Anglo Welsh Waterway Holidays
Complaint 160352 Details

My Brother and I booked a holiday with AngloWelsh (booking reference: 81451, through Trudi Hawes of Waterways Holidays last January 15th 2012.

The holiday was designed to navigate the upper Thames, for two reasons. 1/ As my brother had been a Thames Waterman & Lighterman in his younger years, his jurisdiction then was up to Teddington Loch and so wished to cruise the upper Thames that we both had not previously seen. 2/ As we are both in our 80's we felt that we would not be able to operate the loch's on the canals and so chose the Upper River Thames where the lochs were manned. Our whole UK trip was arranged around this Thames narrow boat holiday.

Our holiday was to be on a narrow boat named Wootton to begin at Eynsham, Oxford on Friday 15th June 2012 ending on 22nd June 2012. We were notified by Emma Lovell of AngloWelsh just prior to this date that the upper Thames was flooded and that our holiday was canceled. I asked Emma for a refund. This was refused although we had paid a 'Cancellation protection' fee of £33.00. We was then offered two alternatives for the same date at Stockton and Stratford on Avon. We could not accept these due to short notice as we were reliant on public transport and as we had already arranged for leaving from Eynsham. We were then offered a later date of 29th June 2012. We accepted this sooner than forfeit the £967.96 that we had paid although it was going to disrupt our whole holiday.

After rearranging our holiday at some expense owing to canceling other bookings, we duly arrived at Eynsham only to be told that the Thames was still under flood warning and that if went onto the river and it flooded, we would have to come off. We were then given an Oxford canal licence Which normally one would have to apply for three weeks prior. The whole week turned into a stressful nightmare of hard labour, opening and closing lochs in the continuous rain excepting for one day of fine weather.

I asked Emma why we had paid a £33.00 cancellation protection fee and was not able to cancel. Her response was “The optional £33 cancellation protection scheme, is offered to all customers at time of booking. This is to protect yourselves in the event of having to cancel your holiday, under certain circumstances, such as illness or injury. Unfortunately, this does not cover any matters arising from any cause beyond our reasonable control”

We know that the weather has to be taken into consideration and is out of our control but why was we not offered a refund sooner than have to undergo this taumatic experience?