Selbourne

55 minutes ago, Mollag said:

Out of interest have either of you had the questionnaire yet all we’ve had was the feefo thing which isn’t worth bothering with it seems only a few get the P&O one maybe only the ones they know will answer positively

Well I’m pleased to say that I can assure you that they haven’t only been sent to those who wear rose tinted glasses, as I’ve had one 😂. As with my blog, I’ve given balanced feedback on both the good things and the not so good things. 

22 minutes ago, white_bear said:

We were on this crise (R401) also, and have enjoyed the daily blogs - agreeing with some, and not others (as you would expect).

A couple of comments:

1. On phoning Nationwide FlexPlus insurance today to make our "missed ports" claim, it became apparent that they have also had a lot of Covid/ gastro claims. Came as news to me!

2. Re MDR food - yes, menus were repetitive, but overall, we thought food OK. My main complaint was that menus too much biased to veg/vegan,  compressing options for meat and fish eaters.

That’s interesting about Covid & Norovirus. Early on in the cruise a steward at the aft of deck 11 (we were forward) was spraying in the corridor in protective clothing and when I asked what he was doing he said ‘Covid’ but, like you, we saw no signs of it and nor were we aware of it. We took some Covid test kits with us and when my throat started I tested and was negative. We don’t use the buffet, but the usual giveaway of a Norovirus outbreak is when staff serve people there. I didn’t hear anyone mention that was happening. Frankly, with a cruise of that length in the depth of winter we fully expected outbreaks of some form but, other than all the coughing, we thought that it had been Covid and Norovirus free!

As there have been quite a few comments about MDR food, can I just add a few points for clarity. 
 

Menu repetition - This wasn’t as much of an issue as we thought it would be. Whole menus didn’t seem to repeat (as we thought they would) but certain items did. One thing that we noticed a lot (especially with desserts) was items appearing on the dinner menu repeating at lunch the very next day. 
 

Menu descriptions - these were rarely an indicator of quality. Some elaborate and grand sounding meals turned out to be disappointing, whereas some bland sounding meals were very good. So those deciding whether to use the MDR based on the menu descriptions might be disappointed!
 

Quality - whilst I have some sympathy with the view that a small increase in prices in return for better quality food wouldn’t have been a bad thing on this particular cruise, those who followed my live blogs from Britannia, Iona and Ventura last year may recall that I was very complimentary about the MDR food on all three of these ships. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that what we experienced seemed to be an Aurora issue rather than a P&O one. With 40% of the crew changing on Friday, which will include chefs, the problem may have already been solved!

One very positive aspect of the food being a bit uninspiring was that over 65 nights I only put on just under 3lb in weight, and all of that is probably attributable to the complimentary carrot cake in Raffles 😂. I have put on considerably more than that during a 2 week cruise before and somebody on our cruise has reported putting on two and a half stone 😱

12 hours ago, Mad4WDW said:

 

Hi Selbourne,

What net price per night do you aim at?

We basically have a maximum net price (cruise fare minus OBC) that we won’t go over for a cruise with P&O, and that’s £100 per person per night for a balcony cabin on a Select basis with parking included. That’s easily achievable on Iona and Arvia, but we managed to get cruises for less than that on Britannia and Ventura last year. Iona cost us more as we had a deluxe balcony cabin and had to go in peak August school holidays. This cap pretty much rules out the adult only ships, certainly on a Select basis, but we booked a Saver on Aurora for our recent cruise and that worked out at £73 pppn. 

Final Thoughts

Once again, sincere thanks for all your feedback on my ramblings. I’m pleased that it has provided a source of both interest and amusement over the past few months! I know that I always enjoy reading others live blogs, but I had no idea when I started that this one would get so much interest. I am frankly staggered that this thread has now exceeded 200,000 views and over 1,700 posts 😱

Before I summarise our final thoughts, some quick answers to two questions that several people have asked since we’ve been back;

Health - my throat is no longer hurting when I swallow, but I’m avoiding alcohol as I know that aggravates it. It also kept coming and going on the ship, so I’m hoping that it won’t return in a few days time. I still have an irritating tickly cough but it’s very minor.

