Royal Caribbean at your service! Luggage service....

Royal Caribbean have announced a new luggage delivery service for passengers leaving from the UK - Southampton/Harwich

So what is this I hear you ask?
Well, its a hassle free secure service that promises to take your luggage right from your very door step where you will not then see it again until you get to your stateroom! This is an extremely safe and secure service and can be tracked at any time by you.

It will cost you £35 per luggage item (30kg per item) and takes between 24-96 hours subject to your location in the UK.

This is great for passengers who are planning to travel by rail or a regional flight if travelling from Scotland and up North as you will not have to worry about carrying your luggage or tight budget airline baggage allowances.

To book this service all you have to do is call 0845 686 0662

A long lost Dream for Thomson?

For those of you that missed it, on Thursday 23rd September BBC Watchdog featured a segment on the "newest flag ship" for Thomson, the Dream.


The Thomson Dream is marketed by Thomson as the newest, and most luxurious, ship in their fleet and Thomson claim that the cabins were recently refurbished, have 'interior-designed good looks' and that the ship is 'new for 2010'



Funnily enough I took a call from a passenger that has booked to go on the Dream complaining because she was under the illusion that she was booking on a "brand new ship" when in fact the ship was built in 1986 and was previously operating as the Costa Europa. She was very unhappy as she felt their brochure had misled her into thinking that I was a newly built ship.



Watchdog featured testimonies from passengers that have sailed on the Dream, most of which I'm saddened to say were not good.

Passenger Natasha Hopkins onboard reported
"Everything was very dated, it definitely wasn't new. The first experience was it definitely wasn't luxurious... It was really humid, it made you feel nauseous, it made you feel tired. It drained you"

Susan Macklam was on the Thomson Dream for its maiden voyage and she told Watchdog about the water in her cabin: "Something came out of the tap but it was thick brown sludge so you can imagine I was absolutely horrified".



She also mentioned an horrific smell onboard the ship "It just overwhelmed you, and you know when you just feel like you can taste a smell. And it was the smell of raw sewage".

This takes me back to my blog that I did back in May "A Dream Makeover for the Thomson Dream" stating that Thomson were planning on spending £5million on new interiors and an overhaul of all the public areas - so what happened to this?! Why haven't they spent the money on upgrading the cabins as promised?

I have to say in Thomson’s defence we have had a statement from our Key Account Manager who has pointed out that this programme was based on passengers who had travelled in April/May and so was therefore "old news" and that in actual fact Recent CSQ scores for the overall holiday experience on the ship have averaged 97%, which she feels speaks for itself.

Since going live last night we have had a lot of reviews that have been added to our cruise reviews on our website, which are very positive so it may well be that since April/May Thomson have pulled their socks up and have the problems rectified.

If you have sailed on her since April/May please leave me feedback on my blog as we would like to know your views!! My advice if you are booked to go on her next year - dont panic and cancel as Thomson are doing their best to get things sorted and up to scatch.....and remember one mans hell is another mans heaven.....

Its finally here - pre booked flight seats on Charter flights!

Fed up not being able to pre book your airplane seats on your charter flight? Well.......

P&O cruises have just announced that they are launching a new facility on their cruise presonaliser for customer to be able to pre book flight seats on charter flights!

This is fantastic news as up until now you could only do this on the basis of medical grounds. Scheduled airlines have been offering this for a while now so it is great that charter airlines are also allowing passengers to do so! I know it will help me as I get a lot passengers asking about booking there flight seats.

The tool is very easy to use apparently with on-screen instructions to guide you through the booking process. You will need to supply a valid email address, and accept the Terms and Conditions and then you will be they presented with an aircraft plan to make your selection from. You just hover over the seat map to view available seats and prices. Once the seats have been chosen, you will be taken through to the payment screen to pay for your selected seats using a credit card, simple!

And don’t panic if you think you have done something wrong or if you need help as P&O have set up a direct number to the flight department where somebody from air ops will be waiting to assist, phew!

This will not be something we can do for you, but we will be happy to advise you as much as we can.

Julia really does Set Sail....

It would appear that I have a ship of my very own named after me :)
The MV Julia sets sail for Cork, Ireland. This new tourism vessel takes visiting tourists to and from Ireland and Wales, it has been dubbed "The People's Ship". The ship emcompases the dreams of several small business owners and some individuals that were interested in helping out the tourism industry. They got together to buy a ship, and with the help of several private investors, companies and organizations and getting over a few obstacles, the ship and the shipping line Fastnet Line came to life!




MV JULIA

The MV Julia saves travellers a huge 370 miles instead of driving to get there and the passengers have direct access to M4 when they arrive in Swansea. This fast new route means that the Irish and Welsh can now grow stronger than ever in there ties and means that tourism between the two can grow rapidly! Great ship great name! :) ok its no quite the Cunard Queen Victoria but she does the job!

Tailor Made Luxury with you in mind....

Fed up with the Med? Done the Fjords to death? Want to do something a bit more exciting and bespoke?!

Then look no more! Here at Cruise.co.uk we pride ourselves on our Cruise Experience and giving our customers the best available service and knowledge when booking our customers cruise holidays. Well, we have gone that little bit further on what we can offer and have spread our knowledgeable wings into creating exciting and inspiring Tailor Made Luxury Cruise Packages.

Let us take you on a Voyage of Discovery with our expertly chosen and crafted packages. Teaming your favourite cruise lines and itineraries with breathtaking shore excursions to tantalise any traveller’s senses! To top off all of that we have chosen some of the best Hotels around the world to complete your package, stay in wonderful Cities such as New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Sydney, Hong Kong, Rio De Janeiro to name but a few...it really is the most exciting way to take a cruise.

Hong Kong at night!

Las Vegas

Sydney

You can view our full Tailor Made Packages on our website http://www.cruise.co.uk/ or click here Tailor Made We have a specialist team on hand ready to take your calls and don't worry, if you don't fancy a certain hotel or want to add on extra nights take nights off we really can Tailor Make it to your holiday needs, the possibilities are endless....

Queen Elizabeth Launch....here I come!

In light of the confirmation of the Godmother for the brand new Cunard Queen Elizabeth being Her Royal Majesty herself I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to gloat a little as I am pleased to announce that I too will also be going down to the Launch of the QE on the 9th October! How laaady dar of me!

Unfortunately I wont be there the same time as her Majesty but I do get to spend the night onboard to experience what the QE has to offer. We had an in house competition here at cruise.co.uk to win a place and due to my loyal customers logging onto my blog page and kindly rating my service I was lucky enough to be one of the Cruise Consultants to win my place :)

I am extremely excited I have to say because I have not yet had the experience of a Cunard Ship, the QE is very hotly anticipated by all us Cruise Agents and avid Cruisers so it will be a very interesting and wonderful experience im sure! I will of course be taking lots of pictures for all to see what she looks like and I will write a blog on my thoughts and personal opinion so watch this space!