Cruise News Archive - Cheap Cruises

Azamara Quest Cruise Ship Adrift off Philippines

Azamara Quest Cruise Ship in the Azamara Club Cruises Fleet The Azamara Quest Cruise Ship is adrift off the Philippines after suffering engine failure caused by a fire on Friday. Thankfully there are only a handful of injuries; five brave crew members who were attending to stop the blaze. On-board there were 590 passengers and 411 crew.

Azamara Quest is one of two cruise ships in the Azamara Club Cruises fleet; the other being Azamara Journey. Azamara Club Cruises is a subsidiary of Celebrity Cruises; itself part of Royal Caribbean.

Power for air conditioning; water and in the kitchens has been started as one of Azamara Quests engines has been restarted however there still is a lack of propulsion.

The current cruise has been cancelled and as of yet no news is available with regard to the next cruise and how the current passengers will be getting home; there are 60 Brits on-board.

The Azamara Quest Cruise Ship is adrift some 75 nautical miles south-west off the Philippines’ Tubbataha Reef and two coast guard ships are expected to arrive at the scene during the day. This is the third major incident involving cruise ships this year.

Cruisegle and Cheap Cruises

After much deliberation I have decided to re-kindle Cruisegle and once again turn it into a website offering Cheap Cruises! As of yet I am undecided whether to move this site to the .co.uk version or not; however whatever I do, it will soon, once again, display cheap cruises.

I have been working on a couple of other websites to test search features and now think I have the perfect combination working together; all I need to do now is bring them together on one glorious; wait, I am making it, website!

Previously I have used sub-domains to achieve rankings for each cruise year, now though with the improvements in WordPress I intend to keep to a singe domain. So the current sub-domains will stay and no new ones will be built.

I will also continue to with the two new domains; I’m After Cruises and Cruise O and all three domains will be used to attack cheap cruises starting from the 2013 cruise year; I do after all need time to build the sites up!

What I hope to gain from this is a Cruise Agent who can see my overall goal; it is to build the ImAfter brand up. If I can earn enough from cruising to pay my bills, I can then concentrate on achieving this which in the long run will benefit them even more.

I digress; those that know me will also know that this is a very common trait of mine; back to the point of this post; my first for a while! That is to say Cruisegle and Cheap Cruises are back!

P&O Cruises Restrict URLs

P&O Cruises have told agents selling their cruises not to use words such as P&O Cruises in their URL’s and the reason is obvious, P&O Cruises want to sell you their cruises themselves there by saving on paying out commission.

Technically this post would break their new rules on having the P&O Cruises brand names within the URL (what you see in the address bar) but as I no longer sell cheap cruises I guess it does not matter that much?

The likely outcome of all this is P&O Cruises ranking higher than any other website for terms associated with P&O Cruises.

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Investigates TripAdvisor

An interesting article on the BBC website today suggests that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is to investigate TripAdvisor re the possibility of fake reviews on the website; the suggestion is that between 5 million and 10 million reviews could be fake.

There are many Search Engine Marketing companies out there that do spend a lot of time on sites that offer reviews and or forums; most of these companies will make up good reviews to help their clients. For obvious reasons I will not mention any.

That said I wonder if after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has investigated TripAdvisor whether they will look at sites such as Cruise.co.uk? I am not saying they make up reviews at all; I am just thinking along the lines that TripAdvisor is a review site and reviews help ranking. Cruise.co.uk offers a massive reviews section and as such could be falling fowl to unscrupulous search engine marketing companies.

Saying that the only benefiter of the reviews on cruise.co.uk is cruise.co.uk themselves.

More Cruises from Southampton

Due to a mix up with redirects (my fault) I have started once more to make changes to the site beginning with Cruises from Southampton; the fault last time was I added a redirect to the Canada page instead of the main page. This has now been sorted.

One other change is that I shall be adding content to the internal pages from another site using an RSS feed; hopefully this will be in place by the end of the month and the site will have a fully functioning Cruises from Southampton section.

Are you looking to cruise with P&O Cruises in 2012 or 2013?

Are you looking to cruise with P&O Cruises in 2012 or 2013? If so here are a few things to bear in mind.

Did you know that P&O Cruises have cut their commission rates to 5% for every travel agent?

This means that there will little or no difference in price between all the travel agents and P&O Cruises themselves.

Do you know how much you will be charged should you change any details about your cruise once booked?

P&O Cruises like almost every other cruise line charges a fee for alterations; but did you know travel agents will now add there own expenses to these fees. In a recent survey on Cruisegle it was found that this ranged from £10 to £100. Don’t forget, this is on top of the charges that P&O Cruises would set.

Do you know how much you will be charged should you cancel your cruise once booked?

