Yangtze cruise curtailed - Travelers Intercom: readers' opinion tips & recommendations

My international travels have gained in momentum in recent years. As a result, I undertook my second trip to China, March 26-April 16, '03. Friends of mine had recommended Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT); accordingly, I signed up for their journey "Imperial China, Tibet and Yangtze."

On April 8, day 14 of our journey, we were to start in Chengdu with a 7-hour bus fide to Chongqing, where we would arrive around dinnertime. All in our group of 13 had expected that we would continue our trip on the Yangtze River that night with Victoria Cruises, travelhag for four nights from Chongqing to Wuhan. However, at breakfast that morning we were informed of a change in plan by our nationalSguide, an employee of OAT.

Instead of boarding the ship, we were to stay overnight in Chongqing and travel again by bus to the city of Fengdu to reach the Victoria Prince. Evidently, even our guide had been unaware of this change until the night before.

The reason for all this was given as "low water conditions" upstream from Fengdu. Obviously, this did not apply to all Victoria ships: it was upsetting for all of us to see a sister ship of ours, the Victoria 111, at anchor in Chongqing harbor, evidently taking on another group.

After another bus fide and our boarding the ship, it came to our attention that our fiver cruise would again be shortened, since ship traffic downstream to Wuhan from the construction site of the new dam project was not possible. None of us were happy about the situation, including me. I had signed on to this journey to enjoy a 4-night cruise.

What was even more aggravating was the explanation offered by the ship's cruise director in a public meeting as soon as we were on board, namely that this issue was known to all travel agencies since early fall 2002. In addition, parallel groups of travelers, including some on our ship, had been told of the shortened cruise long before starting their trip.

The nonprofit organization Elderhostel, in fact, had advised its travelers of this situation in early January and offered a make-up day to another location. One should assume that OAT had the information at the same time. An article in the newspaper China Daily, dated April 11, 2003, clearly states that shipping between the dam project and Wuhan was suspended as early as November 2002.

While all brochures received by our group had steadfastly repeated . the cruise portion of the trip without correction, we also were never informed of the changes by phone or mail. In essence, a 4-night/31/2-day cruise ended up being a 27 night/1-day and two half-days affair.

Even though our tour guide repeatedly inferred" that this type of itinerary change was caused by Victoria Cruises, I fail to see how that would diminish the overall contractual obligation between OAT and its clients.

In a letter from OAT dated May 8, in response to my expression of disappointment, they claimed to have learned of the change in travel arrangement on the Yangtze River only in February 2003. They further explained that due to in-house human error, "no one" was sent notification of the Yangtze program change and they were very sorry about that.

HELMUT J. RICHTER

Littleton, CO

ITN sent a copy of the above letter to Overseas Adventure Travel and received the following reply.

In response to the complaint against Overseas Adventure Travel, I'd like to review the following points as previously explained to Mr. Richter in a series of correspondence that began on April 25, 2003.

We do regret that the program did not proceed as expected; however, given the nature of international and adventure travel, we do reserve the right, in both our pre-trip materials and our Terms and Conditions, to make changes to all aspects of our programs, including itineraries. In such cases, OAT arranges theSbest-possible alternatives in keeping with the experience we strive to provide.

In the case of the Yangtze cruise, OAT associates in both Boston and China made arrangements to provide all included accommodations and still include the destination highlights as advertised. Because the change was beyond our control and we did still provide included highlights, OAT is not offering compensation to travelers who were affected by either low water or dam closings.

CHRISTEL A. SHEA, Quality

Management, Overseas Adventure:

Travel

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