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I’ve gotten emails from both our cruise lines saying they’re dropping Israel and Jordan from the itineraries. We were expecting it. One of the tours has given us another port of Sir Bani Yas island whilst the other cruise line is still considering options. Seeing as they both go via the Suez canal I’m wondering if I should get travel insurance or prepare for full cancelation. Any one else in the same boat? (no pun intended)
You should have full travel insurance from the time of booking. Sir Bani Yas is a great place although hardly comparable to the other ports.
If the cruise line cancels, they should refund you or offer a future cruise. Definitely have travel insurance in place and make sure the cruise cover element actually covers missed ports, itinerary changes , confined to cabin etc.
.If you buy travel insurance now it’s likely any changes to your trip due to the conflict will be excluded as it was a known factor before you took out the policy so you’d need to check the policy exclusions carefully.
We don’t buy travel insurance, we just pay for things as they come along. If the cruise gets cancelled because of the conflict then I doubt we’d be covered and they’d just offer us a credit note. I was thinking about getting some fully refundable air tickets but the first cruise starts Friday and they would be eye wateringly expensive now.
I agree blenz101, Bas island doesn’t seem comparable to the lost ports but at least it’ll be sunny.
We don’t buy travel insurance, we just pay for things as they come along
Well that might work for a lost camera or a suitcase going astray, but unless you have very, very deep pockets, you don’t want to be on the hook for medical bills etc.
Indeed a quick google shows that both P&O and Royal Caribbean mandate that you must have adequate travel insurance before you join a cruise, presumably because they don’t want to be on the hook for £50k if you need to be airlifted off the ship.
We don’t buy travel insurance, we just pay for things as they come along
Well that might work for a lost camera or a suitcase going astray, but unless you have very, very deep pockets, you don’t want to be on the hook for medical bills etc.
Indeed a quick google shows that both P&O and Royal Caribbean mandate that you must have adequate travel insurance before you join a cruise, presumably because they don’t want to be on the hook for £50k if you need to be airlifted off the ship.
It’s going to be expensive that’s for sure. Another way to look at it is that we get an extra trip being hoisted up into a helicopter at sea. That will offset some of the costs. I think we’ll just have to wait and see what happens and what the proposed options are available.
@Julia, if you don’t mind me asking,how would you cover a large medical bill, or do you just have unlimited funds?! An (uninsured) in law of mine ran up a huge NHS bill while visiting the U.K. recently and will probably be paying it back for the rest of her life.
Edit – I think @Swiss Tony just asked this as well!Are you American, by any chance? A lot of them don’t seem to bother with travel insurance when visiting the Caribbean, I have noticed from FB pages.
If the cruise line cancels, they should refund you or offer a future cruise. Definitely have travel insurance in place and make sure the cruise cover element actually covers missed ports, itinerary changes , confined to cabin etc.
.If you look at T&C on cruise tickets you will clearly see no port is guaranteed and is at the discretion of the Captain – this allows them to move to another port in event of bad weather etc
No way should you be allowed a refund or future cruise credit – you booked a cruise – no port guaranteed.
@Julia, if you don’t mind me asking,how would you cover a large medical bill, or do you just have unlimited funds?! An (uninsured) in law of mine ran up a huge NHS bill while visiting the U.K. recently and will probably be paying it back for the rest of her life.
Edit – I think @Swiss Tony just asked this as well!Are you American, by any chance? A lot of them don’t seem to bother with travel insurance when visiting the Caribbean, I have noticed from FB pages.
Alas we don’t have unlimited funds and we’d have to sell some shares from our ISA (which will be painful). We travel 6 months a year and if you total up the insurance premiums for that duration it mounts up. We’ve never claimed on it. I agree it’s still a risk and we’re not American. We don’t go to America because those medical costs aren’t worth the risk 🙂
Gill I’m surprised, I think asking for a credit note isn’t unreasonable. Customer’s wouldn’t return again if they just took the money and said tuff.
Julia, an annual travel policy would cover any number of trips within the year – up to a maximum each individual trip of 30,45 (or sometimes more)days; so unless you go away and only return home after 6 months it should be possible to have cover. An annual policy is so much more cost effective if you do more than 2 or 3 trips a year. Much easier that say a £50,000 bill for a medivac.
Of course any pre existing medical conditions need to be declared.A lot of companies will cover cruises too – and some offer specialist cover such as missed ports, confinement to cabin costs if you want them. However cruise companies just require basic cover including medical, Covid etc, and most do require evidence of a policy.
Missing ports is within the rights of the cruise line without reimbursement for loss of that (hence the missed port specialist cover), but totally expect them to refund/offer replacement cruise if they cancel the whole thing.
I was not talking about a cancelled cruise.
If a cruise line cancels a cruise you are entitled to a refund.
