Cruise Traveller

Thomson Cruises Discount Code

Posted on May 17, 2012 by willow

Here’s a new discount code from Thomson Cruises.

You can save an extra £100 per booking on all departures between August and December 2012.

Use the Thomson Cruise Discount Code: 28752

The code is valid on bookings made online from the 17th of May to the 21st of May 2012.
Minimum spend required of £999 per booking.

With five ships in teh Thomson fleet they offer everything from family-friendly to adults-only cruises. From the sun-blushed Mediterranean to the icy fjordlands of Norway you can discover Thomson’s fantastic ports of call. You can extend your holiday with Thomson’s cruise and stay option. It means you spend a week cruising and another week at one of Thomson’s hotels and apartments – or vice versa.

Book online at the Thomson Cruises website.

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts, Thomson Cruises | Comments Off

Celebrity Eclipse 2012? Consider cancelling your booking ….

Posted on May 14, 2012 by willow

If you’re booked on the Celebrity Eclipse from Southampton this summer it may pay you to cancel your booking and look around for a cheaper deal.

With Celebrity booking deposits being just £150 it may pay you to lose your deposit and book one of the amazing late deals on offer.

One Celebrity cruiser and his wife booked last year for an Eclipse cruise departing in June 2012. They have paid nearly £5000 but if they’d booked a similar balcony cabin today it would only cost £2000. Dave said “With hindsight I should have cancelled when the balance fell due and looked to rebook. It would have saved us £3000. I feel quite sick about it”.

Members of the team here at Cruise-Traveller have a total of 8 Celebrity Eclipse cruises booked for Summer 2012. The balances start falling due in June and none of us have any intention of paying them. We all intend to cancel and book a late deal, either with Celebrity or a competitor. P&O and Cunard have some fantastic deals at the moment as all the cruise companies fight for business.

Our advice is that before you pay the balance on your booking do some shopping around. You may make a considerable saving that more than makes up for the loss of your deposit.

P&O Cruises Special Offers and Deals

Posted in Celebrity Cruises, Cruise Deals | Comments Off

P&O Cruise Deals

Posted on May 14, 2012 by willow

P&O Cruises ahve a page dedicated to cruise deals so keep checking back if you want to find the latest discounts.

With P&O’s seven luxurious ships travelling to some of the world’s most iconic and beautiful destinations, you’re sure to find a holiday to suit with the cruise offers and deals from P&O Cruises.

All the deals are bookable online.

P&O Cruise Deals

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts, P&O Arcadia, P&O Cruises | Comments Off

P&O Cruises – Getaway offers

Posted on May 14, 2012 by willow

If you are happy to pay your fare in full at the time of booking rather than just paying a deposit, you could be getting away for less this year. P&O are offering savings of up to 35% by paying in full at time of booking.

Enjoy fantastic savings on cruises to beautiful destinations across the Mediterranean, Baltics, Canary Islands, Caribbean and European city and short breaks.

Plus for a limited time enjoy a balcony cabin on board Arcadia, Adonia and Azura for the same price as an outside cabin. Please note these special fares are not combinable with any other offer.

P&O Cruises Getaway Offers

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts, P&O Arcadia, P&O Cruises | Comments Off

P&O Cruises – May Upgrade Offer

Posted on May 14, 2012 by willow

Throughout May 2012 P&O Cruises are giving you the opportunity to enjoy our ultimate upgrade offer to make great savings on 58 selected cruises across their seven ships.

Simply book your preferred grade of cabin and only pay the fare of the cabin grade below. So, for example, if you want to travel in one of our higher grade balcony cabins they’ll only charge you for a lower grade of balcony cabin or even an outside cabin.

Simply book your preferred grade of cabin and only pay the fare of the cabin grade below.

P&O Cruises May Upgrade Offer

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts | Comments Off

Celebrity Price Promise? Has it gone?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by willow

In 2011 Celebrity were making a big deal of their “Price Promise” to assure customers that if they booked their 2012 cruise early and the price subsequently dropped they could ask for their booking value to be adjusted down. Great!

However …. 2012 summer season is here and prices have fallen.

We know of regular cruisers who have paid £2300pp for balcony cabins on a May 2012 cruise only to see Celebrity offering ‘balcony guarantee’ cabins for just £950pp. They are selling thse cabins as grade ‘X’ for example.

Celebrity have refused to amend to the lower price because ‘it is a different pricing code’ to the specific grade ‘SV’ booked by the customer. A convenient technicality!!

