Yikes! Talk about a series of unfortunate events. I agree with everyone else here that your tour agency it is your Tour Agency that is responsible to get this whole thing sorted, possibly working with travel insurance if you purchased that coverage. While UA dropped the ball here in not getting you to your destination on-time, at the end of the day, unless they are the ones selling the packaged vacation, their responsibility is solely to get you from point A to point B. Since the flight was leaving from the US and they are not a EU airline, they don't owe you any compensation, other than getting you to your destination and/or a refund per UA's CoC.
That being said, it would appear that you booked your tour through a UK travel agency called
Prestige Holidays. Is that correct? If so, then UK consumer protection laws apply here. Long story short, call them up and see if you can get a reasonable resolution to this issue. If not, and if travel insurance is unwilling to help, your next course of action would be reaching out to the UK's
Civil Aviation Authority whose responsibility in addition to flights is also packaged holidays such as yours. Prestige's website claims to be certified by ABTA and have ATOL protection which means they must adhere to a certain standard when these things occur. As a last resort, you could also dispute the charge on your credit card considering you didn't receive the service (something you'll want to keep in your back pocket).
If I were you I would have stuck to the travel plans and see what happens when you get to the UK. Professional tour companies have contingencies for precisely when these types of things happen and at the end of the day they are on the hook for travel inconveniences since they sold you this package and are accredited accordingly. I'm unsure if they would have put you on a ship leaving slightly later or from a different port of departure but it may still have worked out. That being said, I've been in similar situations where all I wanted to do was go home.
I would also advise you to take a look at this
document published by the UK government on this very topic. In particular they note that when travellers are stranded during the holiday the agency must:
Suitable alternative arrangements
(b) Where, for whatever reason, a significant proportion of the package is not provided, the tour operator must make suitable alternative arrangements, at no extra cost to the consumer, for the continuation of the package8. For example, if unforeseen riots make it impossible for consumers to stay in a particular hotel, the operator should organise a suitable alternative hotel in a safe location. If it is impossible to make suitable alternative arrangements (for example because there are no suitable hotels in the region), or the consumer does not accept them for good reasons (for example because the consumer was caught up in the riots and simply wants to return home), then the operator should normally provide the consumer with transport home or to another agreed place9.
(c) If return flights home are not available within a reasonable timeframe after the contracted for time, the tour operator should make suitable alternative arrangements to get the consumer home. Depending on the circumstances, this might mean a later flight or some different means of transport. If there is a delay before this alternative transport can be provided, the consumer may need accommodation in the intervening period. The obligation on the tour operator is to make “suitable alternative arrangements for the continuation of the package”. Where the package included accommodation, these alternative arrangements should normally include accommodation of a reasonable standard for the intervening period before the alternative transport is provided, at no extra cost to the consumer. Where the package does not include accommodation, the obligation to provide accommodation for the intervening period is less clear, but the better analysis appears to be that a suitable alternative to sending the consumer home would still require the provision of the reasonable accommodation and food a consumer would inevitably need before return transport could be arranged. However, it will ultimately be for the courts to determine this issue. Furthermore, where travellers on a package have a right to care, including hotel accommodation, against airlines under the
Hope this provides some insight.
Safe Travels,
James