Cunard cruise cancelled for repairs

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Urgent repairs to a propeller are forcing cruise ship Queen Victoria into dry dock and will result in the cancellation of a cruise to the Adriatic.
Cunard have informed about 2,000 passengers booked on the voyage scheduled to depart from Southampton on October 3 that their holidays cannot go ahead.
They have been offered alternative sailings or a full refund – in both cases with an additional 15 per cent credit based on the fare they have paid.
The ship, built in Italy at a cost of about £270 million, was launched less than five years ago, in December 2007. When she was christened by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the Champagne bottle failed to break – considered an omen of bad luck by superstitious sailors.
Rather than the a shaft drive connecting the propellers to the engine room, Victoria has two azipods – electric motors attached to the hull at the stern.
Cunard’s letter explains: “It has become apparent that we need to undertake some essential maintenance work on one of Queen Victoria’s propulsion units. Although there are no safety issues relating to this maintenance, it does preclude us from achieving the speeds required to deliver our voyage itineraries and therefore it will be necessary to take the ship out of service for a short period.
“Please also be assured that we have not taken the decision to cancel lightly, but it is very important that we undertake this essential maintenance at the earliest opportunity.”
The cancelled 16-night voyage was due to sail round trip from Southampton, visiting Cadiz, Katakolon, Corfu, Split, Venice, Dubrovnik and Malaga. The itinerary for the cruise starting this Thursday has been slightly amended so that the ship will return to Southampton on time.
It will then be taken to Bremerhaven for repairs. A two-night mini-cruise which will leave Southampton for Zeebrugge on October 17 has now been added prior to the next scheduled sailing, a 23-night voyage to the Caribbean.
Peter Shanks, MD and President of Cunard said: “We are very sorry to disrupt our passengers’ travel plans. We are doing all we can to minimise the impact on our passengers and to help everyone affected find suitable alternative holidays.”

By | 2017-06-15T15:59:44+00:00 10 September 2012|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|2 Comments

About the Author:

John Honeywell is a travel writer specialising in cruise ships and cruise travel. Winner of CLIA UK's Contribution to Cruise award 2017.

2 Comments

  1. robert lister 14 September 2012 at 1:01 pm - Reply

    was one of the unlucky ones to have cruise cancelled. My wife myself and 8 year old grandson were booked on V224. I called Cunard this morning to enquire about V306 sailing 15th May 2013 which is the same cruise as one Cunard cancelled. I was informed that the cruise would cost me £5988.00 for the 3 of us as they were not prepared to honour the free childs place I had on V224. The price I paid on V224 was £4374 and to add insult to injury the onboard cerdit was dropped form $600 to $280. The worst part of all of this is that Cunard offered all cancelled passengers a wopping 15% discount on a future booking !! One does not need to be a mathematician to see there appears to be a bit of figure fiddling.

  2. robert lister 14 September 2012 at 1:01 pm - Reply

    was one of the unlucky ones to have cruise cancelled. My wife myself and 8 year old grandson were booked on V224. I called Cunard this morning to enquire about V306 sailing 15th May 2013 which is the same cruise as one Cunard cancelled. I was informed that the cruise would cost me £5988.00 for the 3 of us as they were not prepared to honour the free childs place I had on V224. The price I paid on V224 was £4374 and to add insult to injury the onboard cerdit was dropped form $600 to $280. The worst part of all of this is that Cunard offered all cancelled passengers a wopping 15% discount on a future booking !! One does not need to be a mathematician to see there appears to be a bit of figure fiddling.

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