Even worse, the actual SV grade cabins are now being advertised at £1950 on the Celebrity website. The very same ‘pricing code’.

This appears to be a massive case of ‘mis-selling’. Celebrity sold cruises on the basis of having a “Price Promise” and are now refusing to honour it.

We know of plenty of regular Celebrity cruisers who are refusing to book cruises ahead due to the massive price cuts they are seeing.

There may be trouble ahead!

Posted in Celebrity Cruises, Cruise Scams | Comments Off

Celebrity Eclipse Cruises – Don’t book forward for 2012!!

Posted on April 24, 2012 by willow

It’s clear Celebrity are really struggling to fill the Eclipse sailing out of Southampton. A real shame as she’s a beautiful ship.

On May 2012 sailings they are now selling cabins at less than half the prices paid by people who booked early. We’re not just talking about a handful of cabins. There’s hundreds at this price!

Celebrity have a promise that if you book early and they reduce the price before you sail they will refund the difference. However they are getting around this by clearing out the surplus cabins through only certain agents like “Readers Offers”. If you check the Celebrity website you can’t see these amazing deals.

We spoke to someone today who is due to sail on the Eclipse in May and had paid full price. They had just spoken to Celebrity who said nothing could be done and the low prices currently being offered are only for new bookings. They are even now offering suites for lower prices than forward bookers have paid for standard cabins.

One Celebrity customer told us that they are looking at cancelling their September 2012 Eclipse cruise when the balance falls due in June. They would lose the £150 deposit but would then look to pick up a half price deal on the same ship nearer to the sailing date. This could save them thousands of pounds.

Celebrity have just released their 2013 cruises and some of the prices seem a lot lower than the equivalent cruises in 2012. If you’re looking at an Eclipse cruise in 2013 then booking now may be worth it. If you’re looking at 2012 cruises then you may do better to wait for a late deal based on what we’ve seen so far.

Celebrity need to be a little careful that they don’t alienate their loyal regular customers by bombarding the market with news of huge discounts on the prices that their forward booking customers have paid.

We’ve heard from some very unhappy Celebrity cruisers.

PS. With all this price cutting will the service and quality onboard suffer? Surely they must be trimming costs. Another whammy for those who have paid full price!!

Posted in Celebrity Cruises, News | Comments Off

P&O Cruises 4-Day Balcony Sale

Posted on February 10, 2012 by willow

For 4 days only P&O Cruises have a balcony sale that is offering balcony cabins at the same price as inside cabins. Prices on inside cabins are also reduced.

Full details at P&O Cruises

This means balcony cabin cruises start at just £349 per person.

There’s 22 cruises taking part in this Balcony Sale.

Book online at P&O Cruises

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts, P&O Cruises | Comments Off

Costa Concordia Sinks Off Italy

Posted on January 16, 2012 by willow

Six people are now confirmed killed afer a major accident involving the cruise ship Costa Concordia.

Thousands were evacuated from the luxury cruise ship after it ran aground and began to sink off the coast of Italy on Friday. Several passengers are still unaccounted for.

Passengers from France, Italy, Germany and Britain were forced to abandon the Costa Concordia in lifeboats when it hit a reef less than two hours after leaving port.

Reports say that some passengers leapt overboard and swam to shore as the ship started to sink into the waters near the Italian island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast.

Passengers’ dinner on Friday evening was interrupted by a loud boom at around 8.00pm and a voice over the loud-speaker system initially announced that the ship was suffering an electrical failure, before ordering everyone on-board to put on their life-jackets.

Update: 16 people are still unaccounted for. (16th January 2012)

The ship sailed from Rome on Friday but the emergency drill was not scheduled until 5pm on Saturday. Therefore none of the passengers had received instruction on what to do in an emergency. There are reports of widespread panic.

A rock lies in the hole in the Costa Concordia

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P&O Cruises adds seven new cruises in 2012 all departing Southampton

Posted on December 13, 2011 by willow

This is an official press release from P&O Cruises

Reflecting an increased demand in cruise holidays that start in and return to the UK P&O Cruises has added seven new cruise itineraries in 2012, all departing from and returning to Southampton.

The cruises range from a three night cruise break on Ventura to a 28 night Caribbean cruise on Adonia. Also included are itineraries to the Canary Islands, Western Mediterranean and Atlantic Coast.

The seven new cruises which are included in the new Winter 2012/2013 brochure are part of the P&O Cruises 175th Anniversary Sale, which offers up to 10% discount on all 249 cruises in the Summer 2012 and Winter 2012/13 brochures on bookings made between December 1, 2011, and February 29, 2012.