P&O Cruises like almost every other cruise line charges a fee for cancellations; these are clearly set out in the small print and rise the closer you get to travelling. If you cancel more than 91 days out, you loose your deposit; up to 57 days out it is 50% of the fare. There is a rising scale up to and including 100% of the fare. This is standard practise so do not be worried as travel insurance should cover cancellation fees if part of the terms. BUT travel agents will add their own fees to these charges and these may not be covered by an insurance policy. Should you cancel, the travel agent will charge anywhere from £80 up to a massive £300 as stated in the terms of Planet Cruise.

How many travel companies have gone bust recently?

Lets assume you have shopped around and saved £10 on the cost of your cruise; well done! How much has the travel agent discounted? Are they making any money? The more they discount the more chance they have of going belly up such as the likes of Gills Cruises in 2011 and previously Cruise Control. In the last two years I can count at least 12 companies who have gone under partly due to excessive discounting. Do you want to be abroad with that eternal nagging in the back of your brain “I wonder if I still have a flight home?”

If you are looking to book a cruise with P&O Cruises in 2012 or 2013 I would recommend booking directly with them; no extra fees to pay on top of their stated charges and a feeling of security that the cruise line is less likely to fall foul of the current economic climate than a travel agent.

To return to the Home Page of Cruisegle Click Here

We Cruise – Gills Cruises

Gills Cruises have sold their business to P&P Associates who own the We Holiday and We Fly brands; they now run We Cruise. If you check out the old Gills Cruises website, you will see it now redirects to We Cruise.

Looking at the site, not all cruise lines are set up yet; importantly the bigger brands like P&O Cruises and Royal Caribbean are not on-board so to speak! This may be something that is being worked on between We Cruise; P&P Associates and the cruise lines.

Whatever happens I wish the new company; We Cruises well and hope they employ some of the old Gills Cruises staff.

Cruises from Southampton

I have started to make changes to the site beginning with Cruises from Southampton; the main change here is the URL structure; it has changed from being Cheap Cruises from Southampton to just Southampton. That said the page title has been kept as it was!

Gills Cruises

It looks like Gills Cruises may be in trouble; P&O Cruises & Cunard are among the 4 cruise lines that will no longer allow Gills Cruises to sell their cruises.

Gills Cruises have been around for years however rather like Cruise Control they have always tried to undercut other companies and as such are struggling. There may be other reasons; I am only assuming in this post and apologise to Gills Cruises if I am wrong. Don’t forget Cruise Control went bust while the largest cruise agency.

When I was thinking of selling cruises myself I could not match Gills Cruises prices and they were one of the reasons why I decided not to carry on with my foray into creating a travel agency. With luck Gills Cruises will pull through and their clients will be unaffected by this shocking news; I wish them well.

Cruisegle Cruise Holidays

Rather than loose all the work done on this website I am creating a new Cruisegle called Cruise Holidays; this site is cruisegle.co.uk.

Overtime I will move all the posts from here to there however initially the new site will be treated as a separate cruise holidays entity.

Obviously the new site will be a lot faster than this one and will look different; hopefully there will be more functionality as well?

I hope you bear with me as I organise the move and will check back with cruisegle.co.uk for your future cruise holidays.

Cruise Deals Moved

I have finally got around to moving one of my websites; Oftheseas.org my Cruise Deals website has now moved to http://cruisedeals.uk.com/and is now hosted in the UK.

This move will enable me to set up Cruise Deals from a few agents so that people can view some amazing offers. This though is a little way off but I am working on the solution.

Holidays 2012

I know I have not been working much on Cruisegle lately; this will be changing soon. The reason is simple as I am building a website for Holidays 2012 and so have not had the time.

Holidays 2012 will be monetised by Adsense initially though once the holiday suppliers have finished finalising their 2012 holidays it will have a price comparison search box on it to find cheap holidays in 2012.

Holidays 2012 is already attracting 300 people a day, this should rise as we approach the autumn when people traditionally start looking for 2012 Holidays; or rather holidays in the following year.

Planet Cruise Tops Cancellation Fees Table at £300

I had a quick look at cancellation fees the other day and was shocked by the amount some cruise travel agents charge if you cancel a cruise or make changes to a booking. Planet Cruise, I am afraid to say came out on top when it comes to cancellation fees with a whopping £300 based on two people sharing and this does not include the cruise lines fees either!

I fully understand that travel agents need to make a profit to survive; I also understand that there is nothing more frustrating for them than people booking cruises and either cancelling them or making changes to their booking. If someone books a cruise and cancels it, until recently travel agents did not make any money while the cruise lines enjoyed the non returnable deposit which can range anywhere from £100 to 15% of the cruise (more if in the 12 week period before the cruise sails).

Likewise when someone changes details on a booking, there are often charges which can vary by cruise line and are around the £50 mark, though could technically be up to the full cost of a cruise depending on when, how and or what the changes are.

