Imagine Cruising

I had a similar experience to others that could not get a penny back from the deposit paid despite requesting it months before the cruise. They also blocked us from taking an offer from the cruiseline to relinquish our cruise and get a future cruise credit amounting to thousands of pounds. As we cannot go they will pocket nearly £900 deposit. They said we could book a different cruise with same company but it had to be same or higher value and the prices are not competitive so we will end up just losing that money. They said there would in any case be a penalty to pay for moving so in all probability we would stand to lose much of the deposit in any case. My husband reached out to the ceo - who ignored all his emails. poorest experience ever. Find an alternative company. This one is fine until there is a problem of any description. Thats when you see the measure of a company.

I have just returned from a 3 weeks Golden Triangle holiday & Cruise this being my first experience of Imagine Cruise holidays. I was very nervous prior to going having read some negative reviews and other peoples experiences. However I can only comment on my experience which was excellent and full marks to Imagine 5*. Whilst a couple of hotels may not have been as good as others people should remember not every country has the same 5 star hotel quality. I would not hesitate in going with Imagine again and am already looking at the next holiday.

I’ve been helping Imagine Cruise for a year with Balloon Decorations for their events. Balloon Towers for Display. Premises is secure, you have to have someone who can open door for you. Car park is free.

The company provides lots of paperwork, regular revisions & changes to the itinerary (in our case over a dozen main changes to our Italian Lakes trip & Adriatic Cruise -a few were down to the Cruise Line). They are very slick with payment processes, ensuring all monies collected quickly & efficiently. When issues are flagged they acknowledge receipt quickly but give themselves an excessive 28 days timescale to respond fully.They do respond courteously & sympathetically whilst not really giving straight answers to factual issues eg for our Lakes trip they rerouted us from a very nice genuine 4 star hotel Grand Dino in Baveno to a poorer quality Villa Paradiso hotel 16 Kilometres away in Meina - despite 3 contacts with them, they are still insisting that both hotels are in Baveno This major change to a hotel 20 mins walk from any reasonable facilities, with no air con during a 4 days hot spell, on a busy main road, effectively spoiled the start of my wife's birthday trip. The change from the original Bernina Rail to the poorer quality Centovalli Rail (again with air con issues) further disappointed. On the plus side our 2nd Lakes venue of Bardolino on Garda fully lived up to the hype we'd expected with Baveno. Not so for the other 3rd of our cruise group who'd been lucky enough to be put in the Grand Dino, who now faced an even poorer quality Paradiso style hotel, in a remote part of Lake Garda with poor transport routes ( 2 ferries out and 2 back per day). The Silversea Cruise was the highlight & excellent, except for rerouting some Croatia & Montenegro port stops to go to Bari in Italy and then to Sicily. Being washed out in Palermo didn't help. The Silver Spirit ship is fantastic in every way - comfort, food & drink, entertainment & brilliant crew. A final issue with Imagine was their booked transit agent leaving us on the quayside for an hour, having themselves moved our time to later in the day without telling anyone - causing us to have to make our own arrangements to get to the airport from a now empty quayside. It appears it will take up to another 28 days for Imagine to get a full answer from their agents. However I'm hoping the promised out of pocket taxi expense reimbursement arrives before that. Imagine offered me a paltry £200 voucher as a goodwill payment - however that would require me rebooking with them, which is never going to happen. FOOTNOTE: While on Cruise we booked another cruise for 2026, but were told by Cruise rep that to get on board deals we needed to book via Imagine or direct with Silversea - not true, as Cruise Director also confirmed. Any on board deals can be switched to any reputable travel agent Silversea have links to / hold their details. LATEST: In early July received small compensation settlement ( plus reimbursed taxi fare) after 6 weeks or so of interaction with customer "services", who finally 'agreed' their 'involvement'' over Baveno to Meina switch, trip changes, and transfer issues. Not enough to stop me giving them a very wide berth in future.

We have booked our 2nd cruise with Imagine cruises. Their prices are very competitive and we found the whole booking process very efficient. The the staff we dealt with were engaged, professional and very helpful. Our calls were answered quickly and documents/emails sent in a timely manner. Our concierge at customer services was a lovely lady called Nicky, she was wonderful, nothing was too much trouble. I contacted her on several occasions with concerns and queries which were answered and dealt with speedily and with great patience... We have had issues in the past with other cruise companies that are not interested once you have booked, this is not the case with Imagine. We would have no hesitation in booking another cruise with them.

BE VERY CAREFUL BEFORE BOOKING! I have to agree with previous posts regarding the ridiculous amount of deposit lost through cancellation. 8 months away from the booked date, we haven't even had any flights confirmed to date. Based on this, I would assume the losses to Imagine would be negligible, if any at all, however the demand for a further deposit payment after we have cancelled means a hefty loss for us. We should have taken more notice of the Terms and Conditions when booking, unfortunately we didn't do thorough enough research, but hopefully others will, and use a more scrupulous company to book with. It's very sad that this company cannot see the bigger picture - if you didn't insist on demanding a crippling cancellation fee, and instead be considerate of someone's circumstances, you may have instead had a returning customer year on year who would have made you a lot more money than the one time hit on an extortionate cancellation fee.

Very poor customer service. Once we'd paid our money, it was impossible to speak to anyone on the phone or to get a response to emails, both before we travelled and when we were away and wanted to change accommodation. Even their 'emergency number' was unattended for our first few attempts. Our hotel was not as advertised (no 'island view' room, just a rendered wall view and no possibility to change as the hotel said Imagine Cruising had paid for the cheapest category of room) and no 'a la carte', just half cold, overcooked buffet/canteen food in a 'diner' style restaurant. Very poor value for money.

Made the mistake of booking a Cunard Caribbean Cruise on 10/4/25 with them and the next day discovered that I could not get a USA visa and Insurance cost was over £450. The deposit was £570 and Imagine Cruising would not give us a penny back despite it only being 16 hours later when we contacted them. My mistake for sure but where is the kindness to a pair of OAPs. Like most I made a mistake of not reading the Ts and Cs thinking it was the normal 14 days, but felt the Company was very unkind to us not even giving a partial refund. Graham and Jane OAPs