9 Nov. They've now said that date no longer available and you can have a refund or a sawp to 2 Nov departure with £50 to spend on board??

BUT the 2 nov cruise is £190 cheaper therefore only costs £1010?? so even if you swap to the earlier cruise and accept the £50 on board spends you're still £140 worse off??

I personally would get a refund and rebook the earlier date myself saving the 190

So have I read it wrong?