Next cruise - is in May on Cunard’s new ship Queen Anne. I am definitely NOT going to do a live blog, but am happy to share my thoughts on how it compares to the P&O ships when we get back.

So, what are our final thoughts? We had a lot of apprehension about going on a cruise of this duration. The longest cruise we’d had before was 24 days (USA & Canada) and we’d really struggled with the homecoming transatlantic, so this was a huge commitment. Well I’m pleased to say that we coped fine with it and didn’t have a single day when we would have preferred to be at home. We enjoyed the cruise and are really pleased that we did it. We have some great memories, which will be aided by the blog and the vast number of photos that I took. If we had to summarise the main likes and dislikes they would be as follows;

LIKES

Itinerary - we cruise for the ports, not the ship or sea days, so this cruise delivered that on steroids. 28 ports (although we ‘only’ made it to 26) of which over 20 were new to us. 

Value - we usually book Select fares but got this one on a late saver. It worked out at £73 per person per night for an accessible balcony cabin (£68 pppn after the £600 insurance refund for the 2 missed ports).

Money saved - as we were away and also on a full board basis, we saved a few thousand pounds against what we would have spent at home over the same period. In real terms, this took our ‘net’ extra cost of being on the cruise down to around £50 pppn, which is just incredible. 

Timing - missing two of the worst winter months in the U.K.  

Service - always a strength IMO but our cabin steward Antonio, assistant waiter Troy and Glasshouse wine host Dennis were all superstars. 

Daytime entertainment - we thought that the days of decent and interesting daytime activities had ended with P&O, but this cruise was as good as any we’ve had. Some great guest lecturers and classical recitals were highlights. 

Some of the performers - Headliners were very good (especially considering their inexperience) and we particularly enjoyed The Privateers, Neil Lockwood and the Annie Lennox tribute. 

Passenger Profile - mostly older seasoned cruisers with the behaviours to match. Exemplary lift etiquette. The polar opposite of what we experienced on Iona. 

DISLIKES

MDR Food - to be clear, it wasn’t awful but we felt that only around 20% of meals were very good, 60% were mediocre and 20% were poor. Lack of seasoning, bland flavourless sauces and gravies. Britannia, Iona and Ventura (all experienced in the second half of last year) were far better. 

Loyalty, what loyalty - being Caribbean tier counted for almost nothing on this cruise. Embarkation was the worst we’ve ever had and both CPS and Intercruises were woefully unprepared for over half the passengers having early boarding times. Very poor quality priority boarders buffet. Zero engagement from the Captain or senior officers at the Caribbean lunch.

Maintenance issues - Aurora is showing her age. The air con can’t cope in certain areas of the ship in warmer temperatures. The display screens and floor announcements in the lifts were wrong more than they were right. The exterior of the ship was looking very shabby with multiple rust and dirt patches. Wherever we went, we looked the poor relation up against the other gleaming ships. 

Captain Robson - we have never come across such a remote Captain. A good one can really enhance a cruise. Other than the departure announcements (which contained just the absolute bare minimum information) he did absolutely nothing to enhance the passenger experience. His explanations for the two missed ports were inadequate. 

Health issues - I had a sore throat for over half the cruise, including all our time in the Caribbean. I’m sure that this was caused by something on the ship (probably air con). An awful lot of passengers had coughs. Thankfully, even though it was a very long cruise, I think we were Norovirus and Covid free. 

Anything more would just be repeating the blog, but those are the main things. So, that’s it. I’m happy to answer any specific questions but, other than that, I’m done!

Insurance Update

I forgot to mention in yesterdays update that when I came up for air yesterday I called U.K. Insurance, the current providers for Nationwide Flex Plus customers (I only opened the account for the travel insurance, following @terrierjohn recommendation). 
 

The chap couldn’t have been more helpful. By luck, he’d had another passenger from the cruise call earlier in the day, so he already knew what our two missed ports were. He confirmed immediately that we would receive £150 per person per missed port, so £600 in total. There is no excess. They don’t even require us to submit the letters that we were issued with.
 

Hugely impressive, as was the quotation stage when we set up the policy. I just hope that Aviva will be as good when they take over from U.K. Insurance as the Nationwide provider. The total cost of the annual policy, including the addition of my wife’s health condition, long holiday extension and cruise cover was just under £400. We have now had 150% of that back and the policy year will still cover us for our next two 14 night cruises with Cunard. Insurance companies often have a bad name for justifiable reasons, but I can’t praise U.K. Insurance enough in this instance. 