So in cementing its reputation as leader of ex-UK cruising, P&O Cruises can confirm that from winter 2012, Oriana, Adonia and Oceana will sail year round from Southampton. The three ships will sail on cruises of two to 35 nights duration.

Research conducted by the Passenger Shipping Association (PSA) found that in 2010, ex-UK cruises out performed the UK cruise market growth overall, growing by 10% and accounted for 40% of the cruises taken by British Passengers.

A recent survey conducted by P&O Cruises on their Facebook page supports these findings with 40% of respondents stating they preferred cruising from Southampton due to the fact the ‘holiday starts as soon as you arrive’.

A further 20% favoured cruising from Southampton because there are no baggage restrictions, 12% selected ‘ease of embarkation’ as their favourite thing about cruising from Southampton, while 6% like that ‘no flying’ is involved.

The new, ex-UK cruises are:

Ventura:

N217N, three night cruise break, July 20 – 23, 2012
Southampton, Zeebrugge, St Peter Port, Southampton
Prices from £349 per person

N217P, four night cruise break, July 23 – 27, 2012
Southampton, Zeebrugge, Le Havre, St Peter Port, Southampton
Prices from £449 per person

Adonia:

D215N, 15 night Western Mediterranean cruise, October 7 – 22, 2012
Southampton, Alicante, Barcelona, Sete, Livorno, Alghero, Port Mahan, Gibraltar, La Coruna, Southampton
Prices from £1,649 per person

D216N, 13 night Canary Island cruise, October 22 – November 4, 2012
Southampton, Madeira, La Palma, Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Tangiers, Lisbon, Southampton
Prices from £1,349 per person

D217N, 28 night Caribbean cruise, November 4 – December 9, 2012
Southampton, Madeira, St Maarten, Antigua, Martinique, Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts, Tortola, Ponta Delgada, Southampton
Prices from £2,599 per person

D218N, 14 night Atlantic coast cruise, December 9 – 23, 2012
Southampton, Madeira, La Gomera, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Casablanca, Cadiz, Lisbon, Southampton
Prices from £1,329 per person

Oriana:

X301N, 24 night Caribbean cruise, January 6 – 30, 2013
Southampton, Ponta, Delgada, St Maarten, Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados, St Kitts, Horta, Southampton
Prices from £1,999 per person

All prices are per person and based on two adults sharing on a full board basis including all main meals and entertainment.

Book online at P&O Cruises

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts, News, P&O Arcadia, P&O Cruises, Southampton Cruise Port | Comments Off

Cunard Ships re-flagged to Bermuda

Posted on October 31, 2011 by willow

All the Cunard Fleet is in the process of being re-flagged to Bermuda.

No longer will you see “Southampton” on the sterns of Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth.

The ships will all soon show “Hamilton” at their place of registry. A sad day for these British icons.

So why? Britain’s new Equality Act 2010 means that workers from EU countries employed on British-registered ships must be paid wages equal to those of British citizens. Cunard employ a lot of crew from Eastern Europe and changing the registry means they can avoid adhering to this legislation.

Posted in Cunard Cruises, News | Comments Off

Royal Caribbean offer Free Southampton Parking – Beware!

Posted on October 31, 2011 by willow

Royal Caribbean are offering free parking on their 2012 cruises from Southampton provided they are booked by 30th November 2011.

However watch the small print!! You must go online to the abp parking website and book your parking by 7th December to qualify. If you don’t you lose it!

Several of the team here at Cruise-Traveller have been caught out by a similar offer made by RCL’s sister company Celebrity who also offered free parking at Southampton. Bookings were made based on the free parking offer but at no time were parking booking deadlines mentioned by Celebrity or the travel agent. We have all lost our free parking entitlement and are now facing parking bills totalling £1200. We all feel pretty annoyed and may choose not to travel especially if another cruise line comes up with a better offer nearer the time. Our cruises are for September 2012 but we had to book parking by 7th August 2011! Crazy!

http://www.cruise-traveller.co.uk/175/celebrity-cruises-southampton-free-parking-scam/

Posted in Cruise Deals, Cruise Discounts, News | Comments Off

Celebrity Cruises Southampton Free Parking – Scam?

Posted on October 2, 2011 by willow

Celebrity Cruises were offering Free Parking at the port on all it’s Summer 2012 Celebrity Eclipse sailings from Southampton providing the booking was made by 31st July 2011.

