good afternoon everyone
What a pleasent day for sailing, What a pleasure it was to hear that London had a good soaking during the evening and we, the cabbages in the west, had to wait uintil the early hours for a good soaking.
Re Hamsterdam, (i'm not sure who started it but it still makes me chuckle). Magsey, no I gave up going for a few months, as there seems ed to be no futher improvement.
But I may be off to Hamsterdam in the next week or two, then on to Brussels, so I will send a pm about all the prices. I fly as it is only £40 return on KLM from Bristol on there city link ticket.

Ref the Bilbio trip (all the fags prices were for 200) we had a fag ash lil and two blokes caugt by customs on the Bilbio trip serves 'em right and the coach firm left 'em at Portsmouth.

i have heard no more from the Express yet about my componsation for my trip, as I said at the time £150 was a very good price for what we got, but it cost me 67, 0870 phone calls and a trip to Timperley with all that add on cost. And the balcony cabin on Premier deck never existed any where on the ship. So I paid £140 extra from a non existance cabin, mind you it was very good value after all, but a "£10 cruise for all readers" is a £10 cruise".

I have just looked at the photos, where is everyone elses cruise phots
Or is it a case of we 'The H.T. Cruisers' put everyone else in the shade with our CanCan and Vivian (with her Latin Lover) and Joan (or was it Jean) smooching with the Captain on the dance floor put every one elses phots/cruise in the shade.

Take care and keep fighting all those still waiting, for you can take heart that it will be worth the wait.

Donefor

Hi,

My mother has been allocated a cruise on the superstar libra departing the 15 August 2006. It looks great and she has waited a while, Has anyone else been on this cruise (Dubrovnik, Malta, Messina, Corfu)?

She has had the flight tickets to Malta but nothing else, has anyone else who has been on a Daily Mail cruise got any advice on when she can expect more details. We have phoned the company but they just keep on saying that they will call us back!

Thanks

hi everyone havent been on for a while ,nice to hear baustal your mother has her cruise. i am sure she will enjoy it.
donefor glad you are still about and still going off to amsterdam etc.
the site sems very quiet these days does it meam all backlog have had cruises allocated?
i am off to canada next week to visit family. it will be great to see them all.hope we hear how the cruises have been happy sailing .carol

Hi busta1,
Did your mother do any chasing or did her allocation come out of the blue?

Hello smokey,
Haven't gone away. Still waiting and watching. Nothing really to say so haven't posted for a while.

Good evening everyone

yes the dead have returned, well after the meal I had last night I feel that I have departed or gone over, ye Gods I feel as if the Coven were getting there own back last night, i'm sure I glimsed a cauldren yesterday morning in the back of number 1 car. for what I have no idea.

I have only booked 3 short breaks so far this year, one of on a cycling hol to Holland departing tomorrow and then Portigal towards the end of Sep (only booked 1 way got a pal who's bought a wind mill, so may join him and his very charming wife for a while). Then Kenya in Oct and Sri Lanka in March 07, anyone would think I was over doing it and ignoring them. (fat chance).

Must pass comment on Bustal and her Mums cruise to Malta, bewarned Malta is very steep with steps everywhere, look at the photos of the Melody Cruisers doing the steps in Malta, then of course doing the steps as we departed we showed all those 'other' europians how to enjoy ourselves, Viv and Chris were stunning in their costumes, amazing how a tuck in elevates one from 5'"2 to 5'11" e Viv

So bewarned Bustal, But on a posative note, I am sure your Mum will love the cruise, we all did on our jaunt (Well I think so).

By the way I wore the 'T shirt' on the Pride of Bilbio and 3 people approached me as they were, it turned out DE failed cuisers.
Has anyone else ever worn a T shirt, they wash well with no shrinkage
(any chance of a discount Luci )

I had a email from the 3 Irish lads in Dublin, it seems they are getting no where so they are thinking of coming over and staying for a while.

Good night from a balmy ( I did not mean Barmy) balcony

thanks for your replys and the info on Malata.

My mother received all of her tickets and infomation over the last couple of days and she has upgraded to an oceanview stateroom cabin, I think the upgrade cost her £130. THe brochure we got says that the total cost of the cruise including a single supplement should be around £1280.

I chased the cruise up with the DE a couple of times using phone numbers off this forum.

She is leaving on the 14 August and I will report on how she got on.

