I've been waiting until I knew that everyone had been successfully refunded by Princess Cruises via Trans World Travel before contacting you again. It's taken a while, because it has been a huge and complex job as you can imagine, for both of organizations.
What a huge disappointment that things didn't work out the way we had planned. However we have to be grateful that in hindsight we didn't get as far as boarding The Ruby Princess, and that's what we must now all dwell on. We have all been very fortunate, as it's turned out! I hope you have also received a complimentary future cruise that you can use and upgrade if and when you wish after this dreadful world pandemic is eventually behind us and it is once again safe to travel.
As I'm sure you will understand, I will not be planning another Jazz Australia cruise. The one I had planned for this year was to have been my last as you know, and it will now be sometime before it is safe for anyone to travel again. I therefore could not take the risk of having what has happened this time, happen again. It will be much easier for you all to use your future complimentary cruise independently, when it suits you.
I want to thank you all for having faith in my Jazz Cruise ventures over the past few years; those of you who came on one or both of the two previous Jazz Australia cruises know how successful they have been. Jazz Cruises are rare around the world and I have discovered why, they are an enormous amount of work getting them right, and this last one has been the most difficult to organize from many aspects. However I was very much looking forward to it, as I know it would have been a fantastic experience for us all, especially with the famous Stevenson's Rockets plus jazz legend Brett Iggulden.
I want to thank you all for being prepared to cruise with me once again on another great jazz adventure. I only wish I had started organizing jazz cruises many years earlier and not left them till the twilight of my long jazz career!
I also want to thank you all for leaving a portion of the jazz levy in "the kitty" so to speak, which I very much appreciate, for the two years of work that was involved in both arranging the cruise and also getting it right. Thank you for your willingness to join what I know would have been another very enjoyable jazz adventure.
I want to wish you all well during this very difficult time, and particularly for your good health. I also hope that it wont be much longer before we can all support live jazz again and our musician friends who have been affected so badly by this pandemic. In making this wish here's also to the superb Melbourne band Stevenson's Rockets who would have made our thwarted jazz cruise so enjoyable, along with their colleague and guest Brett Iggulden.
