Virgin Holiday Cruises

[oaky, flint]

Has anybody else had problems with contacting Virgin Holidays Cruises After sales team I have been trying to communicate with them for 2 weeks with no success have eventually sent a registered letter, will report if I get a reply, they will not answer the phone, has anybody got a special way of contacting them. They do not like answering emails either.

[Bradbury, Coventry]

Sadly the only thing I seem to read about Virgin cruises on this site is bad things. They seem to put together cheap packages but have no after service, long waits between flights, you have to pay for your own transfers and many other extras....another example of people not doing their homework before they book.

Sorry I cant be more helpful but I wish you luck.

[Vasco, Aberdaugleddau]

Has anybody else had problems with contacting Virgin Holidays Cruises After sales team I have been trying to communicate with them for 2 weeks with no success have eventually sent a registered letter, will report if I get a reply, they will not answer the phone, has anybody got a special way of contacting them. They do not like answering emails either.

Piece of cake Oaky!!! I have contacted Virgin three times. It's getting them to contact me back that has been the problem. I'm sure that if they don't like the content of your mail, you have no chance of a reply.
I have promised myself the luxury of a trip to their office in Swindon in the near future and they will discover that face-to-face, I am not an easy person to ignore.

You could of course inform them that they "Under-charged" you and leave your tel.no. I did this to a gas supplier who refused to answer my letters. "Worked a treat".:D:D

[Ail11, Hastings]

Virgin cruises

Maybe we've just been lucky, but we've had 2 Costa cruises through Virgin and found them to be excellent.
We've just had a week on the Fortuna, and this included a wonderful water taxi from Venice airport to the cruise terminal (Costa transfer was just a coach). Then we were met at the terminal by a Virgin rep who handed us a ticket with a number 4 on it. This turned out to give us priority boarding, and we were whisked to the embarkation desk ahead of an enormous queue!
When we disembarked, we left our cases for free in the terminal building (normal cost 3 euros a piece) and had over 4 hours free to roam around Venice before returning for the water taxi to the airport. Again, a Virgin rep showed us where to go.
Ringing the after-sales team can sometimes mean waiting a while in a queue, but I used the direct number 01793851700 which was free for our landline after 6 or at weekends. They were always very helpful if I had a query.
We felt we were looked after very well, and would choose to book through Virgin again, as the additional costs for flights and transfers over just the cruise price seem to be very cheap - certainly cheaper than arranging them yourself.

[Vasco, Aberdaugleddau]

Maybe we've just been lucky, but we've had 2 Costa cruises through Virgin and found them to be excellent.
We've just had a week on the Fortuna, and this included a wonderful water taxi from Venice airport to the cruise terminal (Costa transfer was just a coach). Then we were met at the terminal by a Virgin rep who handed us a ticket with a number 4 on it. This turned out to give us priority boarding, and we were whisked to the embarkation desk ahead of an enormous queue!
When we disembarked, we left our cases for free in the terminal building (normal cost 3 euros a piece) and had over 4 hours free to roam around Venice before returning for the water taxi to the airport. Again, a Virgin rep showed us where to go.
Ringing the after-sales team can sometimes mean waiting a while in a queue, but I used the direct number 01793851700 which was free for our landline after 6 or at weekends. They were always very helpful if I had a query.
We felt we were looked after very well, and would choose to book through Virgin again, as the additional costs for flights and transfers over just the cruise price seem to be very cheap - certainly cheaper than arranging them yourself.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Hold that memory and treasure it.
You are a very lucky person and I am genuinely pleased that they got it right for you.
Sadly, too many of us have been left to question our decision to use the services of these two companies and "Yes" I do regret not heeding the warnings on this and other "Cruise review forums".
However! It is not a mistake our party are ever likely to repeat.
There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from the input of some very experienced travellers and I am gratefull to be able to draw on these "Pearls of wisdom".
We should ignore them at our peril.

