Cruise specialist voices frustration after P&O Cruises bars Ukrainian customers

A cruise specialist agent has expressed frustration after a P&O Cruises booking for Ukrainian customers was cancelled due to a policy barring customers from “prohibited jurisdictions” on board. 

Paramount Cruises head Patrick Hill said the booking for a week‑long Norwegian fjords sailing from Southampton was for six Ukrainian citizens, two of whom live in the UK and four in Ukraine. 

The £9,000 booking was cancelled by the line’s finance department as the agency was told all Carnival UK brands have a policy to “not accept bookings” from individuals who are “ordinarily resident in prohibited jurisdictions”.

These include Russia, Belarus and Ukraine’s occupied regions of Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.  

Hill said none of the customers were from these regions, and there was “nothing within the booking flow” to flag the booking would not be accepted.

He said he was told: “The business has made the decision not to accept bookings from the whole of Ukraine as we are unable to control by region.”

Hill “struggled” to find any documented information about the policy, which made explaining the decision to the disappointed customers “very difficult”. 

He has since booked a separate group of Ukrainian guests on a sailing with Norwegian Cruise Line, which asked for proof of residence.

Ukrainian entrepreneur Liliia Ilkevych, director of travel agency Fly&Joy, said she had come across this issue and had found some cruise lines were “less strict” while others carried out “more-detailed checks” for Ukrainian nationals living in Ukraine.

Ilkevych said she saw this not as “a blanket refusal of all travellers living in Ukraine”, but rather “a compliance-related policy” affecting official residents of occupied territories. 

A P&O Cruises spokesperson said the line planned to “add detail to terms and conditions to ensure awareness”. 

They added: “In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US, EU, UK and other G7 nations have imposed sweeping economic sanctions on Russia, Belarus and Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine. 

“As a company that operates in compliance with these international restrictions, we are unable to accept reservations from guests residing in Russia, Belarus or the sanctioned regions of Ukraine.”