rooftop

P&O website used to have a page listing who the current captains are - I've searched and can't find the page any more.

Any idea who will be captain on Ventura in October-November this year?

The problem for me is the UHT milk - until you get used to it.

I'm not sure if the Costa coffee also uses UHT milk

Bit of a beginner's question here:

It seems in the UK you can buy Carnival plc shares (price currently £35 GBP) or Carnival Corp (price currently around $46 USD) (which works out about the same given an exchange rate of $1.30: £1

Is there any difference between the two? In the UK is it better to stick with Carnival plc?

We had deluxe/superior balcony E725 back in 2010 on a Fjords cruise and can't say I remember any unwelcome noise from anywhere.

We're thinking about going on Ventura again later this year, so any advice on aft E deck cabins to avoid due to Havana noise would be appreciated.

Just back from R519 - two weeks in western Med.

Embarkation on 5th Dec was a doddle - embarkation time given on e-ticket was 2.30pm.

We checked out of Hilton at 11.30am (£90 for dinner, bed and breakfast at the Hilton for two adults and one child - bargain) and headed for West Quay where we killed some time and had a coffee.

Turned into Dock Gate 10 at 2.20pm and arrived outside Mayflower terminal at 2.25pm. No queueing - straight into the CPS drop off zone. Minor issue with the luggage porter who seemed to be having a bit of a "domestic" with the CPS staff who registered our car.

Into terminal at 2.27pm, directed straight to a check-in desk, headed straight to security (again no queue) and straight on to the ship. In cabin by 2.35pm.

There were quite a lot of people (a couple of hundred?) sitting in the waiting area check-in desks - I can only presume these people had arrived earlier than their allotted time.

Disembarkation was also as painless - since our last cruise in July 2014, P&O now ask you to go to reception to register a preferred disembarkation time - the earliest available was 8.30am but I opted for 9am. We had breakfast and headed to the Masquerade lounge at 8.45am. We'd been sitting down for less than 2 minutes when they announced they were ready for us. We headed to deck 5 and were straight off the ship and through the baggage claim. Picked up car and were on the road by 9.10am.

If this is how the new procedure is intended to work then I can't fault it.

From what I recall, there isn't a separate walk-in wardrobe area and therefore it'll be a bit of a squeeze if you're also using the sofa bed.

Thanks for the suggestions - have sent a message via facebook and will prepare a letter to hand in once on board.

Our son, 8 years, spent nearly 6 months flat on his back in hospital over last autumn/Christmas with some pretty serious spinal surgery and subsequent complications. He's recovered reasonably well now and we're embarking Aurora on 5th Dec for a couple of weeks.

Although I am more than willing to accept that nothing will come of it, I would at least like to make the effort to get a message to the captain (or at least someone senior on board) to see if there is anything they can do for him - e.g. a visit to the bridge or something.

He's also a reasonably seasoned P&O passenger for an 8 year old, with 49 nights under his belt :rolleyes:

I know it is possible to write to the ship via P&O's office at Southampton - is that the best way? Or is there an email address?

It's amazing how P&O cost cutting is blamed for this so-called chaos (that doesn't actually seem to be chaos). I wonder how many pax on board a given cruise actually paid a full (or close to full) price fare, rather than actively contributing to the cost cutting by buying cheap & last minute.

I appreciate that those who HAVE bought at full price fell aggrieved by this - and rightly so. Unfortunately the market is changing and P&O is targeting the traditional package holiday.

Last year I thought I had a bargain getting 14 nights at £999 pp. This year, you can get 14 nights at £799pp. One this is certain, whilst you can buy 14 nights for £799 instead of what was closer to £2k a few years ago, it is inevitable that costs are going to be cut. By building hotel barges that can accommodate 3000 pax P&O may well have shot themselves in the foot. Only time will tell.

Whenever I've arrived at Southampton, the longest queue has always been cars waiting to get to the terminal building. Clearly the port is not particularly well designed for these monster ships and enforcing staggered check in times will be as much about controlling traffic en-route to the terminal as it is about the boarding process.

In the meantime, arrive at your specified time (or if you have to arrive early due to travel/hotel), drop your luggage off at the hole in the wall and head back in to S'ton for some lunch/browsing/shopping).

Just spoke to someone else at P&O with a bit more sense who confirmed it is only Deck C with 3 beds and therefore even though the GF grade is stating L and A deck, in reality it will be C deck.

We're looking at Aurora R519 - 5 Dec-19th Dec.

Would the ship be decked out for Christmas by that time? trees, decorations, etc?

Our son, 8 years old, spent nearly 6 months in hospital over Christmas last year, so we're looking to do something memorable this year, now that he's well enough to travel.

