Coronavirus: Marella Cruises Axed Until June and Beach Holidays Scrapped, Says Tui

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rock the travel industry, Tui has announced a number of drastic changes to its holiday and cruise programme.

The travel and tourism group announced last month that it would be cancelling all Marella Cruises sailings until 28 March 2020 and postponing the launch of Tui River Cruises and its three brand new passenger ships, cancelling all sailings until and including 2 May 2020.

However, following the FCO’s shock decision over the weekend to extend its advice against all overseas travel for an indefinite period, Tui has had to revise its holiday programme.

All Marella Cruises holidays travelling up to and including 31 May have been cancelled, and Tui River Cruises, due to launch last month, will now commence on 26 November.

The travel and tourism company has said that it “will keep a close eye” on its programme and “continue to amend and adapt timings” in line with Foreign Office (FCO) guidance on overseas travel.

The group has also scrapped all beach holidays travelling up to and including 14 May.

In a statement, Tui said: “Following the recent update to the Foreign and Commonwealth’s office travel advice and the ongoing uncertainty caused by the covid-19 pandemic, we have made a number of changes to our holiday programme.

“We are constantly monitoring the situation and will start taking people on holiday again as soon as we are able to do so.

“At this point in time, nobody can accurately predict when that will be, so for the time being we will keep a close eye on our programme and continue to amend and adapt timings in line with the latest global travel advice.

“We will update our customers as soon as we can of any changes to their holidays. We, like other travel companies, want to travel again as soon as we possibly can and will do so in line with government advice.

“Our customer teams are working extremely hard to contact everyone affected, however, changes in ways of working and the closure of our retail stores have impacted the speed at which this can happen. And have also made it more difficult for our customers to reach us.

“We do understand this may be frustrating but we’d like to assure everyone that we will be in touch as soon as we can.

“Customers who have a booking impacted by these changes will be able to amend their holiday to any other TUI package holiday on sale for free via manage my booking on our website. Customers who booked in retail should wait for us to contact them to discuss their options.”

Visit gov.uk for the latest coronavirus travel updates.