Gills Cruises
When is a cheap cruise deal not a cheap cruise deal ? Well… when it’s a Gills cruise so it seems.
Gills Cruises a family owned business have been in the cruise business for over 50 years. So its shocking news then that Gill’s Cruise Centres half price offer has landed them in trouble after a complaint was made.
The Advertising Standards agency upheld the complaint made, agreeing that many cruising enthusiasts had been misled by the “half price” offer in a national newspaper that was placed by Gill’s cruises stating a world cruise was available with P&O for a discounted price of £7,389.
The problem with the world cruise offer is that Gill’s could not in any way prove that the original brochure price was over £14,000 and they also failed to mention that the cruise discount didn’t include a surcharge of fuel that would add an additional sum of approximately £500.
Picture courtesy of jimg944
24 Comments
Just to confirm that after one person complained about our P&O world cruise advert the ASA findings have been taken on board. This technicality has made all cruise lines re think their brochure pricing strategy.
We will continue as we have always done over the last 50 years to offer quality customer service and advise, bringing to the market place some of the best cruisedeals available.
Stephen Philippou Managing Director
GIlls Cruise Centre
med cruise sept. fred olsen preferred
fly cardiff
or assisted to port of dep.
I’ve booked with Gills quite a few times.
I think their very good.
I’m a widower, which makes me a single traveler. If their is empty cabin late on
For the 104 nights Grand Voyage. Aurora.
Or the Arcadia. £8799–£7969.
If I can get it for this price….!!
Please let me know. I will book it with pleasure. Hope I get lucky.
Kind Regards.
W Brooks.
I booked my Aurona 2010 cruise with Gills. Since then after numerous emails I have had nothing from them.Promissed phone calls are never returned. They are only interested in getting your money. After that, its only stress and questions unanswered.
We have just returned from two cruises & a hotel stay (Nov/Dec 09) Trans. to Miami & a Bahamas cruise with Royal Caribbean arranged through Faye at Gill’s Cruise centre. As the managing consultant of a customer service audit agency, I have an eye for detail & errors. I am pleased to say I was delighted by the service of both Faye & Gill’s, as well as the ships & crew of Royal Caribbean. Well done! and I like you have a choice of who to book with. We’ve just booked again , speaks volumes for me.
I have been with Gills for a long time and they always offer 1st class service,cant fault them.
Booked through Gills a few times now always had excellent service from enquiry to tickets received. Booked cruises with 4 other cruise companies and never had any problems,always gone with Princess Cruises. Recently booked another cruise for this year through Gills but they have now added £15per person booking fee. Due to a bereavement in our party we had to cancel a disabled cabin, therefore cancelled 1 cabin and upgraded another cabin.For our party of 8 adults it has cost an extra £195 in fees.I can accept a charge for changing but we gave up a disabled cabin to enable some one else to have this facility and that person went into the upgraded cabin and shared. No mention of the booking fee on any full page advert’s but in small print at foot of page it says “Further terms and conditions apply”. Maybe they are all trying stealth taxes now. Would like to hear Stephen Philippou’s response.
booked with Gills in Nov for our RCI independence of the seas 2010 holiday and have received no confirmation, had lots of excuses-sent to wrong address, dealing with it=3x, put on priority pile, then on 11/2/10 told they’re very busy! Must be with complaints! Always booked with Bolsover Cruise Club before and will next time.
i have used gills cruises lots of times and have always had excellent service and at a very reasopnable price,will continue to use them
Just booked with Gill’s and after a price was agreed and debit card details given, I then found out this did not include a so called ‘Promotional Charge’ of an extra £100. Found there was no charge with two other travel companies. So in future will go elsewhere.
Just booked with Gill’s and after a price was agreed and debit card details given, I then found out this did not include a so called ‘Promotional Charge’ of an extra £100.
My husband (unbeknown) to me booked an 18 day RCI cruise through Gill’s to celebrate my BIG birthday next January. He paid a deposit after beinbg advised that the cruise couldn’t be ‘reserved’. Unfortunately, like a lot people these days, I will still have to work past retirement age, so will still be at work when we go. Unfortunately my company rules are that staff can’t take 3 weeks holiday in one go. Within 3 hours of the booking being made we rang Gill’s to cancel so we could discuss it and look for another cruise of shorter duration. We then e-mailed the cancellation and later that day sent a recorded letter (as per their T&C cancellation instructions). We got a voice mail message 3 days later advising that we couldn’t cancel and when we re-booked, there would be a £90 per person re-booking fee; the cruise would have to be with the same shipping line and the value would have to be same or more than the original cruise. Furthermore we had to decide by October 2010 as further charges would be incurred. No explanation as to what those charges are!! I spoke to a customer service guy who implied that because I had followed Gill’s own rules on cancellation he couldn’t see why we couldn’t cancel and receive our deposit back minus any admin charges. He said he would pass this on to his superiors and someone would call me back. That was 8 days ago!!! I’m not holding out any hope especially after reading some of the negative comments about Gills. I would appreciate Mr Philippou’s comments on this matter.