Travel agents will tell you that they put in a lot of work into generating bookings and as such deserve something from a booking even if it is cancelled. To some extent I can see their frustrations however that surely is what they are there for; to generate bookings?

As for people making changes to their bookings, travel agents should have a customer service team to oversee things like this. After all, is it not their role to act as agents for the client helping them buy a cruise holiday from a supplier? These two areas of a travel agency; generating bookings and customer service should be paid for via monies received from sales in the form of commissions. However as each agent tries to undercut their rivals they are hitting their own profits and such is life, need to find ways to grab some of this back. Hence the introduction of their own charges for cancelling or making changes to cruise bookings.

People often shop around to find the cheapest price for their chosen cruise without the thought of “what if?” What if they need to make changes or cancel their cruise; how much will it cost them? I guess more than 90% of cruisers have no idea. So I have checked out the T&C’s of some of the top cruise travel agents to see what they are charging and I think you will be shocked.

Fees Based on 2 People Sharing for a Standard Cruise/Fly Cruise

Cruise Agent	Cancellation	Changes
Iglu Cruises	£100.00	£10.00
Ideal Cruising	£100.00	£40.00
Cruise co uk	£100.00	£50.00
Cruise 1st	£100.00	£100.00
Virgin Cruises	£150.00	£70.00
Planet Cruise	£300.00	£50.00
Directline Cruises	£80.00	£50.00

Notes

Iglu Cruises: Cancellation fee is £50 per person – Changes are £10 (does not say per person)
Ideal Cruising: Cancellation Fee is £50 per person – Changes are £20 per person
Cruise co uk: Cancellation fee is £50 per person – Changes are £25 per person – Changes to cabins are subject to a minimum charge of £50
Cruise 1st: Cancellation Fee appears to be £50 per person – Changes are £50 per person
Virgin Cruises: Cancellation fee is £75 per person – Changes are £35 per person
Planet Cruise: Cancellation fee is £125 per person plus VAT – Changes are £25 per person
Directline Cruises: Cancellation Fee is (Minimum) £40 per person – Changes are £25 per person

I must admit that I am sad to see how much Planet Cruise charge to cancel a cruise; at £300 Planet Cruise tops the Cancellation Fees table.

Cleaning Up Cheap Cruises

Just a quick one to say that I am in the process of Cleaning up Cruisegle so that once again I will be able to display cheap cruises. Some pages such as Cruises from Southampton are going to get a new look while other pages are being deleted.

The process will take around a month or so,so please be patient and once cleaned up I will add a search box for finding those wonderful cheap cruises!

Cheaper P&O Cruises

Cheaper P&O Cruises are on the way as P&O Cruises have announced that they are to cut the commission they give to travel agents to 5% in a drive that will hopefully mean that prices will be consistent wherever people look in order to buy their cruise holidays. The savings in the commission will mean more money spent on promoting P&O Cruises as well as cheaper P&O Cruises.

The good thing from the P&O Cruisers point of view is that customer service will now play a part in booking passengers and not just price. If the price is the same everywhere then you will only book with a cruise agent if they have looked after you well; well that is the assumption.

This will take effect for the 2012 Cruises and be promoted when the new P&O brochure arrives; we are not sure how much of a discount will be passed on but it does look like there will be cheaper P&O Cruises for everyone.

Planet Cruise Deals Has Been Slashed

Well after waiting for a week for a response it looks like the Planet Cruise Deals has been slashed. I was hoping to announce that Planet Cruise would be offering their Cruise Deals on Cruisegle but as I have not received a reply I am looking elsewhere.

Sorry for anyone who assumed that I meant that I was saying that Planet Cruise had slashed their cruise deals, they may well have but that is not the point of this post. If anyone would like to advertise on Cruisegle, they can do for just a few pounds a day.

Is Sunday the New Monday for Cheap Cruises?

OK, silly title, but that is me all over! So what do I mean by is Sunday the new Monday for cheap cruises? Well for the last couple of years Monday has always been the day of the week that produces more searches and therefore more website visitors. Since the turn of the year this has changed to Sunday.

I am not sure if it is just in the world of cheap cruises that this is happening and will keep an eye on it. If it is a case that Sunday is the new Monday for cheap cruises then perhaps more Cruise agents will open their doors on Sundays.

Holiday Travel Directory

While I wait for responses from a few would be advertisers of cheap cruises on Cruisegle I thought I would start to put another site of mine to good use, it is a Holiday Travel Directory, or rather will be when finished!

The site will work very simply, each new listing will be posted onto the site and their will be a choice of a featured listing or standard listing. The featured listings in the Holiday Travel Directory will be limited to just 5 per category, with 15 categories in place. All the featured listings will have their post linked to from the Holiday Travel Directory home page and on category pages around the site.

