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My journey into travel and cruising was purely by accident! This was 10 years ago when I turned up at the doorstep of Cruise.co.uk eager and ready to work - I was told that I would be loading booking forms and undertaking general administration duties - within 18 months I had travelled to Florida, Hawaii and the Mediterranean and seen that cruising was the most exciting part of travel there was. My very first cruise experience was on a 2* all inclusive cruise ship called the Thomson Topaz that some may still remember - this really opened my eyes to cruising - luckily my second cruise was the Norwegian Star to Hawaii so I kind of went from one extreme to the other! In 10 years the cruise industry has exploded and I'm looking forward to what the next 10 years in cruising brings.

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Invited to Visit a Cunard Ship but have to pay?

I returned home today from another interesting day at the cruise.co.uk HQ to find that Cunard have sent me an invite to visit one of their beautiful ships in Southampton, here is the days events if I choose to do one:

10:00 - 10:30 - Arrive Southampton Cruise Terminal

10:45 - Guided tour begins

12:30pm - Tour ends

12:30pm - 2:00pm - Lunch on board in the Britannia restaurant

2:30pm - Ship visit ends


What a wonderful way to visit one of Cunard's fantastic ships, with lunch and a guide to tell me whats what about the ships and in their eyes do enough to get me to go home and book a future Cunard cruise - but I have to pay a fee of £35 Per Person for this day out.









Now if I was a potential new customer to Cunard, I would have to wonder why they are charging me this fee - not so long ago you would be invited to visit a ship for free - and probably get a voucher to incentivize you to book a cruise with that cruise line that you have visited. Perhaps they are charging the customer for the food purchased on board? on the money for the tour guides?

This type of ship visit would be great if you live within 75 miles of Southampton but consider the people in the north of the country - travel expenses on top of a fee to visit the ship would turn in to a £200 day out.
What would be the harm in saying to guests - come and see what we have to offer - pay your fee and if you do go ahead and book within a month of your visit - you can have your £35 per person fee back.

I do know that the volume of passengers wanting to get on the ships is high, so maybe they are trying to combat this buy weeding out the passengers who are just looking for a free lunch.

Anyone else had an invite? What do you think about the fee? Is It worth it?
Posted by at 13:58

2 comments:

  1. We also had an invite to visit a Cunard ship, and as we live in Southampton this is ideal for us. We have booked to go on Queen Elizabeth. We have also visited a P & O ship, Aurora on the same terms, we received a voucher to redeem when we booked our next cruise for the same value. Hopefully, Cunard will do the same as it is a great way to help you make a decision on which ship to cruise on.
    Paradise Girl, Southampton

    ReplyDelete

  2. don't bother

    ReplyDelete

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