18 minutes ago, Ukulele girl said:

My sister was on the cruise and I will speak to her tomorrow to see if she feels the same about the holiday. It will be interesting to have a comparison.

You might want to spare her the 66 days of blogs and focus on the ‘final thoughts’ when I post them 😂. As we know, no two people ever have exactly the same experience on a cruise. So much is influenced by personal circumstances (in our case the challenges with a full time wheelchair user), likes and dislikes (one man’s meat is another man’s poison), expectations, past cruise comparisons, specific cabin issues, problems experienced (and resolution, or otherwise, of) etc etc.

Just as one example, I overheard a chap saying to someone that several people he’d spoken to thought that the food was dreadful, whereas he thought it was fine. In our case, we’d be somewhere in the middle, yet we were all on the same cruise eating the same food but, in our case, we were making comparisons to Britannia, Iona and Ventura, all of which we had been on quite recently. 

Day 66 - Friday 8th March - Disembarkation

Before I tell you about our disembarkation experience, can I start by thanking everyone for your very kind words about how much you have enjoyed the live blog. As many of you have acknowledged, it’s been a lot of work, but the feedback makes it worthwhile. I intend to tidy it up and keep it as a diary of our grand voyage, to accompany the 500+ photographs that I’ve taken. I will post our ‘Final Thoughts’ when I get chance, but here’s what happened today;

We picked up our pilot in the early hours (scheduled for 0245) and when I woke at around 0615 we were at Mayflower Cruise Terminal. We followed exactly the same disembarkation strategy that we have deployed on our last half a dozen cruises. Firstly, we aimed not to vacate the cabin until as late as possible. The request was to vacate cabins by 0800 and, knowing that our steward was working on a cabin along the corridor, we didn’t feel bad about vacating ours at 0810. Our steward Antonio had been absolutely brilliant, always ensuring that our cabin was serviced whilst we were having breakfast. We expressed our appreciation as we left.

MDR breakfast was available for entry until 0830. Getting a lift on disembarkation morning is always something that we dread with a wheelchair, as understandably everybody uses them with their hand luggage, so you can wait ages to get a lift with enough room in it. Seconds after we arrived at the lifts a couple with a scooter arrived. I pressed both up and down buttons thinking that we will get in the first lift in either direction that we can fit in. The first lift to arrive was completely empty, so all four of us managed to get in with the wheelchair and scooter. Having thought that we would get to breakfast by the skin of our teeth, our good fortune with the lift meant that we got there in bags of time. We got a table for 2 immediately (well, a 4 top just for 2). We had been told that disembarkation  would be a little later than usual due to the high volumes of luggage, so we wanted to have a leisurely breakfast. Unfortunately our waiter had a different idea and clearly wanted us in and out as quickly as possible. That wasn’t going to happen, so I made sure that we lasted out until 0900 as that was when general disembarkation was due to start, and I had no intention of going to a lounge or assisted disembarkation. Whilst we need assistance, witnessing how that service is abused incenses me, so I avoid it, push my wife off myself and find a porter to help me in the terminal. 

As we left breakfast on deck 6, I popped to the atrium to check if disembarkation had started, and it had. There was virtually no queue, so I called a lift and whilst there were others in it, we also managed to get in, so we dropped down to deck 5 and we walked straight off the ship. As we were walking along the air bridge we were struck by how cold it felt! When we got to the luggage hall there were no porters available and there was a queue for them, which we joined. We got a porter after around a 10 minute wait. The luggage seemed fairly well spaced, which surprised me. Either disembarkation had started early and a lot had already gone, or Aurora, being a small ship, doesn’t need all the space, even when everyone has significantly more luggage than usual. We were looking for 4 cases and I showed our porter the photo I’d taken of them. In the time it took me to find one case he’d found the other three! In no time at all we were heading out of the terminal. There were several customs staff checking people’s luggage but thankfully we weren’t stopped. 

