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Freedom Day delay sees hundreds of cruise holidays cancelled
The delay to the ‘Freedom Day’ end of Covid restrictions is causing a headache for cruise lines and disappointment for some unlucky cruisers.
Hundreds of people had their cruise holidays cancelled as ships are effectively overbooked.
P&O Cruises and MSC Cruises are among the lines which sold more staterooms in the expectation Covid rules would be eased further next week, allowing cruise ship capacity caps to increase.
That has been shelved after PM Boris Johnson delayed further easing of the remaining Covid curbs for up to a month.
"Due to the Government’s extension of the passenger capacity limits placed on UK domestic cruises, we will have to ask a number of guests booked on Britannia’s early UK sailings to change their holiday dates," a P&O Cruises spokesperson said but declined to say how many customers are affected.
It has apparently selected customers based on the date they made a booking.
"MSC Cruises regrets that a number of UK guests who have booked a cruise departing after 21 June but before 19 July may need to be assisted to rebook on a sailing departing after the restriction is removed," MSC said.
Both lines are offering a full refund and other rebooking options.
Royal Caribbean International is also cutting capacity to meet government restrictions.
"We unfortunately had to move some guests on our first sailings to a future sailing later in the season," it said.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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