She clearly stated at the beginning they had cancelled two ports and were subsituting the ports. My comments on refund/ change of cruise related to those facts 😀
Three times I have had Petra cancelled, which I would love to have done. One could say I booked the cruise both times for Petra but I accept the T&C of cruises. If visiting a place/places is your aim, better to book a land holiday which would guarantee that.
This is not just Seabourn, my other trips were with Silversea and Crystal.
I just struggle to see why people think they don’t need to adhere to T&C – it doesn’t make a company a bad company because they adhere to their own T&Cs.
Julia, an annual travel policy would cover any number of trips within the year – up to a maximum each individual trip of 30,45 (or sometimes more)days; so unless you go away and only return home after 6 months it should be possible to have cover. An annual policy is so much more cost effective if you do more than 2 or 3 trips a year. Much easier that say a £50,000 bill for a medivac.
Of course any pre existing medical conditions need to be declared.A lot of companies will cover cruises too – and some offer specialist cover such as missed ports, confinement to cabin costs if you want them. However cruise companies just require basic cover including medical, Covid etc, and most do require evidence of a policy.
Missing ports is within the rights of the cruise line without reimbursement for loss of that (hence the missed port specialist cover), but totally expect them to refund/offer replacement cruise if they cancel the whole thing.
Our cruise doesn’t require insurance. We had to buy it when Covid was around but we stopped it as soon as the threat had gone. We looked at annual policies a while back but we weren’t able to stick to the contracts. They wanted us to give an itinerary and stick to it or, pay a fee every time we wanted to make alterations. Well we’re digital nomads and popping over to Madrid for a Chinese and meet up with friends and then over to Portugal for the weekend before back to the UK is second nature for us. I will take another look though thank you.
We’ve always had annual policies and never had to give details of where we’re travelling. I have 2 friends who don’t have travel insurance but they only ever travel to France by car and ferry and rely on GHIC for medical emergencies (they are aware of issues like repatriation but have stronger nerves than me!)
I keep trying to persuade my OH that we should be digital nomads, i.e. he would work remotely while I lie on the beach or explore the major cities of the world 😂😂😂
Julia, an annual travel policy would cover any number of trips within the year – up to a maximum each individual trip of 30,45 (or sometimes more)days; so unless you go away and only return home after 6 months it should be possible to have cover. An annual policy is so much more cost effective if you do more than 2 or 3 trips a year. Much easier that say a £50,000 bill for a medivac.
Of course any pre existing medical conditions need to be declared.A lot of companies will cover cruises too – and some offer specialist cover such as missed ports, confinement to cabin costs if you want them. However cruise companies just require basic cover including medical, Covid etc, and most do require evidence of a policy.
Missing ports is within the rights of the cruise line without reimbursement for loss of that (hence the missed port specialist cover), but totally expect them to refund/offer replacement cruise if they cancel the whole thing.
Our cruise doesn’t require insurance. We had to buy it when Covid was around but we stopped it as soon as the threat had gone. We looked at annual policies a while back but we weren’t able to stick to the contracts. They wanted us to give an itinerary and stick to it or, pay a fee every time we wanted to make alterations. Well we’re digital nomads and popping over to Madrid for a Chinese and meet up with friends and then over to Portugal for the weekend before back to the UK is second nature for us. I will take another look though thank you.
Not sure who you were insuring with, but mine just requires me to choose geographical limit (Europe, worldwide ex USA, worldwide Inc USA), no details of planned trips or itinerary. I needed to update area this year having decided on a Caribbean cruise, but other than that only need to inform them if the medical stuff has changed from year to year.
@julia – the thing with insurance is that it might seem expensive or add up to a lot until such time as you have a significant claim when it’s the biggest bargain in town.
Clearly, to date you have been successful in repeatedly backing the long odds Grand National winners, but I’m sorry to tell you that at some point you will most probably need to make a meaningful claim. The idea that only the US has eye watering medical costs is also for the birds – good private medical care in countries that have weak systems is incredibly expensive and even in say France, reliance on GHIC gives you very limited options vs the care most French people will get and they want cash up front.
Do you only also only insure your car third party and not bother with good home insurance for all the time you are away?
I look at travel insurance as a necessary cost of travel. I too go for an annual policy as that tends to work out cheaper than single trip policies if you travel more than 3 times.
I used to take out insurance separately from my partner but we discovered that this year it was cheaper to take out a policy that covered both of us so that’s what we’ve done. Not had to make a claim yet on any policy which will probably put the mockers on it now but I would not want to travel anywhere without insurance. YMMV.
As for home insurance just a word of caution to those who go away for long trips some home insurance policies only cover an unoccupied property for 30 days unless you tell the insurer in advance that you’re away for longer.
I know someone who had a flat bed flight (no avios nor TPs) to RAF Northolt and a blue light flat bed transfer to a theatre at that lovely hospital/hotel near Lord’s Cricket ground. If they hadn’t been insured, they’d be dead. Insurance is fantastic, bad things do happen.
