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Selbourne

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    England
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    P&O

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  1. It’s the Indian & Philippine sections that I’d go to!
  2. @paulscott Having re-read the posts that I made detailing the few dozen post Covid changes that we noticed on Britannia, it was interesting that the experience on the three other P&O ships that we’ve been on since then was slightly different. Some things that have been stopped on some ships have continued on others. Notably, the app system for booking MDR dining seems to be reserved for the larger ships. As others have said, the experience can vary quite a bit depending on which ship you go on. We found some aspects of Iona to be very good, but other issues that we had mean that I simply cannot convince my wife to go on her again (nor sister ship Arvia). By contrast, our favourite ship had always been Aurora, but having spent a long time on her recently we are now finding her to be past her best and the MDR food was the weakest of the four P&O ships that we’ve been on. For us, I think our priority for our future P&O cruises may now be Britannia and Ventura. We have also started using Cunard as well.
  3. Same here. I know that most people rave about Sindhu but it does nothing for me. I love Indian (and in fact all Asian) cuisine at home, but the ‘fusion’ concept of Sindhu just doesn’t work for me. Like you, I tend to enjoy the curries in the MDR far more. The place that I’d really like to eat, but never will, is the crew canteen. They have different sections for each major nationality that the crew come from. I bet that the food there is far more tasty, as they won’t tone it down to suit what they perceive to be the bland palates of us Brits!
  4. Hi Paul. Welcome to Cruise Critic. We had exactly the same concern as your wife. Our first P&O cruise post Covid was on Britannia last summer (we’ve done 3 other P&O cruises since). I did a live blog from this cruise but afterwards I did a long post on all the changes and how they impacted on us (or didn’t). Hopefully this will answer all (and maybe more 😂) of your questions or concerns.
  5. I tried that without success. I’m not that hot on IT though. That’s what my kids are for 😂
  6. We have recently returned from 65 nights on Aurora (post Starlink installation). The WiFi worked absolutely fine in our cabin, the coffee shop and all the restaurants. We just had the basic package for one device, so it’s a bit of a faff (lots of clicks) to switch between devices, but we used it across 2 iPads and 2 iPhones (one at a time). No issues at all. Shame that I can’t say the same about the absolutely rubbish TVs! I’ve never paid for WiFi prior to Starlink so can’t say how it compares, but I was impressed. We were even able to make free phone and video calls via WhatsApp on the basic package.
  7. On our recent cruise there was an on-board offer for double OBC on longer cruises (over 21 days from memory). They used to also have a low £50 deposit for bookings made on board, which was great if the price dropped as you could cancel and re-book, but I believe that’s no more? Quite a few people on our Grand Tour booked on board for next years 65 nighter under the double OBC offer. Towards the end of the cruise, the Select price for the cruise dropped by far more than the value of the on board offer, but I’m not sure if many people picked up on that - I only knew as I had an email from our TA promoting it! We learnt a valuable lesson with that cruise though (having always booked Select previously). Even under the best offer, people on our cruise who’d booked Select had paid £10k more than we did on a Late Saver. No on board offers will ever counter that! As an aside, I wish that all ships would adopt the future cruises queueing system that we saw on Iona, where you are called when it’s your turn, leaving you free to wander off and be called when they are ready to see you. Great for people like me who don’t do queues 😂
  8. I track the prices on quite a lot of P&O cruises that, if the price falls to within our target price we might book. I was updating the prices last night and was struck by how close the Select price was to the Saver price on a lot of these cruises, especially when you net off the OBC and cost of parking. In fact, there were several examples of where the Select price worked out cheaper than the Saver price, which seems daft but actually happens quite often. So, by getting the timing right, dining choice can be guaranteed for little or no extra cost over a Saver, plus you are also able to pick a cabin in a good location rather than have what’s left over!
  9. That’s interesting. I’ve only booked Savers twice, once pre Covid and our most recent cruise. One was a late saver (although neither the P&O website nor any of the booking confirmations ever use the word ‘late’, and just say ‘saver’) and one an early saver. On neither occasion did we see the wording that you’ve quoted about being able to express a dining preference. In fact, on both occasions I attempted to express a preference and was told categorically (both by P&O and our specialist TA) that this is not possible on a Saver fare. Whilst frustrating, I guess it’s a case of not being able to have your cake and eat it. After cabin selection, the ability to confirm your dining preference (on ships where this is still relevant) is one of the main reasons why people will pay what can sometimes be a substantial premium for a Select fare. I guess it’s unreasonable to take advantage of the cheaper Saver fare and yet expect the same benefits as those who have specifically paid more in order to obtain them.