I hope that everyone else has the same outcome (When I phoned them, I mentioned this forum and the fact that I was a member; it might help)

I am posting a message for the first time but have used the forum several times to get information and help. I have recently been offered and have now booked a cruise in the Medittterranean for October after nearly giving up all hope of receiving one. After reading of other forum members' experiences and particularly the detailed advice from Marcus I filed a claim against Express Newspapers online.My letter offering me choices of dates and itinerairies arrived and I booked through the Cruise Store;once the booking was confirmed and the paperwork had arrived I notified Express Newspapers and requested not only the refund of my court fees but also the £40 fuel supplement (not part of the original offer) plus a token amount (£40) for my costs in letters,phone calls and time over a period of 18 months approx since my original cruise was cancelled. All of this was granted and a cheque promptly sent.

So today I wrote to the court asking that no further action be taken as the matter has been settled satisfactorily.What a relief!

I think we have all earned our cruises and would like to thank all who have contributed with info to help the rest along the way. It has been a hard slog but worth it and quite educational into the bargain!

Well done Judith.
May I ask where your original cruise offer was for? In the dim and distant past mine was for the Caribbean and even though I wrote to the DE and said I would accept the Med as a cheaper alternative I have heard nothing. Because of various personal things like a wedding and two new grandchildren I have let things drift. I have also had one cruise booked and paid for so I was afraid they would offer me clashing dates. Do you get much of a choice of cruises/ships, and how much notice do they give you? Are you travelling alone? I asked for a price to take hubby and didn't even get that.

Hello Maureen - in answer to your queries: My cruise was always for the Med. I was given a choice (in July) of 10 itineraries on different ships/companies with often more than one date per itinerary and the dates were spread from August to October. So a pretty good choice really.I mulled them over for a few days and so when I rang to book my first choice had already gone! I have paid to upgrade cabin and fly from a more convenient airport; I am not taking anybody with me. Hope this answers your questions.

Hi Judith and welcome to HT!

Congratulations on finally getting your cruise booked! I hope your post inspires others to try the same route.

Now we all want to know which ship/itinerary you have booked so that we can get excited along with you. We have topics for most of the mainline ships where you may find some useful information. Perhaps you would like to post in the relevant topic if you have any questions or comments on a specific ship.

luci

Hi Judith.
Thanks for answering my queries so promptly. I really must contact the DE. If you had an offer in July for Aug to Oct they are obviously booking up to 3 months in advance. Don't know whether to push for something this year or ask for early 2007 and have that to look forward to. I heard from a lady on this forum who had chosen Thomson Red sea magic cruise last Feb and had a fabulous time.

HI there

ive been watching this forum for a while and was wondering if anyone else had success going to court as Marcus. i posted my info advising of my intention over 30 days ago and of course got no reply.

I intend filing an action this week. Some morale support would be gd.
Congratulation all those who have managed to get DE to provide a cruise.
wish me luck

Best of luck and please keep us informed of your progress. We're with you all the way.

Luci - thanks for welcome. I am going on Thompsons " Romance,Romans and Riviera" cruise Ship Celebration on Oct 12th. My first cruise ever and it will be a novelty to have everything (like food, stopovers etc) arranged in advance. can't think of anything I need to know at this stage except how to get to Luton airport for a 7 a.m. flight!!

Poseyflump - hope you find the time to make your claim this week; just swallow hard and do it and then forget all about it for a while as the wheels of justice grind on.Probably the next bit of "work" you will have to do for the DE is choose your cruise and they are so helpful this time around! Good luck

Thanks Judith. I have added you to the Who's Going Where topic at the top of the forum.

luci

Hi everyone! It is so good to hear that at long last people are getting their cruises. Does anyone have any idea as to how many people are still waiting for a cruise? I still have fond memories of mine and am glad that I persevered even though the cost of all the phone calls etc meant that the cruise was very far from being a £10 cruise!

Hi Everyone,

Like Judith, I have been confirmed on the Celebration leaving on October 12th - yippee !

I have paid the £40 fuel supplement and a £140 all inclusive drinks option.

I might try and reclaim the £40 but not very optimistic on the outcome.

So my advice to those still waiting is DONT GIVE UP !

Hi Bobbie and welcome back!

I have added you to the Who's Going Where topic.

luci

Hi - I have not got a £10 cruise deal but I thought you might like to know that this particular deal was mentioned on Radio 4 this lunchtime......

An industry spokesman admitted they were still working their way through a backlog but all those qualifying WOULD still get their cruises.

Just thought I'd mention it