[cruiseaholic, malvern]

hi first post entry...
cruised many times over and have usually booked independent aspects myself.. cruise flights transfers etc, and found cruise companies in the states so efficient and competitive. this time booked package with virgin cruises who took my money off me in seconds. charged me for premium economy flight which i asked for but paperwork did not show upgrade, phoned them on 28th May and after many phone calls and e-mails, and a letter to their managing director still no reply.
In their marketing blurb they say that the holiday begins when you call them...so far my holiday experience with virgin cruise has been an unmitigating disaster.. never again

[Jan, Chester]

Experience with Virgin Cruises after sales - horrendous

Good morning

Last March we went on a Caribbean Cruise booked via Virgin Cruise. The cruise was excellent but getting in touch with the after dales team was horrendous. Working full time it's not easy to use the telephone at work - I used to go to my car in my lunch time but I just sat there listening to a record message - I did this for about 5 days and still not having a reply to my e-mails. Guess what? The same thing is happening this year (I should have learnt my lesson).

Last year I ended up going through the sales team, where eventually I managed to speak to a manager who sorted things out for me. He has since left and this time they will not put me in touch with a manager

It really is an very poor customer service but there does not seem to be a way of speaking to anyone who can improve things
Regards
Jan

[Chris, Wolverhampton]

Yes, Virgin Cruises are useless.

We booked our recent crosssing on the QM2 with flights back from Vegas on Virgin Atlantic.

I contacted Virgin cruiing twice by E-mail asking that all onward and return flight tickets were with me BEFORE we sailed on the QM2.

I was assured this would happen. No it didnt

We recieved a letter saying here is your itenary with an eticket number for the onward flight to Las Vegas. There were no tickets or e-number for the Virgin Atlantic return flight to Gatwick.

At Mcarran airport in Las Vegas the Virgin desk firstly refused to board us saying that they wouldn't get payed without the e-ticket or paper ticket. They stated they were an independant company to Virgin Cruises.

A very help full young man called Leon on the ticket desk approved our boarding passes for us to fly saying that VC were unobtainable and gave up on them ( All of our details were in the system, but the e-ticket of paper ticket had not been issued)

I will do as I always do with with poor performing companies who prefer to hide behind ambiguity. Not use them again. Sooner or later like many Virgin branded companies it will be closed down or sold off.
Chris

[spartan, kent]

Piece of cake Oaky!!! I have contacted Virgin three times. It's getting them to contact me back that has been the problem. I'm sure that if they don't like the content of your mail, you have no chance of a reply.
I have promised myself the luxury of a trip to their office in Swindon in the near future and they will discover that face-to-face, I am not an easy person to ignore.

You could of course inform them that they "Under-charged" you and leave your tel.no. I did this to a gas supplier who refused to answer my letters. "Worked a treat".:D:D

Great idea :D :D :D

[kjm, kjm]

[Explorer31, Pembs]

I booked through Virgin for a cruise last March, I let them know I had cruised before so everything was fine.

But on trying to contact the company through phone and e.mail, I gave up in the end and phoned RCI direct quite a number of times to query cetain things.

Each time RCI helped with my queries and managed to set my mind at rest. I know that Rci do not normally help when you book through a travel agent but they must have felt how frustrated I was.

They even managed to get our flight seats changed so we were all sitting together.

Needless to say I booked direct with RCI for this years cruise.

RCI probably have had many complaints about Virgin.

[Patience32, Devon]

[Fred Bloggs, Tyne and Wear]

Maybe you could take a leaf out of the book of the passenger who complained direct to Richard Branson. You may have already seen it but it's a good read.

Virgin: the world's best passenger complaint letter? - Telegraph

Maybe you could all get together and send letters. There's strength in numbers.

Thanks for posting this, I had considered looking at a cruise and stay with Virgin but now I won't.

[Wilba]

I've said this before and I'll say it again, why anybody wants to book cruises with a Mobile Phone, Credit Card, Broadband, Finance, Train, Aviation Company is beyond me.

It's akin to going to Tesco's to buy a motor car in my book.

If you are going to book a cruise, book it through an agent that sells cruises and nothing else. If they don't do the job correctly they wont survive.

[Virgin Holidays Cruises, Swindon]

I'm really sorry to hear that you had problems when trying contact our call centre. At certain times of the year we experience high call volumes and we are working hard to resolve this.

If you would like me to look at this in more detail, please email me at cruiseadmin@virginholidays.com

Many Thanks

Vicky
Virgin Holidays Cruises