Many cruisers have experienced that sinking feeling on hearing that their favourite cruise is subject to port stop cancellations.
Stan Hoey, who travelled halfway across the world to see the New Zealand fjords, decided that the usual apology and small compensation just wasn’t good enough.
Hoey took the matter to court and after a legal battle, has just been awarded $13,581 from Imagine Cruising.
The smoking gun of the case was an email that showed a week prior to the sailing, Cunard already knew it would have to cancel it’s NZ stops. Passengers, however, weren’t notified until weeks later.
Hoey had booked his cruise with Imagine Cruising in the UK.
Hoey says: “We won our case because our evidence included an email from Cunard to the NZ government requesting itinerary changes over a week before our NZ cruise left Sydney. In UK law, significant itinerary changes prior to the start of a holiday package means a full refund is an option, but needless to say, this was not in Imagine or Cunard’s interest and they delayed notification to passengers until it was too late to cancel.”
What happened to Stan Hoey?
Essentially, Hoey had a cruise booked through Imagine cruising to sail on a Cunard cruise on Queen Elizabeth from Sydney to NZ.
“Our flight to Sydney had a 3-hour stopover in Dubai (05 Jan), and when we switched our phones on we had an email from Cunard to say Fjordland and Dunedin were being excluded “due to NZ’s strict biosecurity regulations”, and each passenger would receive $100 onboard spending. We received nothing from Imagine.
“On boarding QE on 07/01, we had a letter in the cabin to say
that they planned for divers to clean the hull while outside NZ territorial waters before Auckland on 14/01, so that the ship was fit to stop at Bay of Islands. I arranged a meeting on board with the officer in charge of the accommodation and retail to express my concerns about the itinerary changes and was told (politely) to take it up with Cunard on return to the UK.
“On the morning of 15/01, a letter was delivered to every cabin from the Carnival President Sture Myrmell, apologising for the fact that the cleaning was not completed and Bay of Islands was removed from the itinerary.
“As a gesture, Cunard offered each passenger 50% of the cost of the cruise as Future Cruise Credit. I emailed the President to complain and received a reply from his office while still on board on 18/01 to say that as we had booked with Imagine, Carnival was not responsible.”
How did Hoey find the email?
Hoey had been pursuing legal action back in the UK, but also reached out to the NZ government Ministry for Primary Industries, where he happened to have an old friend.
Through this Hoey had found information that showed Cunard knew of problems with the ships hull on November 2nd, and an email to Cunard from MPI on December 31 requesting itinerary changes. It can be noted that Hoey only left the UK on January 4.
Hoey eventually had a court date in August, armed with 200 pages of evidence.
He describes the end of the trial.
“After 20 minutes, we were called back in. The judge took 15 minutes to recap the whole trial, without giving anything away, which was frustrating, but I now understand that this is in case there’s an appeal. He eventually got to his judgement, which was that Cunard’s prior knowledge of itinerary changes is imputed to Imagine. This effectively means that whatever Cunard knew, Imagine also knew implicitly.
“He said that had we claimed that Imagine violated Part 3 of The
Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018, we could have pushed for a complete refund. Our claim referred to Part 4, and he decided to award us 20% of the total cost (we asked for 25%), minus the refund (50% of cruise cost) already received. I had also excluded this from my claim. He increased the £1,000 we claimed for stress to £1250. Finally, our court costs (£455 and £346) were also part of the settlement.”
Hoey wants to help other passengers do the same
Hoey is now also assisting other passengers of the cruise to make their own legal actions.
“I’m assisting several fellow passengers on the same Queen Elizabeth cruise to pursue Imagine Cruising through the UK legal system, plus many more disaffected Imagine customers whose cruise to NZ in February 2023 was changed at the last minute to the East Coast of Australia.
“We met many passengers from Australia onboard QE who were similarly affected, but I have no way of reaching them. I accrued a significant amount of evidence for my court case, all of which I’m happy to share with anyone who can benefit from it, knowing that Imagine and Cunard’s feet are being held to the fire is the least they deserve.”
Cunard said in a statement: “As the judgement was not directed against Cunard, it would not be appropriate to comment.”
Consumer advocate Adam Glezer of of consumerchampion.com.au said: “If there is a significant change in an itinerary, passengers should have the right to cancel or get a refund.”
Cruise lines generally reserve the right to alter cruise ports and itineraries.
