My wife and I have sailed with Cunard on 3 previous occasions and barring the odd minor issue, which has always been dealt with the minimum of fuss, we have been massive fans of Cunard Line's standard of service , even if it is a bit on the stuffy side! Which it is.

No more though.

Despite booking on board our last cruise to the Canaries (13 months previously!) NO-ONE from Cunard or our travel agent , Barrhead Travel, bothered to tell us we needed a visa to travel independently in St Petersburg. Barrhead claim to be 'the cruise experts' and have spent the last couple of years buying up their competitors only to offer a much poorer service. They blamed eachother - BH say Cunard should have told us, Cunard say it was BH's responsibility. Whatever -- the fact is, the only losers were us, as either way, neither of them bothered, in the 13 months between booking and embarkation to tell us the ballet tickets we'd booked from home were worthless as we wouldn't get through customs unless we had booked them again, on a Cunard excursion at 3 times the cost. Read more