Sounds great! The offer was worth over £150 on a typical 14 night cruise.

Asking around the team here at Cruise-Traveller we have found that 7 bookings have been made by members of the team, friends or family. All were made by 31st July 2011 and qualify for free parking. The bookings are all for cruises departing between May 2012 and October 2012.

So what’s the hitch?

One of the team has finally, this week, managed to get hold of a printed Celebrity brochure and read in horror that in order to qualify for the free parking a booking has to be made by 7th August 2011 at the ABP Parking website. A fact that none of us were told when we booked. We had all assumed that we would be sent details of the free parking places nearer the time of the cruise. Even now none of us have been notified by Celebrity that we need to book our free parking online.

Out of the seven bookings referred to above only one has gone online and booked their free parking and that was purely luck as they were never notified that they had to.

Two of our team have contacted their travel agents who have queried the matter with Celebrity only to be told that they are too late and there is no flexibility.

This appears to be somewhat of a scam as Celebrity have publicised what seems to be a generous offer to increase bookings and then have used the small print of the offer to ensure that the take-up by customers is very low.

Celebrity Cruises are trying to break in to the UK market and although they have a great cruise product this is no way to enhance their image amongst UK cruisers.

Six out of the Seven families in this instance are extremely annoyed at the underhand tactics used by Celebrity in regard to this offer and several are even considering cancelling their cruises given some of the other great offers being made by competing cruise lines at the moment.

Seriously how many customers would think about going online and booking parking more than one year in advance unless they were told they had to? Something smells very fishy about this offer.

If Celebrity come up with any other cruise offers in future be sure to read the small print …. assuming you can find it!

Posted in Celebrity Cruises, Cruise Deals, Cruise Parking, News, Southampton Cruise Port | Comments Off

Cruise Ship Webcams

Posted on September 20, 2011 by willow

We’ve compiled a list of all the Cruise Ship Webcams that we can find around the web. They are sorted below by the name of the ship.

Posted in Cruise Ship Webcams | Comments Off

Compare Pre-Cruise Hotel Prices in One Easy Search

Posted on September 17, 2011 by willow

If you can’t decide which leading hotel booking website to use to book your Pre-Cruise accommodation then the answer may be here.

With just one easy search you can now compare prices on Pre-Cruise Hotels at over twenty leading hotel booking websites.

This fantastic new utility simply searches all the leading Pre-Cruise hotel bookers and presents you with a list of where you will get the best prices. You then simply go to the leading site with the best price and book direct with them.

You will always be booking your Pre-Cruise accommodation with leading and well-respected hotel booking websites like those listed below:

> AccorHotels.com
> Agoda.com
> BestWestern.com
> BookDirectRooms.com
> Booking.com
> CarlsonHotels.com
> ChoiceHotels.com
> dhr.com
> EasyClickTravel.com
> EasyToBook.com
> Ebookers.com
> eLong.com
> Expedia.com
> Getaroom.com
> Hilton.com
> HotelClub.com
> Hotelopia.com
> Hotels.com
> Hotels4U.com
> HRS.com
> InterContinental.com
> LastMinute.com
> LateRooms.com
> Marriott.com
> OctopusTravel.com
> Otel.com
> Priceline.com
> RatesToGo.com
> Skoosh.com
> Travelocity.com

Give the new Compare Hotel Prices utility a try and it’s unlikely that you will ever use another Pre-Cruise hotel booking site again.

The team here at Cruise-Traveller have made some amazing savings on Pre-Cruise accommodation using this impressive search tool and are delighted to recommend this amazing site.

Visit the Compare Hotel Prices website.

Posted in Compare Hotel Prices, Pre-Cruise Hotels | Comments Off

Thomson Cruises Discount Code

Celebrity Eclipse 2012? Consider cancelling your booking ….

P&O Cruise Deals

P&O Cruises – Getaway offers

P&O Cruises – May Upgrade Offer

Celebrity Price Promise? Has it gone?

Celebrity Eclipse Cruises – Don’t book forward for 2012!!

P&O Cruises 4-Day Balcony Sale

Costa Concordia Sinks Off Italy

P&O Cruises adds seven new cruises in 2012 all departing Southampton

Cunard Ships re-flagged to Bermuda

Royal Caribbean offer Free Southampton Parking – Beware!

Celebrity Cruises Southampton Free Parking – Scam?

Cruise Ship Webcams

Compare Pre-Cruise Hotel Prices in One Easy Search

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Top 100 Travel Sites

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