Does booking a ‘Saver Fare’ mean a luggage lottery?

I’ve had several conversations this week with clients who have returned from P&O and Cunard cruises and there seems to be a general trend emerging regarding luggage, or should I say, lack of.

We are all aware of the differences between Select and Saver Fares, see here for more details, but what I hadn’t fully grasped was the whole issue of luggage. When you book a Saver Fare I will tell you that your cabin may not be allocated until check in which most people are fine with but of course your luggage is taken off you by the baggage handlers before you check in, with no cabin number on your label, so how on earth do they know which cabin to deliver your luggage to? Well, from what I have heard recently, they don’t. Baggage ends up all over the ship. “Absolute chaos” seems to be the general feedback I’m getting from clients.

If you book a Select Fare, you will get a cabin number on your baggage labels and you, I hope, can be assured that your luggage will be successfully delivered to your cabin. If you book a Saver Fare and your cabin has not been allocated before the guys take your luggage from you how on earth will it reach your cabin with just your name and the name of the ship on? Doesn’t bode well for anybody called John Smith does it?

A lady I spoke to earlier in the week had no luggage before dinner on the first evening so they ended up dining in the buffet restaurant as they were still wearing the clothes that they had travelled in. They had an Inside Cabin on F Deck and the cabin steward could not help her locate her luggage so she wandered around the ship during the evening until she eventually located it outside a cabin on A Deck!

Going back a couple of years, when the Getaway Fares were introduced, predecessor of the Saver Fares, we would make the booking and in due course I would receive a cabin notification which I would forward to the client. This no longer happens as rule of thumb, very occasionally we get one but on the whole we don’t. I think that maybe P&O and Cunard have decided that notifying people of their cabins is far too labour intensive.

Not a great service, shows complete lack of care for their passengers son’t you think. I think it’s about time they had a major rethink of this system don’t you? I would welcome feedback on your experiences.