In Negotiation with 5 Companies all Wanting to Sell Cheap Cruises on Cruisegle

I am currently in negotiation with 5 companies all wanting to sell cheap cruises on Cruisegle! This is as a result of posting about Advertising on Cruisegle last week. I will not name the companies concerned but will say that two of them are big players in the world of cheap cruises.

With luck a decision will be made on Monday as to which direction to take, this will be based on what is best for the visitor to Cruisegle and not necessarily what is best for me. Also my main stipulation is, the company must sell cheap cruises.

Adore Cruises offers Cruise Deals

I know that by writing a positive post about a rival company is not the way to go in business; but when the company is run by someone who is really good at what they do then I guess I can allow myself a little leeway. Ian Gilder formally of Jetline Cruise has started his own website called Adore Cruises; Ian is very experienced at running a cruise agency and is very well known in the cruise industry; he has even written articles on occasion for the likes of TTG.

I know Ian would like me to say Adore Cruises offers the best Cruise Deals in the business; well as I am about to start on a new venture I won’t; but at least he has that nice little link back to his website I wish him well in his new venture.

Ideal Low Cost Cruising SEO Job

I have applied for a SEO Job today with Ideal Cruising & Low Cost Cruising who are basically one company when Ideal Cruising & Low Cost Cruising joined forces in 2010. I doubt if I will get a look in but you never know; wish me luck in my Ideal Low Cost Cruising SEO Job search.

Advertising on Cruisegle

There is a space for advertising on Cruisegle for a UK based Cruise Travel Agent; for more details please follow this link.

New Cruises from Southampton

In preparation for having a cruise agent selling their cheap cruises via Cruisegle I am moving the Cruises from Southampton section to a new domain simply called Cruises from Southampton dot org. Although most of the pages will remain on this site all the cruises will be displayed on the new site as well as the Cruises 2011 sub domain.

Due to changes in how the site has been set up currently internal pages of this site for Cruises from Southampton have no content on them, this will be rectified shortly.

Cruisegle is in Negotiation to Offer Cheap Cruises

The good news this week is that Cruisegle is in negotiation to offer Cheap Cruises from a major UK based Cruise travel agent. I can’t say who it is yet as there are a few details to go over but it is likely that the current Adsense box will be replaced by a fully functioning Cruise search box.

My aim has always been to offer cheap cruises from Cruisegle; with luck this will soon happen; if not then there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

Cheap Cruises with P&O Cruises

I have removed the two posts of special offers with P&O Cruises to another page as it has made us drop for the term cheap cruises, the sites main search term. So these Cheap Cruises with P&O Cruises can be found by following the links to P&O Cruises Spring Giveaway and the P&O Cruises Special January Savings.

Cruises 2013 Changes

I am going to try a new way of showing Cruises in 2013 by using a different site to Cruisegle, the site is called Cruises 2013. That said I may still add a cruises 2013 sub domain just to compare the two together. On thing about cruises in 2013 will be the lack of numerous new builds, apart from the new site obviously!

P&O Cruises Spring Giveaway

During January, P&O Cruises is offering a Spring giveaway which gives up to 20% savings on the following cruises A107, A108, A110, E107, E108, X104, X105, N107, N110 & N111.

If you are looking for a Cruise in Spring with P&O Cruises then follow this link to see the offers in full. Now closed!

P&O Cruises Special January Savings

During January P&O Cruises are offering the following special offers on their cruises but only if booked during January and only if you click this link for the landing page that explains the offer in more detail. Alternatively you can customise your search using this link.

The P&O Cruises Special January Savings include:

• DOUBLE on board spending money* – up to £480 per person (based on cruises R118 & X117)
• Savings of up to £1,800 per person off the brochured fare (based on cruise R118)
• World Cruise savings of up to £2,500 per person plus up to £750 per person free on board spending money* (based on cruise J201)
• 5% online discount
• Cruise Ahead** – Save an extra 5% for full payment at the time of booking (to take advantage of this offer you will need to use the promotion code KX2 when booking online)

Cheap Cruises Appearing Soon

Due to server issues we are currently unable to show cheap cruises and prices, however Cheap Cruises will be appearing soon. This server issue is being worked on and I shall keep you updated. Along with server issues a computer malfunction has resulted in no new cheap cruises being added to the site for a week or so.

Title Changed to Cheap Cruises, Cruise Holidays, Bargain Discount Last Minute Cruises

The title for Cruisegle has been changed to Cheap Cruises, Cruise Holidays, Bargain Discount Last Minute Cruises from Cheap Cruises, Cruise Holidays, Discount Last Minute Cruise Deals. The reason being I want to try something for optimisation purposes.

I have also removed the term Cruise Holidays from all the internal pages, this may be changed back if the new title change to Cheap Cruises, Cruise Holidays, Bargain Discount Last Minute Cruises does not work.

Related Post: Planet Cruise Tops Cancellation Fees Table at £300