  10. Is it an electric wheelchair? My wife has a manual one and we’ve never had a label put on it.
  11. My understanding is that you cannot express a dining preference on any type of Saver fare at any stage. This is only possible with a Select fare. Even with a Select booking you can only have the type of dining confirmed (freedom or club) and, if club, first or second sitting, with table size always just being a preference, but not confirmed. With a Saver, your dining is only confirmed once you are on board. On Iona and Arvia this is of no relevance, as they only have Freedom dining anyway, but on the other ships if you aren’t happy with what you’ve been allocated then you can request a change on board, but this is subject to availability. We booked a Saver fare for our recent Aurora cruise. Our preference (which we couldn’t express) was table for 2, second sitting club. We were allocated second sitting, but on a shared table. We tried it for a week or so but then decided that it wasn’t working (for several reasons) so requested a change. We were told that Freedom dining was full (as it often is) but we managed to get a table for our sole use on 2nd sitting, so all was well.
  12. A year ago, from what we were reading about P&O, we thought that our days with them might be numbered. However, having now done 4 cruise with P&O on 4 different ships over the past 8 months, we are now happy to continue cruising with them, albeit at a lower cost than we’ve paid in the past. We now use Cunard as well but, as already mentioned, we just can’t see the value in Saga given the relatively low worth (to us) of the included aspects. Like others, we prefer to pay for what we use rather than pay for everything (as you do with Sagas high prices) to only use some of it. I respect the fact that we are all different though and I have no doubt that the Saga product is better. As to whether it’s 2 to 3 times better (as it would need to be to justify the price difference) is, I guess, subjective. Where we differ though is that if ever we get to the stage that we abandon P&O, I would vacate this forum as well. Whilst still using P&O I feel that I can comment on the good and the bad aspects in a balanced way that is hopefully of interest to people. However, if all I had to say was negative things then I’d consider it to be bordering on spiteful to just rubbish the P&O product in a forum where people are spending their hard earned cash and looking forward to their cruises.
  13. Interesting question. Our biggest worry was that we might come back to some issue(s) with the house, which thankfully we didn’t which was a huge relief. Within 24 hours of returning home I had done all the remaining washing and ironing and mowed the lawns. As I have to do everything at home, I often feel quite down after a holiday as I return to doing all the domestic stuff that I’m sure that none of us enjoy, but getting on top of everything so quickly really helped. In fact, it seemed less effort to get back on track than it did after our previous 2 week cruise! We've had a heck of a lot on this week so, yes, it does feel like some time ago that we were away, but we are so glad that we did it as I doubt that we will ever do anything remotely like it again and we will have those memories, aided by the blog and the photos, for life.
  14. Yes, deck privilege was indeed the term used. Our MDR waiter and Glasshouse wine host (amongst many others) had free meals during our cruise. Not an issue as far as I’m concerned. Every time we used speciality restaurants (probably at least 15 times over the 65 nights) there were always officers dining there. I don’t doubt that they pay but, as I’ve said, it can be irritating when passengers cannot book, although due to the length of our recent cruise this wasn’t an issue.
  15. I think that part of the challenge of making comparisons is that the prices that P&O customers pay for the same cruise can vary enormously, far more so than is the case with Saga. Some of us are quite anal about monitoring P&O prices, from launch right through to a month or so before sailing. It is quite common for those who aren’t as obsessive about these things to book a cruise at a time when prices can be more than double what they could have paid had they got the timing right. That can be the case with Select fares alone, but then there’s Savers just to complicate matters even further. I think I’m right in saying that the maximum discount with Saga is around 40% and, even booking late it is still possible to get 10% or even 20%, so the variations are much narrower compared to P&O. Therefore, someone comparing a Saga launch price with a P&O cruise booked at a ‘bad’ time will no doubt find the price gap to be much closer, especially if they drink a fair bit and so benefit more from the all inclusive aspects of Saga. However, when comparing the cheapest that I can book P&O cruises (no longer always launch prices) with the cheapest that I can book Saga cruises (pre-launch) I have never been able to narrow the gap below a level where the Saga cruise carries a price premium of at least £300 per day per couple (balcony cabin versus balcony cabin). I don’t ask this in a judgemental way, but would you say that the ‘included’ aspects that you get with Saga are worth anywhere near that? I accept that the quality of the Saga product (cabins, food etc) is probably much better, but even if we went mad on P&O and pretended that we were all inclusive I don’t think we’d spend half that difference.
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