Additional Fuel Charges

**neil** · 07-23-2008, 07:24 AM

Hi

A report has appeared on another website that Voyages of Discovery are now adding a fuel surcharge of £ 19.15p per person per day for their cruises.

This is also quoted in the Daily Telegraph cruising news section !

This is the highest in the cruising industry !

A couple who had booked in advance for a 28 days cruise in September would have paid £,9,000.00p for the cruise.

They have now been advised that in addition to their fares they will have to pay a fuel surcharge of £ 892.00p. !

They have cancelled their booking but may not get their deposit back !

Looking at the V of D Website the way they price their cruises makes it difficult to work out this supplement as they say the fare quoted includes the surcharge !

Neil

seawise · 07-23-2008, 11:55 AM

I have a client who had paid his fare in full and then sent a bill for a fuel surcharge .What is going on at VoD!

Can you imagine buying any other service which you have paid in full for and then receiving a further bill!

Regards

Chris

**neil** · 07-23-2008, 12:38 PM

Hi

Being a one ship operation, which has lost money with the mv Discovery engine problems, it looks as if they are now trying to recover as much money as they can get away with by charging more for a fuel supplement than the other cruise ship companies.

A 20 day cruise with 700 passengers on board ( her maximum is 780 passengers ) would earn the company an extra amount of £ 269,500.00p from a £ 19.25 p per passenger, a day, supplement above what they had paid in fares !

Although oil is priced in US dollars I would not have thought the fuel costs have increased over a quarter of a million pounds Sterling for a diesel engined cruise ship on a 20 day cruise !

With this high supplement I think they could loose passengers !

Myself, I would only consider a cruise with them if it was free !

Neil

hayley67 · 08-04-2008, 11:18 AM

Having booked and paid for my holiday I received a fuel surcharge from VOD it ended up being an extra £12 per person per night , the surcharge was approved by ABTA- the holiday company absorbed 2% of the holiday price abiding by it's Fair Trading conditions-this was on a 11 night cruise and would of been an extra £132 but because 2% of the package price was absorbed by VOD it was £75 ..we didn't feel that was too bad

**neil** · 08-04-2008, 12:16 PM

Hi

It looks as if you got away with paying a lot less for the extra fuel charge than reported in the cruise section of the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

The Daily Telegraph has reported that the Voyages of Discovery cruises had the highest fuel supplement or any cruising company !

I do not see how ABTA can approve or have a say if these matters as it is the cruising company that knows what it will have to pay for fuel and therefore bases its extra fuel charges to passengers on this information.

They may let ABTA know the charge.

This could be due to the extra fuel charge not being covered in a refund, through ABTA, if the cruise company went out of business !

Some large cruising companies do buy their fuel up to 12 months ahead of when it is required !

Neil

hayley67 · 08-04-2008, 12:48 PM

Hi

Looks like we got off lightly Neil,think a lot of people are going to be hit with these increased charges , maybe i should of gone with one of the larger companies that have buying power

Thanks for the info

Just had a read through the Daily Telegraph and it seems there might be another story about VOD about to emerge looking at the comments... will have to wait and see what pops up next!

Hayley

**neil** · 08-04-2008, 02:22 PM

Hi

As the mv Discovery is owned by the same group, All Leisure Holidays Ltd, that now run Swan Hellenic Cruises I would not be surprised if the two companies joined forces as Swan now sell themselves as Swan Hellenic Discovery cruising !

Swan Hellenic operate their cruise ship mv Minerva on cruises very much like those undertaken by mv Discovery

Being a one ship operation does give problems when you have mechanical problems with your ship so it would make sense to form just the one company.

Photo of mv Minerva below

Neil

**Ally** · 08-04-2008, 02:37 PM

Neil, don't forget that Gerry Herrod has apparently bought Aegean I for his own expedition type cruise company and also now that Orient Lines is about to be launched under new ownership and they too will be starting up....and Saga expanding their expedition cruising too, well there may not be room for an unreliable company like VoD is rapidly becoming.

VoD will be facing huge competition in 2009 once all the expedition ships are in service.

**neil** · 08-04-2008, 05:50 PM

Hi Ally

With these other companies coming into the cruising market fairly soon I think the only way VOD will survive is for it to join up with Swan Hellenic and form one company.

I did wonder if Gerry Herrod might some how be involved with the new Orient Lines and maybe make the ship he bought, Aegean 1, available for them to use.

Neil

**Ally** · 08-05-2008, 04:17 AM

Orient Lines now has nothing to do with Gerry Herrod as far as anyone knows, Neil. Orient are completely seperate....tbh I doubt Star Cruises would have sold the company back to Gerry as I don't think they were under good terms when they bought the line.