Have a quick google on the number of cases of food-born illnesses in the 'States compared with the EU (hint, it’s a lot more in the US).
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there is a huge difference between the indoor raised poultry in UK and that of the USA. Also vast areas of deforestation to plant soya to feed cattle on their bare earth lots.
No thanks, we do not want to see that in the UK.
On Farming Today I heard a representative from the USA saying that the UK industry should become more competitive, not once did he mention animal welfare.
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You mean it’s cheap. I’ve always found the food in the US very bland and tasteless and never eat in the chain restaurants any more.
With regard to washing any food in a chlorine solution it’s not a guarantee that all bacteria will be eliminated, bagged salad for example can be a serious health risk.
Chicken is the only meat we eat now…really don’t want it chlorinated too. There was a programme on TV recently that highlighted the problem that bacteria occurred even after chlorination.
Well it used to be cheap but supermarket food prices have increased quite a lot, especially during the last 3 or 4 years. We find the food sold in the mid range supermarkets is usually flavourfull and of pretty good quality. Often it is a bit different in flavour due to the frequent use of corn syrup somewhere along the line though.
Like you, we don’t care to use the chain restaurants in the mid-Atlantic states anymore, but for the opposite reason in that we often find it to be overly spiced for our liking.
Whilst I would certainly be pushing for full refund as permitted in law there’s also a bit of me that thinks of the early days of mobile phones and airtime contracts.
People bought a phone with the payments spread over the term of a two year contract. The phone got stolen and then they went to the shop to buy a replacement. Obviously it was cheaper to buy a phone on a new two year contract and they would try to cancel the first contract claiming that they couldn’t use it.
The argument from the air-time providers was that the service was still there and available - the only problem for the customer was that they didn’t have a hand-set (mobile phone) to connect to the service.
Very much like if you break your land-line hand-set you can’t get a pause in your land-line contract whilst you source a new hand-set. The line is there, you just don’t have the equipment to access it.
In the same-way, Gites, ferries are still there and available but you don’t have the means to get to them in a confinement.
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Sorry but I have say that such is not the case. Brittany Ferries have cancelled ALL their passenger sailings.
DFDS are still running passenger ferries and BF start again on the 15th of June on the assumption that the travel restrictions will be lifted from that date.
Away from chlorinated chicken and back to the Thread. It is my opinion that provided you think the company is not going to go bust and that you will need to travel within its validity it is better to accept the voucher for if you take a cash refund when you eventually do book to travel the cost will have risen.
If you take a voucher the price may still rise as the voucher is just an IOU for the cash owed. There is no incentive to take the voucher eg 15% bonus or like for like crossing. There is no downside to insisting on cash & if you accept a voucher & BF go bust then you will have lost everything.
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Agree - it depends on whether you wish to be altruistic but accepting the voucher is a distinct risk.
OTOH insisting on cash (if enough people do it) could be the cause of the company’s collapse, so one’s actions could actually cause others to lose out.
Decisions, decisions.
Sometimes wish I had a ruddy crystal ball.
Indeed a crystal ball would always come in handy.
However, taking into account the current situation re Covid-19 infections in the UK, and also considering that my wife is American and has no health care coverage for travel to the UK, and further that Travel insurance no longer covers any risk that is in any way related to Covid-19, I trust that folks can understand why it is that I have no intention of traveling to the UK until such time as an effective vaccine is widely available.
Therefore a future travel voucher is completely useless to me, and at least with a cash refund I could donate a good part of it to the RNLI to at least make some good come out of it all.
In a similar vein, I was asked to help out my corridor neighbour in the office building yesterday with a refund request for a cancelled RyanAir flight. All I can say is that their system is particularly designed to thwart and frustrate even the most avid seekers of reimbursement, and woe betide you if you don’t happen to be “au fait” with English. Lamentable.
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For those who may have interest in this tale it may interest you to know that persistence has paid off in the end.
Today I received an e-mail to tell me that it has finally been agreed that I will receive a full refund credited back to the card used to make the original purchase. There is a little caveat that it may take up to 90 days to actually receive the reimbursement, so we don’t actually have the money just yet, but this seems not too unreasonable in the special circumstances currently prevailing.
I will probably never know what caused Brittany Ferries to change their mind and accede to my request. Perhaps it was contact from my travel insurance company, or because I registered an official complaint with the EU Commision’s Online Dispute Resolution system, or perhaps they finally realised that they had no choice but to comply with the law.
What ever the reason I’m just pleased to be able to say that apparently the reimbursement is on its way, even if “up to 90 days” does seem an inordinately long time to send and process an electronic payment in this modern world.
Ah well – one can’t have everything one might wish for I suppose.
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Good news Robert and glad you listened to my advice to keep pushing. 
My deposit refund from Disneyland Paris arrived earlier this week which was a bit later than the 8 weeks they said it would take and I actually received more than I’d originally paid thanks to the recent fall in the pound against the Euro so that was another Timmy bonus to go along with last week’s Cheque de Energie from the government!
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And that’s a big issue. American tastebuds seem to have acclimatised to more sugary and salty foods. The last time I was there I struggled with that - even more so than in France where restaurants over-salt their food for my tastes.
Somehow people need to understand that you won’t die if you don’t eat meat twice, or even once a day, So no need to produce so much.
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I’m happy to report that we have now actually received the refund credited back onto the card that was used to make the initial purchase.
So all’s well that ends well but it was certainly a devil of a scrap in order to be able to obtain what one was entitled to in the first place.
Topic closed.
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I win so far £603.50 for one and two half crossings. One voucher for for a return trip, one voucher for only the return leg (valid for two years. and one voucher for an outward journey valid for ONE YEAR!
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Good news Robert, it shows persistence pays.
I got my refund over a month ago & have just rebooked a Portsmouth -> St Malo return journey in August at almost exactly the value of my refund. The prices are quite frightening without the Club Voyage discount! I treated us to a Commodore cabin for the return day sailing in case they are applying tedious over restrictive social distancing in the public areas.