World Cruise Insurance

I have just spent the last few days trying to help a customer arrange insurance for a World Cruise on Queen Elizabeth. In my ignorance I thought I could just type it into Google and have a choice of companies to quote me, how wrong could I be.


I tried all the main players - Saga, Age Concern, Staysure, World-first.co.uk, Covermore etc and no one could quote me. The main problem being, that the cruise is 107 days long and costing over £30,000.

Only 1 of these companies could quote for more than 100 days duration, which was Covermore but they could only offer cancellation cover of £25k

Finally though, I was able to find a company that could quote for me for exactly what I wanted. http://www.insuretocruise.com/ offer world cruise insurance for the full duration and with the cost tailored to the level of cancellation cover that you require. Plus not only could they quote me but they were extremely helpful - I was having trouble with the phone lines so I e-mailed them and they called me back to go through the quote. Sarah was very courteous and friendly.

Insure to Cruise offer cover for world cruises for P&O, Cunard, Princess, Seabourn and Holland America Line and can be contacted on 0845 230 7136.

Alternatively for Fred Olsen World cruises you can contact 0845 260 1542 or www.247cruiseinsurance.com/fo

I hope you find this useful and if anyone knows of any other insurance companies that are good could you let me know for future reference.

Celebrity drinks prices set to increase

Now as I am sure you are all aware drinks are not cheap on cruise ships, with the American cruise lines being the most expensive. Plus not only do they charge a high price but many cruise lines also add a 15% service charge on to your bar bill, this can be a major shock at the end of your cruise if you haven't budgeted for it.

Celebrity cruises however this week announced a range of changes on board their Celebrity Eclipse ship, which sails from Southampton and attracts a large proprtion of British passengers. Within these changes Celebrity have decided to display drinks prices including the service charge in their bars.

Now this changes is as a result of listening to customer feedback, which is great news, but I feel that they haven't quite understood what the customer is saying. The main feedback that I hear is that drinks are too expensive and there shouldn't be a service charge at all, not that we want to see a higher price from the start.

What are you thoughts - are you happy with paying a service charge? Do you think the drinks are priced OK. Let me know your thoughts?

P&O madness - upsets me and my single passengers

P&O have recently infuriated me. I had a single passenger wishing to join friends on an Azura cruise


He was realistic and aware that single passengers often end up paying a hefty supplement, so obviously he was after the cheapest option. Now on this cruise P&O had all grades of inside cabin available for 2 sharing passengers, and had two people been travelling his cabin would have cost £3252. However the lowest available cabin for a just one person was an obstructed view outside cabin at £3379.

I called those nice people at P&O to see if they would allow us to sell him inside cabin, he was willing to pay the price of two people. Or if I could book the inside cabin with a 'pretend friend,’ however I was told a definite no and that if my customer turned up at the port without a friend, he would be charged cancellation charges for the missing passenger and then a single supplement on top.

This seem ludicrous to me, I can see that they want they want as many people spending money on board as possible, but they have just gone and alienated a good customer and his friends. There is plenty of availability on this cruise and I am sure they will end up dropping this price of the inside cabins just to sell the cruise. I do understand the business reasons, but it just seems daft to sell an outside cabin to a single passenger but not an inside.

And again..

Thanks once more to Rob for carrying out his promise and displaying the Complete Cruise Brochure on hiscoffee table. It's a shame the dogs were just visiting and no longer able to guard it.

It looks great Rob - lets hope all the neighbours like it and want to book lots of cruises with me.

Thanks to Rob...

......for sending in this photo of the coffee table that he is going to put his Complete Cruise Brochure on.

He has 2 sentries ready and waiting to guard it. I'm a bit concerned about Lucy the Labrador’s ability to guard well though - she seems to have a bit of a drinking habit looking at the drink beside her.

The Complete Cruise Brochure is out now

I have just seen this year's copy of the Complete Cruise Brochure and it's better than ever. If  you haven't cruised before there are loads of pull out guides to help you choose and comparison tables showing all the facilities offered by the differing cruise lines.

We have included our normal guides to kids clubs, bar prices, gratuitie charges etc and this year have also included guides on disabled facilities, services offered for babies and a cruise planner of who is sailing where and when.

The brochure is also jam packed with offers from all of the cruise lines and there are several deals that are exclusive to Cruise.co.uk customers - we have negotiated on board credits, free car parking, free shore excursions and bottles of wine on numerous cruises.

If you are new to cruising this is an invaluable guide to cruising, and as far as I am aware it is the only brochure like this. Our local Thomas Cook shop even uses last year's copy as a reference guide. And the real beauty of it is..it's free.

If you would like a copy just give me a call on 0800 408 6088 or e-mail me at joc@cruise.co.uk and I'll be happy to send you one. It will look great on your coffee table!

Surely fuel is a requirement of all cruises?

Fred Olsen have in the last week announced that they are increasing their fuel surcharge for future cruises.
But surely those nice people at Fred Olsen were aware when pricing their cruises for 2011 and 2012 that fuel would be a large part of their costs.

I am not hugely into politics and I didn't study economics at school but I do know that fuel seems to increase in cost every month and I anticipate that by this time next year I will be paying at least another 20p per litre for my diesel. I allowed for this when considering which car to buy last year and looked at my fuel consumption costs. Fred Olsen though don't seem to be able to anticipate this aswell as me.

I think it is grossly unfair of Fred Olsen to add a surcharge, just because the cost of oil has increased. The price of wheat is particularly high at the moment, perhaps they will impose a surcharge for food soon too.