Next stop CPS and, thankfully, other than rusty brake discs from not being used for 65 days, our car was absolutely fine. In fact, other than a few bird droppings, it didn’t look any dirtier than when we dropped it off on 3rd Jan. Our porter very kindly helped me load the car and we were off. The car drove as well as normal, there were no queues to get out of the car park or port and we got through Southampton and all the way home with no issues at all. We’ve never been away from home for several months before, so it was a big relief to find that the house was OK and that we weren’t going home to any nasty surprises. Within 2 hours I was fully unpacked and had the first load of washing in.  Later in the afternoon I even managed to mow the lawns, which filled one of the green wheelie bins, so it’s started growing already 🙄. So, in conclusion, I’m pleased to report that embarkation was excellent and all is well at Selbourne Towers. However, I am now cream crackered, so good night!

5 minutes ago, Slugsta said:

As a wheelchair user, I have been particularly interested in your comments about accessibility at ports (and have come to the conclusion that the Caribbean is not for us).

I’ve mentioned where we’ve had challenges but keep in mind that we still managed it. A manual wheelchair user needs a fit ‘pusher’ but there are plenty of wheelchair and scooter users on here and we all arrived back in one piece. It’s certainly more challenging than some places, but still do-able. 

1 hour ago, Sawdan said:

Hoping to get away at short notice in June on Arvia. Prices seem quite high still?

   Would anyone expect prices to drop or stay the same? 

   I think if they are to drop at all it will be in the next week or so approx 90 days before sailing

As Arvia is a vast capacity family ship and June isn’t school holidays, I doubt that the ship will sail full. That should mean some late bargains if you are happy to book a Saver and take a chance on where your cabin is located (the usual dining choice benefit of a Select fare doesn’t apply on Arvia as it’s 100% freedom dining). 
 

As for timing, apparently P&O give a week or so grace on the 90 day balance due date and it’s not until that date passes that cheap ‘Late Savers’ appear (although they are not named as such - they are still called saver). 

Day 65 - Thursday 7th March - Sea Day

Having thought that we would get back to Southampton without the rough seas that we’d experienced on our outward journey, we had a rough night and woke to heavy seas and plenty of motion (still not enough to reach for the Stugeron though, given that after 65 days we are salty sea dogs).

Although the clocks had gone forward (for the final time) we managed to get to the MDR in good time for breakfast, prior to attending  Paul Stickler’s final talk - The Long Silence, about the A6 murder. Another excellent talk, well delivered. He has been a major factor in making our return transatlantic (which we really struggled with the last time we did one) extremely bearable. 

At midday the Captain informed us that by the time we reach Southampton we will have covered 16,452 miles, visiting 26 ports in 21 different countries. He mentioned that some of the crew will be heading home. We had previously been told that 40% of the crew are ending their contract with this cruise, which I guess is no surprise when it’s been equivalent to around 5 or 6 normal cruises, each of which would usually see some rotation. It was a shame that the Captain blotted his otherwise exemplary copy book by repeating the daft request for people to score 10s in the feedback survey. My view on this is simple. If they were confident that people would genuinely be scoring 10 out of 10 as an honest assessment, then there would be absolutely no need to ask people to do this. It seems to smack of an insecurity and concern that they won’t that causes them to request it. I shall make this point in my feedback survey. 

We managed to pack 1 of our 3 large cases before lunch. As a point of interest, we were asked to have most of our cases packed and outside the cabin by midday. We ignored this and I’m glad that we did. The corridor was rammed with cases by midday and not a single one of them was removed until 5pm. As well as having a nice meal in the Glasshouse, we wanted to thank Dennis, the superb wine host, who has been a real enhancement to our enjoyment of this venue. He won’t need to ask for great feedback, as he will get it of his own accord. 

After lunch we attended An Audience with Captain Simon Love in the theatre. A few points of interest. He is over 60 but has agreed to stay on for 3 years as long as he works on Aurora. He’s not a fan of the newer ships! Apparently, Aurora struggles docking with any wind above 20 knots due to the lack of control at the aft of the ship, so above this requires a tug (helps explain what I’d heard about our aborted Key West stop). He reckons Aurora has another 7 or 8 years, but as we all know they have form of saying that only to sell the ship months later. In fairness to him, he wouldn’t be told until the deal was done, as he’d be personally affected (which may help explain his pleas for scores of 10 in the satisfaction survey). 

