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About alistairg

  • Rank
    Cool Cruiser

About Me

  • Location
    United Kingdom
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Royal Caribbean
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call

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  1. I don't find the food that exciting, it is better in the specialty restaurants. However, it is a much nicer environment to eat breakfast and things get made fresh, so I usually use it for that.
  2. Contracts such as RCI's are written to put people off taking them to court. Under 6a RCI is perfectly entitled to cancel, change cruises, rooms etc. They have to be as it may simply be impossible to do otherwise eg ship breaks down. However, they cannot exclude their liability for this despite what they say in their contract. They do it, they are liable. If you take them to court you will win IMO, but you need to actually take them to court. I have had business try to pull exactly this kind of clause on me before and refused to acknowledge it. This is from the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977( Wikipedia entry) Contractual Liability. s3, This applies against a party that deals on standard written terms or where the other party deals as a consumer. Any exclusion by that party for liability arising from a breach committed by that party under the same contract (s3(2)(a)) or performance under a contract which is substantially or totally different of that which is reasonably expected of him (s(3)(b)) shall be void except insofar as it satisfies the requirement of reasonableness. Clauses such as this are void and unreasonable. Otherwise I could set up a business using this contract, sell people cruises, cancel them all and just keep the money, claiming that's what the contract says. Now if the OP did take it to court the court may decide that the refund plus $300 OBC is ample compensation, this depends on the original cruise cost, comparison of the cabins etc.
  3. On the Symphony last year my daughter often ordered GF pasta from Jamie's in other restaurants. Both my wife and daughter cannot eat gluten. The staff in Jamie's were very knowledgable re GF options and there was no issue at all. I do not believe they were marked on the menu but they will tell you what can and cannot be ordered GF, it was a high percentage of the menu. There were a lot of choices but I am struggling to remember the specific options.
  4. I looked at the same cruise on 15 July when you can book 4 people in a room. As a 9 day cruise guests 3 and 4 are around $1600 and the same price as guests 1 and 2 if in anything up to a balcony room. So if they bought a cheap inside room plus the room that they actually want it would be the same price or even actually cheaper if they book an inside guarantee plus another room. You can book 1 adult plus 1 child in each room and then sleep in one room. I am not sure if there is a rule against this officially. You can get 2 rooms next to each other in a couple of categories but not connecting rooms. This won't work well booking a suite as the people not in the room wouldn't get suite benefits.
  5. As said this is quite rare, but regards the T&Cs. The UK has two laws, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999. Both these laws cover the situation where businesses write excessively one sided contracts that exclude liability for things that they could reasonably foresee and where they don't act in good faith. I think this situation would be covered by this and you could easily bring a claim against RCL. To be fair though over the years I have had many arguments with businesses standing behind ridiculous T&Cs which they refuse to budge from. The reality seems to be that they know most people don't have the time to take them to small claims court when they invariably lose. So the OP could take this to the small claims court. Funnily enough in that scenario I am not convinced that they would get such more compensation.It is hard to put a value on the downgrade. Also it depends on what the compensation is relative to the original cost of the room. The other possibility is to go to the credit card company and ask for a chargeback as they did not give the OP what they bought. Again though RCL will argue that what they have done is reasonable. It may be worth threatening these things to get more compensation. As an aside, assuming you don't have flights etc can you cancel and ask for your money back in this situation. I don't think RCL would have a leg to stand on if they refused this option. If nothing else considering whether you would rather cancel or accept their offer would perhaps put a better perspective on the problem. I know of course it is too late in this situation as they have left, but for others in the future.
  6. I have a US travel agent that I use sometimes. Every time we book a cruise I compare the UK and US price and book wherever is cheapest. Thus you can beat them at their own game, strictly speaking Royal don't want UK people to book in the US. I am aware the booking conditions are different and I would be more likely to book in the US if I thought we might have to cancel due to the refundable deposits. This is the reason that they offer price matches in the US, you could cancel and rebook for free anyway. A few years ago I booked a cruise in the UK and the price dropped in the US. I then cancelled the UK cruise, losing the deposit and bought it at the US price. I factored this into the calculation. As has been said, why not cancel and rebook, it seems like you would still save money. I have often bought things which got cheaper after I bought them - cars, plane tickets, TVs etc. In particular in travel if you are willing to wait you can get a lower price but risk not getting a room or the room that you would prefer. I know Royal offers a price match in the US and if you want to avail yourself of that I would book there. Surely it wasn't a surprise though that they don't do it in the UK?
  7. I have never had this happen before, does the 25% cruise credit have a time limit? For some reason they want people to call and rebook by May 16th according to the email, I suspect they are just trying to bump people into booking on the Anthem. I had a very good price on a GT2 suite for 2 weeks. Anthem is around twice the price. However, Allure cruises from Barcelona are much better value. The trouble is we have done the Harmony and Symphony from Barcelona in the last few years and I don't like having to fly to Barcelona and back.
  8. I was about to post, received an email cancelling. 25% credit against a future cruise, but a lot of the best rooms are already booked on the Anthem and we wanted to do something different to the Med again. Suspect it is due to weak UK cruise demand.
  9. Hi @Peewee14 this is very helpful as I was looking at a cruise on the Independence for 2020. I would rather go Star Class, but the family are fed up going to the Med. Did the hot tub still seem to be working in the other room? That would be a nice bonus. Also it seems that 6416 has the second shower room off the hall. The other 2 bedroom grand suites seem to have it off the second bedroom which is not great if someone has the sofa bed. Did you get any idea if the other room was the same or had the second shower room en suite? Thanks for you help
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