Thanks

Mark

I'm thinking of booking R519 (departing 5 Dec). The differential between select and saver is quite small when you factor in the free parking and the OBC and so I've been looking at the Select price which is currently lowest grade balcony at £1249.

When you click through to selecting your cabin, it shows that this is GF grade, which is guarantee cabin on L or A deck. However, the deck plans only show C deck as having balcony cabins with 3 (or 4) beds (notwithstanding the deluxe balconies on B deck).

I've phoned P&O and the agent was adamant that there are 3 bed cabins on L & A deck even though she accepted the current deck plans do not show them.

I'm not particularly bothered whether we'd end up on L, A or C deck but I am curious to know if anyone knows for certain?

Thanks

Mark

It depends where you shop - bearing in mind if you don't have your own Russian Visas then you are dependent on where the tour guide takes you.

In the latter case, they seem to find time to stop at a souvenir shop or two with all the usual Russian merch - I saw prices predominantly marked up in Euros but I think I saw signs in a couple of shops saying they'd accept USD (this was in July).

Even though they were pricing in Euros, the cashiers in at least two shops weren't very prepared and had very little Euro change in their tills.

The street traders/markets around the main tourist attractions seemed to be only accepting rubles.

This image is of balconies on A and B deck, but C looks the same as A

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00437/aurora-cabins_437132c.jpg

C deck balconies are framed by metalwork - the opening is about 5ft wide.

B deck balconies are not framed by metalwork.

Neither is obstructed by the deck above protruding further out.

If wall to wall sun is what you're after then B deck is probably the better bet, although isn't B deck "deluxe" balcony grade - you'll be paying more for the privilege.

I felt slightly iffy one morning on our way up to the Baltic sea...the P&O ginger biscuits in the cabin did the trick.

Doesn't bother me.

If I look at my cruise, it works out at £200 per day full board, with entertainment and as such, although I'm expecting more than a Little Chef, I'm not expecting Benares (favourite restaurant). I'm guessing it would be similar quality to a Harvester. Any more is a bonus.

 

Am I right and are cruisers expecting slightly too much for their buck?

 

 

Jonjo.

I work in hospitality (manage a theatre/function venue) and if our caterers were serving up a meal akin to the P&O evening menus you'd probably be looking at £40 - £45 per head - and that would be for a "no choice" menu - i.e. same starter/main/dessert for everyone, except for the vegetarian option.

So if you add to that the fact you can have waiter service breakfast and lunch, and that the waiter-guest ratio is about 2:14 whereas normal banqueting you can do 1:10/1:12 you're probably looking at perceived menu value of around £120 per person per day.

The fare for my last cruise was £71 pppn so I think that was pretty good value considering I had a balcony cabin too :D

If all else fails, follow the staff off the ship - they seem to know where there is free wifi / open wifi networks. I saw groups of staff congregating around certain buildings all on their phones/tablets - so I can only assume they'd found free wifi.

I couldn't get my head around Café Bordeaux's methods...

I enquired if we could book and evening table and the manager told me that 6.30pm was the only slot left - fully booked for the rest of the night.

Okay...so we duly booked for 6.30pm and arrived fashionably late at 6.45pm - expecting to see a few other early birds. We were the first to arrive and we had 4 waiters all to ourselves.

We took our time and didn't leave until around 8.30pm.... by which time I'd say there was maximum of 10 tables of 2. Yet, they were fully booked on the system???

Perhaps "fully booked" doesn't actually mean all tables full, as I do realise that the 4 waiters would have obviously struggled... but the restaurant manager could have got stuck in if needed, as he stood on ceremony all night. From observing how much standing around the waiters did, I would say they could have managed another 10 tables if they'd needed to.

Perhaps P&O have decided it not worth actively pushing Café Bordeaux pending the changes at the end of the year.

I was told by one of the youth staff (who had seen the plans) that the youth section is being completely refitted.

Yes P&O do run a shuttle from the cruise terminal(cost £15 pp) but be aware it is about 400yards from the ship to the boarding point at the cruise terminal

When we were there in 2012 they were running a shuttle bus from the ship to the boarding point.

Just back from 2 weeks on Aurora and they were pushing this hard. We must have had 3 flyers delivered to the cabin over the 2 weeks plus mentions on the tannoy and in Horizon.

Me thinks P&O are a little concerned about filling those 3000 extra berths/week next year...

They do - when we went in 2012 there was a shuttle bus from the ship to the waterside (or it was about a 10 minute walk) where you could either use the water bus organised by P&O or I think you could jump on one of the public service water buses.

The P&O service landed fairly close to St Marks Square.

I'm pretty certain she wasn't the first and won't be the last!