This was followed by an Audience with Cheryl Baker, but after our experience last night we gave that a miss. I’m sure that her style appeals to many, but we aren’t amongst them! We spent the rest of the afternoon packing with a half time break in Raffles. 

Our last dinner in the MDR and, thankfully it was quite a decent one. We had the Chefs parade (where passengers are asked to shake their napkin debris over their fellow diners 😂). I didn’t catch the name of the Executive Chef but it wasn’t ‘Ronnie’ as I’d been told, but an Italian sounding name. The satisfaction survey was mentioned yet again but the member of the entertainment team very sensibly added “or let us know about anything that we can improve on”. Thankfully she realises that these surveys aren’t worth the paper that they are written on unless people give honest and balanced feedback - a fact that was sadly overlooked by the Captain and Entertainment Manager, who are only interested in 100% scores. 

The final show was a double act of Tucker & The iHoppers. We didn’t go, so we shall be leaving the ship without having seen either, so I’m afraid that I can’t offer any feedback. 

When we are home tomorrow I shall report on our disembarkation experience and then, when I get chance, I shall do a ‘final thoughts’ post. 

12 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Sounds like you have a huge lawn! I pay £15 for mine.

and at the risk of sounding like the Monty Python four Yorkshiremen sketch, we can’t even get people to mow lawns where we live! Plenty of landscape gardeners and tree surgeons, but nobody prepared to just do run of the mill gardening 🙄

3 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Poor thing still having to work at 70.😉

I think that about a lot of these ‘minor celebrity’ types. I’m sure a lot of it is because they enjoy the attention but also, from many interviews I’ve read, most of them have been self employed throughout their careers, and few seem to make adequate pension provision, so probably don’t have much choice but to keep working. 
 

As for those who appear on cruise ships, I can’t imagine that the pay is great and unless they are on board for the entire cruise (which few seem to be these days) it doesn’t strike me as a terribly glamorous lifestyle having to fly out to join ships for often runs of sea days. Several of the entertainers on this cruise have talked about their long flights, often involving changes, missing luggage etc. 
 

4 minutes ago, Red Ray said:

I can't see, hear or read about Cheryl Baker without rather unkindly chuckling to myself about her real name - Rita Crudgington.

I didn’t know that, but it explains a lot 😂

16 minutes ago, david63 said:

I'm surprised that there isnn't a green beam medly with a portion of green beams on the side - unless, of course, the chef has run out of green beans!

Our assistant waiter mentioned yesterday that there will be a Chefs paradise tonight. I asked him for a large bowl of green beans to throw at them. 65 days in and he’s still struggling with my sense of humour, although I blame the language barrier 😂

Well for those of you who have been enjoying playing ‘fantasy cruise dining’, I’m afraid that these are the MDR menus for our last day!

8 minutes ago, jh1809 said:

"It was a Marco Pierre White branded menu but without his dishes highlighted"

 

Not being a fan of his choices, I would see that as a plus!

 

Wad this the Cheryl Baker who used to be part of Bucks Fizz? I was a fan back in the day, but I suppose that day was forty or so years ago.

I would agree with your MPW comment! Yes the same Cheryl Baker. She still has a good voice, but the patter and style of performance was absolutely dire in both our opinions. 

Day 64 - Wednesday 6th March - Sea day

We were pleased to wake to sea conditions that still hadn’t worsened. There was some noticeable movement at times but nothing to upset anyone. We’ve not needed to resort to Stugeron and our return transatlantic is certainly proving to be far less bumpy than our outward crossing. The added benefit of this is that our cabin hasn’t been creaking as it did on the southbound leg. Long may that continue. 

Paul Stickler’s morning talk was on the Kray twins, reminding people that the ‘lovable rogues’ image that some people had of them couldn’t have been further from the truth. After that we spent the rest of the morning in the cabin as I wanted to watch the budget, just in case there was anything that might result in me having to urgently change any plans. There wasn’t!

I’d warned my wife that we might have to miss lunch due to the Budget, but our final clock change doesn’t happen until tonight, so I was done with the budget in time for us to get to the MDR before it closed. We then had a short break before going to see the Aurora Vocalists (passenger choir) make their final performance in the theatre. 