Travelling without insurance anywhere in the world is false economy
My dad died in Turkey whilst on holiday, the medical bills, 2 day road trip to Antalya because deceased civilians can’t be flown back out of Dalaman, private ambulances to transport plus other associated costs including new flights and extended accomodation for my mother was over 40k. All covered by a £200 policy.
I’m not sure who the OP is cruising with, but I found a long list of operators who do demand travel insurance, along with an anecdote (from the insurance industry) where a passenger on a cruise ship had a heart attack. The claim for medevac, treatment etc came in at £200k.
As others have said, not taking out travel insurance from the moment you book your holiday is very naive and a false economy. If you can afford to travel you can afford insurance. We take out annual policies and have never had to give specific travel details. Depending on provider, there is usually a maximum numbers of days per trip. The company we are with is 90 days per trip.
I have never been on an ocean cruise, even though my daughter worked for a very short while for a major UK tour operator and her role was looking after cruises! Suffice it to say, you’d be amazed how many passengers are taken ill or die whilst on holiday and on cruises. Duty officers were on call 24/7 offering support to partners of those taken ill or bereaved whilst on holiday. It was a requirement from her company, and from what I can understand other UK based companies/tour operators that the customer had to confirm they had appropriate travel insurance. As others have said, the cost of evacuation from a ship is huge.
My relatively young brother in law sadly had a heart attack and eventually died last year in New Zealand. The costs were huge. His travel insurance providers took control from day 1 and provided continual support to my sister and family back home in the UK. I can assure you every pound spent on travel insurance over all their years of travel, was worth it in this one instance alone. Even with the help of the local Consulate and it happening in NZ, not everything was as simple and straight forward as one would have anticipated from an English speaking first work Commonwealth country.
Travel insurance is a required thing for any of the 25 plus cruises we’ve been on, you need to provide a valid insurance certificate before getting on the ship.
I can only endorse what others are saying here.
If you can’t afford travel insurance then you can’t afford to travel.
I might take a risk and leave a gap between my annual policies if i’m only doing UK short travel or the odd shortish travel in Europe. Depending on the country. As I know the GHIC/EHIC doesn’t cover more than the basic level a local in those countries might get which can be very little and doesn’t cover repatriation either, ever.
But for anything else and as soon as I’m going longhaul or midhaul I’m kicking off a new annual policy. The advantage of this is I don’t have to think about cover for any trips at all during a year after that provided I stay within the geography I paid for upfront.
If you’re going anywhete near winter sports or cruising, even more important. Definitions of “dangerous” activities (not covered or surcharge required) may surprise you on some policies.
I would caution to look through the small print of exactly what is covered and all definitions (yes, really, some insurance company definitions can make a policy hard to claim on), extent of coverage in each section and conditions. Many many policies hsve restrictions that make them hard to claim on – even expensive ones. So choose very carefully based on the small print, review every year as policies do change, try if you can to find out who is the underwriter and does that underwriter/policy really pay out.
Travel insurance is not quite as bad as buying a second hand car or believing an estate agent but there are very, very many quite poor policies out there in terms of value and this has been commented on occasionally by consumer authotities such as Which?
I can only endorse what others are saying here.
If you can’t afford travel insurance then you can’t afford to travel.
I might take a risk and leave a gap between my annual policies if i’m only doing UK short travel or the odd shortish travel in Europe. Depending on the country. As I know the GHIC/EHIC doesn’t cover more than the basic level a local in those countries might get which can be very little and doesn’t cover repatriation either, ever.
But for anything else and as soon as I’m going longhaul or midhaul I’m kicking off a new annual policy. The advantage of this is I don’t have to think about cover for any trips at all during a year after that provided I stay within the geography I paid for upfront.
If you’re going anywhete near winter sports or cruising, even more important. Definitions of “dangerous” activities (not covered or surcharge required) may surprise you on some policies.
I would caution to look through the small print of exactly what is covered and all definitions (yes, really, some insurance company definitions can make a policy hard to claim on), extent of coverage in each section and conditions. Many many policies hsve restrictions that make them hard to claim on – even expensive ones. So choose very carefully based on the small print, review every year as policies do change, try if you can to find out who is the underwriter and does that underwriter/policy really pay out.
Travel insurance is not quite as bad as buying a second hand car or believing an estate agent but there are very, very many quite poor policies out there in terms of value and this has been commented on occasionally by consumer authorities such as Which?
Quite sobering the number of people with personal stories to tell on the subject. A few years ago we witnessed a body being brought to shore in the Caribbean – cruise passengers had gone on a jet ski trip, including a teenager and a man who had been drinking, who collided with one another at high speed. The man sustained serious injuries and died in the dive boat which had been in the vicinity, whose crew pulled him out of the water. Moral of the story, you never know what’s around the corner – and also stay clear of lethal, unregulated water “sports”.
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