Myself and my husband have already cruised several times and have booked with many of the travel agents seen regularly on the internet, we always call around for the best prices, so when we decided to book our first world cruise we did the usual rounds. When I called Gills Cruise the gentleman I spoke to was efficient and knowledgeable about the ports, excursions, visas required etc I found I spent twice as long on the phone to him than any of the other agents. We booked our cruise with Gills 2 months ago and I have called back already several times with questions about documents amongst other things, luckily the gentleman I booked with was always happy to speak to me again and answered all my questions 82 nights at sea is as much daunting as it is exciting). I would not hesitate to recommend Gills Cruise to someone looking to book a cruise, but I will also tell them still to call round for prices to make sure they are getting the best deal.
Many thanks to all the above for commenting about Gills Cruise Centre. It is especially pleasing to hear some of the positive comments – the team at Gills Cruise Centre works very hard to offer the best possible customer service and cruising experience. We also take any complaints on booking issues very seriously. In the unlikely event of any problems occurring during the booking process we are quick to escalate concerns to the attention of our management, and aim to handle each incident with sensitivity and efficiency. Should anyone wish to discuss their booking or experience with Gills Cruise Centre, please feel free to call the team.
Stephen Philippou
Managing Director, Gills Cruise Centre
This is an interesting article and what a lot of people do not understand is “Live Pricing.” I do not know whether this was to blame but many times you put up a price only to find the cruise lines change it.
When preparing for newspapers, they (the newspapers) often want the copy well before the print run and prices can change before it even goes to print.
To Gills defence, it is hard to get it right all the time.
Have a query with the booking I made but can get no answer from customer service. The only way through is if you go to new booking and they answer in seconds and then transfer you to a dead connection or say their admin team will phone you back, still waiting!
The telephone number on the paperwork (029207) works.
We received a letter from Gill’s today that says they’ve moved their Client Service office to London- that might be why the 02920 numbers aren’t working properly? I called them last week to add tips on to my booking and got through straight away on 0845 460 6094.
BOOKED A MONTH AGO AND STILL NO EMAIL OR LETTER CANT SEEM TOGET THROUGH ON PHONE GOES TO ANSWER MACHINE BIT WORRYING TO SAY THE LEAST
I have to comment that Gills have recently dealt with our concerns very efficiently; unfortunately my last cruise was affected by the airport closures due to the volcanic ash cloud. I spoke to them regularly and they were always able to give me updates and talk me through my options, in the end we changed our cruise with their help to a later date, fingers crossed everything runs smoothly this time.
Just completed a cruise booked through Gills with a special deal of $200 per cabin on board spend. We only received $100. I have been trying to get a refund from Gills for the $100 we didnt receive. Well its like pulling teeth. Despite numerous attempts to contact someone at Gills who could respond to our concerns we did, after many many emails, we finally got someone to acknowledge our complaint. It is down hill from here on in with all the usual excuses i.e we are investigating – can you send through the paper work (yet again) -its the cruise liners responsibility not ours, and so no. the latest is that they contacted our friends who traveled with us and told them they were amending the terms to $100. THIS IS 2 WEEKS AFTER WE HAD RETURNED FROM THE CRUISE.How can they legally do this.
For the sake of a few pounds gills have now lost my and our friends future custom.
Anyone considering booking a cruise through Gills be wary. They may offer a lot but wether you get it or not is another matter.
I have copied below a response from Gillscruise director Stephen Phillipou on this very site
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Mr Stephen Philippou..l says: April 10, 2010
Many thanks to all the above for commenting about Gills Cruise Centre. It is especially pleasing to hear some of the positive comments – the team at Gills Cruise Centre works very hard to offer the best possible customer service and cruising experience. We also take any complaints on booking issues very seriously. In the unlikely event of any problems occurring during the booking process we are quick to escalate concerns to the attention of our management, and aim to handle each incident with sensitivity and efficiency. Should anyone wish to discuss their booking or experience with Gills Cruise Centre, please feel free to call the team.
Stephen Philippou
Managing Director, Gills Cruise Centre
This doesnt represent my treatment with this company.
Ive booked with Gills and so far have been very pleased with them, Booked Sea Princess with $700 spending money when we get on board!!!, my confirmation has arrived and is all in order! I cant wait to spend it on board in the Spa (dont tell my husband)! Has anyone else been on Sea Princess?!!? Im so excited have been with P&O and RCI and both were lovely, this an extra holiday we booked as have had main one but we all need a bit of winter sun!!! Anyway yes very happy with Gills! It would be nice if they guarantee me the weather aswell!!!
AFTER NUMEROUS PHONE CALLS TO GILL CRUISES……WITH NO RESPONCE AT ALL….I WILL NOT BE MAKING MY FINAL PAYMENT DUE ON THE 2ND AUGUST….UNTILL SOME ONE AT GILLS RETURNS MY CALLS AND DEALS WITH MY REQUESTS …..WHAT A SHAMBLES OF CUSTOMER SERVICES..
Here at Gill’s Cruise Centre we are in the process of upgrading our IT and telephone systems for our client services department. Unfortunately a technical error has occurred resulting in some callers not being able to connect through to our dedicated client service team or having their calls cut short.
We know how very frustrating this can be and would like to apologise to any clients who have experienced difficulties. Our teams are working hard to resolve any remaining issues as swiftly as possible.
We would like to remind you of the best way to reach the team;
e-mail admin @gillscruise.com
phone 08454 606094 (option 3)
post Gill’s Cruise Centre
83 Baker Street
London
W1U 6AG