Should I cancel my holiday and lose my deposit?

[JoshandJamie]

I booked a sunsail holiday last year. We're due to go in September. I have paid a £700 deposit. In one week's time I need to pay the rest which is roughly £2000.

But both of our showers have just packed in. We need to replace our bathroom completely as something is leaking and causing a damp patch on the ceiling of the room below. It's going to cost us at least £5k (probably more). We really can't afford to do it but it's one of those things that needs to be done but it would mean having quite a lot of debt which I hate.

So now I am thinking that we should cancel our holiday and put the £2k towards the cost of the bathroom. (Plus we'd probably spend at least another £1k on the holiday plus it means I won't be working for two weeks which means no income)

But if I cancel, we lose the £700 deposit - which seems like a lot of money just to throw away.

What would you do?

Is there no way you could spk to Sunsail and adv of the problem and see if you can come to an agreement regarding the deposit, as is huge amount to loose.

Personally I would say no just because it is the thought of the next holiday that keeps us all going sometimes...

Why is the bathroom going to cost 5K? Get yourself to bathstore where stylish yet cheap-ish. Get a couple of quotes from builders.

Cant you claim on your house insurance for the broken showers and the damage caused by the leak?

My friend did this around 6 months ago as he ceiling fell in. He got £5000 to repair the damage caused by a slow releasin burst pipe. he had to pay for that to befixed, but was around £100!
It might be worth getting them to send a surveyor around to check the damage/cause and see if you are covered...

Agree -- check your house insurance. There's a good chance you'd be covered.

I think the house insurance will cover the damage caused to the ceiling - but it's not major damage yet. But in order to fix the problem, it will mean rippin out the bathroom (which needs to be replaced anyway as it's old and a shrine to the 70s). We figure if we're going to replace the bathroom we might as well do it properly and get what we want otherwise in a few years time we just need to do it again. Not that we want top of the range, we just don't want to put in a cheap and cheerful, get us by time of thing.

The annoying this is that I do have travel insurance but it only covers cancellation if you're ill, dead or been made redundant.

I can try to speak to Sunsail but I think I know what their answer will be.

My friends insurance covered the cost of a new bathroom. It was made up of the cost of the damage to bathroom suite as it had to be ripped up, replacing the floor, replacing the ceiling downstairs, replacing thr wallpaper, coving, painting, drying it all out first.

He had only just bought the house, been in it a nfew months, and it had very very old wallpaper on the wall in the dining room. The surveyor who came aorund said, oh, thats expensive wallpaper, its going to cost a lot to replace, I will allow £15.00 per roll !

Would sunsail let you move the deposit to the same holiday but for 2008? My parents have done this, though not with sunsail, when they couldn't go on the trip for reasons not covered by their insurance but they didn't want to lose a big deposit.

The only thing he had to pay for was the actual repair to the pipe as that was not covered, being plumbing.

Wow Pavlov. I will check with home insurers. And Ladidadi - that might be an option. We're 'members' ie. have gone on sunsail holidays before so might allow it.

Thanks for the advice. Will investigate. Why can't I just win the lottery??

You should be able to transfer your holiday to next year but sunsail will charge an admin fee, normally about £20pp.

I just spoke to Sunsail. They said they won't carry a deposit over. It's use it or lose it basically. So now we need to have a long think about it. On the plus side, the house insurance said they might pay for some of the work (but really it will only cover a bit).

I think this has taught me not to book holidays too far in advance.

Just wanted to say that I have cancelled my holiday and lost my deposit Bugger.

We need to cancel our December holiday a.s.a.p. We have paid full dep. we understand we may loose that what will happen? Any help will be good please

Titch...... you will get better responses if you start your own thread, this one is ten years old!