How much did you pay for the upgrade,how long was the cruise?
How much are you hopeing to get back?

I'm surprised the CAA would have anything to do with it. Atol is only a licence to protect for supplier financial failure.

Any offer from After Travel will be based on the costs of the cabin/upgrade, how much did your cabin cost per night for the upgrade?

From your initial post, explaining what happened (briefly), an alternative cabin was provided without hesitation and the upgraded one offered as soon as it was available.

Also, what did they do about your wet clothes and belongings, did they provide a free laundry service for you.

When seeking reimbursement and/or compensation you do need to keep in mind what they did for you at the time - so did they clean your clothes for you, did they offer anything else for free (excursion, drink etc) because this will all be taken into account when they made their offer to you.

ABTA (not ATOL) should only be contacted as a last resort - have you spoken to After Travel or just communicated by letter?

Having worked for the After Travel Team I know that they review everything that happened when complaints like this arrive on their desks and any form of compensation offered - and more importantly, accepted by you, at the time of the incident, is taken into account.

If, after 3 responses from them you really feel that you are not getting what you feel is a decent apology or compensation, then ABTA should be contacted as to why you feel you are entitled to more.

I am very much a believer in being fair & would always call a customer and discuss the case personally with them, rather than send a letter - but I also believe in offering back to the customer what is fair, and if you accepted anything at all that was "free" after this incident, any further offer from them will be lower than if you hadn't.

I have to be honest here as well, is it really worth the aggravation and inconvenience to take them to court for the sake of a few pounds?

If your upgrade was the same as the offer made, your clothes were cleaned and apologies made at the time, I feel that I would be happy with that.

A word of warning though, sometimes, chasing a bigger and better compensation payout can lead to any previous offer being withdrawn.

Thanks for the reply, I was offered the equivalent of the cost of upgrading but lost my cabin for 1 night and 2 days, we obviously upgraded our cabin because my Wife is not a great sailor and they say you dont feel the sway on top as much as down below. They gave us a cabin down below for the 1 night and my wife was up all night being sick. We were offered £2.00 more after I refused the initial compensation but believe that the distress caused was worth more than what I paid for the upgrade plus £2.00 on top.

I will be honest i have never been on a cruise but have travelled on large( ish) ferries around the greek islands,i would have thought ( rightly or wrongly ) that the higher the deck the more the ship would sway or roll,ie the fact that there is more ship above the water than below! But what would i know.

Alan

What monetary value do you put on your wife's distress? According to cruise critic website " If you tend to get seasick, cabin location is really important. It's a question of engineering, really. The lower and more central you are in a ship, the less roll and sway you will feel. Even if you choose a balconied stateroom, choose the lowest level and the most midship one you can find."

So it sounds like it may not have been the lower deck cabin that caused the sickness?

You're right Mobile fitter and Sunaddict - the higher you are above the waterline, the greater will be the effect of the sway. If you suffer from seasickness then the best place is a cabin on the waterline and as close to the middle of the ship between prow and stern as you can get. And I can speak from experience! It's common sense when you think about it - it's similar to the way if you are at the ends of the rotating line of skaters then the people on the outside are going to be travelling much faster than the people in the centre of the line. Ships are designed to in effect pivot at the waterline and the further away you are from that pivot point in any direction then the further you will travel on each pivot,whether that is up and down or side to side, If they have too much superstructure above the waterline so that the centre of gravity is above the waterline then they will be unstable and will capsize more easily. And if their centre of gravity is too low then they are more vulnerable to sinking if they start to ship water.

On my recent and first cruise, my friend got talking to one of the crew members and he remarked that he much preferred to be sailing on a small ship such as we were on because they were much more stable than the big floating hotels (his words) in rough weather because it was like being in a tower swaying in the wind on the upper decks of the bigger ships.

SM

Based on what's been said, since my last post I would make a personal call to After Travel and speak to a Team Leader who can discuss your concerns, usually they will make arrangements to call you back and discuss all the details at length.

I'm sorry that your wife suffered from sea sickness, but that isn't something the company can compensate for. My uncle was in the Royal Navy during the 2nd world war yet suffered terrible sea sickness years later on the QE2.

Therefore, quite rightly you should be entitled to a refund of your upgrade costs for the 1 night and 2 days and a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience caused.