This was followed with our afternoon visit to Raffles prior to attending Ben Kearsleys final classical guitar performance in the Playhouse. We are a bit confused as to why his final performance is today rather than tomorrow, given that he has been performing every other day and was only on yesterday. Perhaps they reckon that everyone will be packing at 5pm tomorrow. 

It was our final Black Tie dinner of the cruise. My dinner suit trousers were already ‘snug’ around the waist before the cruise and I had feared that from half way through the cruise we might have to opt out of black tie nights and eat in the speciality restaurants (where it’s always casual), but I can still do them up - just 😅. It was a Marco Pierre White branded menu but without his dishes highlighted 🤔. Having had plenty of meals on this cruise that sound great on paper but are underwhelming in reality, I’m pleased to say that it was very good indeed! We both had the tiger prawns starter and the beef and lobster mains. The lobster was tails (several of) in a cheese sauce. We’ve not had lobster before on this cruise so assume that they must have bought a batch of tails, as the rest of the lobsters are nowhere to be seen 😂. 

At 10pm we went to the theatre to see Cheryl Baker. Prior to the show there was a film shown on the screen with all the crew from this voyage waving goodbye to us. Nice touch. It’s a great shame that there won’t be a souvenir DVD for the cruise, but I guess that’s a negative aspect of not having  photographers onboard, as they used to do them. We had no preconceptions about what to expect with Cheryl Baker so had gone with an open mind. Oh dear. She started by singing ‘Baker Street’, which is a song which I love - when sung by Gerry Rafferty. She has a decent voice but decided to ask for the house lights to go up 3 times during the song so that she could walk off the stage and say hello to audience members and ask if they’d had a nice cruise 🙄. Once that was over she then proceeded to do a sort of slide show. Im sure that to a certain demographic it was all fine, but to us it was cringeworthy and after 10 minutes, during which time a few glances were exchanged between us, my wife said to me “do you really want to watch this”? My answer was a resounding ‘no’ so we left. Am I correct in thinking that she’s an act that people pay to see in the Limelight Club?

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the air con problems that have blighted the lift areas, the lifts themselves and certain areas of the ship (including the corridor outside our cabin) have all but disappeared now that we are back in cooler weather. I’m no air con expert, but I’m guessing that the system is unable to cool the incoming air more than so many degrees in these areas. If so, those cruising in areas with more ‘normal’ temperatures hopefully won’t have the issues that we’ve had on this cruise. 

The clocks go forward tonight to bring us back to UK time. It’s a long drag cruising transatlantic, but at least there’s no jet lag! Tomorrow is our final sea day and when I write tomorrow’s update we should be in the English Channel on the final run to Southampton. 

1 hour ago, happy v said:

That's a lovely menu. I really hope it tastes as good as it looks for you

So do we 😂

Just now, doog442 said:

 

This is what I can't really get my head around. By all means adjust OBC , prices etc for individual cruises based on demand but they literally cut OBC by more than half across most of the fleet on the same day. There wasn't a particular sales drive happening in that respect unlike the Cunard triple offer which had an end date, the same day they culled OBC on P&O. Are they trying to keep price parity between both, I've no idea it just seems odd.  

I suspect it’s nothing more than having to ‘rest’ a promotion for a while in order to trumpet a ‘new’ offer in the future, a bit like the 28 day rule with ‘Sale’ prices. Standard marketing ploys. 
 

Call me a cynic, but I also strongly suspect that certain grades are temporarily placed ‘off sale’ in order to show as sold out or with limited availability (to encourage bookings), only to magically reappear at a later date. I’ve seen that happen with cruises that I’ve monitored. I suspect that the marketing team at Carnival more than pay for themselves - unlike their IT team 😂

Just now, Purdey16 said:

Pan fried tiger prawns for starters, fillet of beef and lobster for main.,raspberry soufflé, and then cheese plate please 😛😛

I think that’s what I’m having, minus the cheese plate (I have the benefit of knowing what they’re like) 😂

Today’s MDR menus. Final Black Tie night. 

