Tui passengers who paid up to £3,700 for Danube river cruises spent 15 hours on coaches and are refused refunds

From the Newshound archive · first published 8 October 2026 · last updated 9 October 2026.

Richard Pearson from Lincolnshire paid £3,300 for a week-long Tui river cruise departing September 21, only to find the boat stuck in Vienna while he was still in Budapest. A four-hour coach transfer got him to the ship, after which he sailed overnight and missed all Danube scenery; across the whole trip, he tallied between 14 and 15 hours on coaches. Sue Crosby, who had paid £3,700 for a cruise that fell on her 70th birthday, attempted to cancel after Tui flagged a revised itinerary, heavy on coach travel, just days before she was due to leave — and was turned down for a refund.

Under Tui's booking conditions, river cruises completed partly by coach do not entitle passengers to a refund, leaving them with little legal recourse.

Pearson described the holiday as 'not a river cruise — a floating hotel with coach transfers' and said he would have stayed home had a pre-departure refund been on offer.

Tui issued an apology and attributed the disruption to unusually low Danube water levels driven by extreme summer heat, while maintaining that all departures operated within its standard terms and conditions.