Just now, TigerB said:

You've had Iona's supply too, as I hardly saw any😉

I can well believe it. My wife had the hanging speciality seafood kebab in the Beach House last night. What did it come with? Yep. Green beans 🙄😂

Just now, doog442 said:

Incidentally what this did was immediately make me look elsewhere ! 

As would many of us, hence the fact that prices never stay as they are for long. I’m sure that they will drop again in the future. 
 

Now that launch prices are no longer certain to be the cheapest, we have a target net price per night (cruise fare less OBC) and monitor these prices for any cruises that we might be interested in. If we can get the cruise for less than our target price we will book it, whether that’s at launch, after balance due date, or any time between. As our target price is quite low, if the price drops after we book we know it won’t be by much at all. 
 

Whilst I fully understand supply and demand, cruise companies don’t do themselves any favours with these huge fluctuations in fares. The 65 nighter we are currently on (and indeed next years) are classic examples. Admittedly this is down to saver versus select fares, but there are people on the ship who paid £10k-£12k more than us for the same cabin type in return for £1k OBC (or £2k if booked on board under an ‘offer’). Some of these folk are buying things for the sake of it to use up OBC, as we would be if we’d had that much, and would obviously have been far better off with a lower base fare.
 

Over the last few weeks, quite a few people on this cruise have booked next years 65 nighter whilst on board, again to get high levels of OBC that they may struggle to spend, yet only yesterday I received an email from our TA stating ‘just announced’ price cuts of several thousand pounds for that cruise. This sort of thing must infuriate people when you think you have got a good deal, only to find out the next day that it was actually a bad deal. 

Day 63 - Tuesday 5th March - Sea Day

Sea conditions didn’t feel any worse this morning, which was a relief. We haven’t had to reach for the Stugeron yet! I handed our steward the final bag of 10 items for the service wash, so as to lessen my workload when we get home. 

We got to breakfast comfortably (no clock change last night) so didn’t have to rush for Paul Sticklers 10am talk on ‘The Rillington Place Affair’ in the theatre. Even though I’ve read the book and watched the film, the story still raises eyebrows. 

Our cabin steward appeared mid morning with the two suitcases that we couldn’t fit under the bed. We hadn’t asked for them and don’t intend packing until the final afternoon, but I guess he wanted rid of them. Ironically we still have almost as much time left as the entire duration of the next cruise, yet it feels as though we are being told to start packing!

Either side of lunch we just lazed in the cabin reading and getting up to date with things for when we get home (the WiFi package paying dividends again). At midday in the Captains announcement it was mentioned that it was currently force 6 but would worsen later. Stugeron still on standby. MDR for lunch, which I didn’t enjoy, other than the summer pudding. It looked good when my wife had it at dinner last night and I’d half joked that I’d have it when it re-appeared for lunch the next day (as many puds do). My prediction had come true! 

We considered attending the 3pm Ukulele performance but decide that neither of us was that bothered! We did, however, attend Ben Kearsleys penultimate classical guitar performance in the Playhouse, followed by a cuppa in Raffles (minus the free cake again as too late). 

Dinner was in the Beach House and was to be our last (of 5) visits there. Amazingly, I had to send back the nachos starter. Having had it every time we’d been so far this time it was lacking virtually any cheese and the chorizo that I’d paid extra for was nigh on invisible (Ok, the extra cost was just £1 but there’s a principle at stake here). I couldn’t make up my mind what to have for the main course. I always used to have steak but having had such excellent steaks in the Glasshouse I knew that what I would cook myself on a hot stone wouldn’t be as good. In the end I went for the ribs and they were good. I ordered the cheesecake and I’ve still yet to have a decent dessert in the Beach House! My wife liked the look of it so I swapped with her ice cream. We asked for cups of tea to finish, but rather than put the tea bag in the cup and add hot water, as they do in the MDR, the waitress came out with a pot. Now this would be fine, but for the fact that the pot had previously been used for coffee. Anyone whose been to a conference or meeting where tea and coffee are served in flasks will know that unique taste that’s part tea, part coffee 🤢

The 10pm show was the well known entertainer Tucker - so well known that neither of us have heard of him, so that was another one to skip. Thankfully, as of when we retired to our cabin, the sea condition didn’t seem any worse than earlier in the day. Tomorrow day 2 of 3 sea days to Southampton.