GOQ

It was billed as P&O Southampton. Thanks molecrochip, it figures. Probably the difference in deposits. I am stupid, but learning.

For some reason P&O have charged my credit card for £18.00 exactly. On my last cruise in March-April I spent under my OBC so received an accurate final statement balance of £0.00. I disembarked Britannia on 7th April. I also transferred a select cruise on April 8th, the deposit was correctly transferred from the old cruise to the new cruise. Then this charge appeared on 8th April, have they charged me £18 to transfer the cruise ? Who would it be best to contact in P&O to find out what this charge of exactly £18.00 is for? TIA

I use two luggage straps at right angles to form a large cross, I can see it from across the room. Oh and a large Mister Man luggage tag which says "MY BAG".

I did the transatlantic cruise on Discovery, flying from Gatwick to Barbados, in April last year. I did not get allocated a cabin number until I actually boarded the ship in Barbados. Which meant I didn't get any luggage tags at all, which worried me quite a bit. When I expressed my worries a TUI person told me they check passengers luggage against a manifest at the airport and not to worry. I was given my cabin number in the pre boarding shed in Barbados.

I sailed on Arcadia last October to Norway, after what I had read on the internet I expected the ship to be quite tatty where in fact my cabin looked relatively new with , I guess a 40" TV. I didn't notice any scruffiness about the ship, maybe I didn't look hard enough, and I didn't feel particularly cold. However I did have a few problems with the cabin, the air con was a bit screwy with the temperature exceeding 25C, this was promptly fixed but went wrong again during the cruise. From the start I had no hot water in the shower, the cabin steward told me I was not operating it correctly, but it was broken and again it was promptly fixed when I reported it to reception. There never seemed to be a big queue at reception, like the other ships, and they were polite.

I assume you are referring to disembarkation at Southampton. Your are given a disembarkation time and requested to assemble in a named bar or lounge just before your disembarkation time. Then your group disembarks as an entity and as others have said you find your case in the warehouse grouped by deck number. You are also given the option of self disembarkation whereby you don't have to leave your case outside your cabin but wheel it off the ship yourself. Self disembarkation is usually pretty early before the bulk of the passengers start to disembark. Its a bit of a hassle to drag your case off the ship but you get to keep your case overnight, you get off the ship before the crowds and you get off first. The big drawback is having to haul your case yourself, but you can take your time, no hurry.

I would be interested in your opinion of those single inside cabins on deck 16 Britannia Dave. I have 2 cruises booked on Britannia a single balcony deck 16 and a double balcony deck 14. I was just thinking it would be just a short walk from a deck 16 inside cabin to the deck for open space, so might be a good future option. Another thought about the Fjord cruises are the restrictions which come into place in 2026 so I have been thinking about a Britannia/Iona fjord cruise anyway, I have a space in May so one of these cruises looks very tempting, especially if its a bargain.

Quite a fast response from P&O this time, the last form I sent bounced because I had missed ticking the travel insurance and care requirements boxes on the form. These had been ticked on the other 2 forms I had sent. So that seems to be the answer, if your are a bit nervous like me and would like an acknowledgement that P&O have received the form, just miss ticking one of the required boxes and they will get back to you. My excuse, I am dyslexic and forms with boxes phase me. Thank goodness for spell checkers.

With my first request for assistance I returned a completed assistance request form I had been sent for my previous January cruise. But I had no acknowledgment, so I sent a second request using a different request form I had found on one of P&Os web pages. Still no acknowledgment. Now 4 days before my upcoming cruise I have just received an email from P&O quote: “Unfortunately, the version you have returned is now obsolete. We have made quite a few changes to our On Board Needs questionnaire in recent years. For this reason and to ensure we have all the necessary information for your forth coming cruise, please may we kindly ask you to complete the attached On Board Needs questionnaire and return to us.” So they acknowledged the receiving my second email containing the obsolete form but not the first email containing the correct form and now ask me to resubmit the first form which I sent weeks ago. Confusing. Just a thought, when I sent the first form I had not been allocated my cabin so put TBC in the cabin number box. So did they perhaps just discard my original request because I didn't have a cabin number?

Sorry if this is a silly question. I usually cruise with P&O or Marella where the quoted prices of cruises departing from an overseas port includes the cost of flights and transfers. I have just been looking at the fares for the Ambience cruise from Sydney to Singapore for 24/2/24 and they seem incredibly good value and cannot possibly include flights in that price, can it, have I missed an add flights option somewhere on the web page? As I have written above I only have experience of flight inclusive cruises. I assume I would have to organise my own flights, transfers and possibly pre stay hotel, or find a travel agent to organise a package, or will Ambassador organise this at extra cost. I have no experience of arranging separate flights, what do you guys do?

Thanks Selbourne It's just that the last time I requested assistance I received an acknowledgment to my email. I thought something had gone wrong this time. Boarding at Southampton was well organised and I easily found the assisted boarding area. However at Barbados, apart from disembarking the ship, which was well organised, the airport was chaos and I ended up struggling with my hand luggage through security.

I have a bit of a problem which causes loss of balance and weakness in my left arm. I requested boarding assistance for the first time on my last P&O cruise in January. I filled in the assistance form, sent it to accessibility@carnivalukgroup.com and received a confirmation reply within a few days. I am off on another cruise next week I have twice emailed accessibility@carnivalukgroup.com with the same request and completed form. No replies or acknowledgement to either email/request. I there anything I could have done wrong?, has the email address changed ? TIA Paul

I other words it is risk which depends upon the ship you intend to book. I have booked early savers both on Iona and Arvia, I had a lovely deck 11 cabin on Iona and the worst horrible deck 8 promenade cabin on Arvia. A cruise on Arcadia I had the choice of a deck 1 unobstructed sea view cabin or a cheaper deck 4 obstructed sea view cabin. Deck 1 (clear) saver fare == Deck 4 (obs view) select fare minus obc and coach fare benefits. My personal preference was for the deck 4 cabin as it was better located and I found out that being able to select the cabin I was able choose one with a view between the lifeboats.

A good idea, I will have monitor that group, the only offer I can see on the Marella site at the moment is the US200 deal. I agree with other posters here that Marella are becoming very expensive in comparison with the likes of P&O or MSC particularly on the Caribbean cruise and TA itineraries. I have my eye on some TA, Caribbean and Greek/Adriatic cruises and if a Marella code popped up it would make my choice of cruise line a bit easier.

I know Marella occasionally and spontaneously publish saver codes like cruise300 = “£300 off per bookings for dates between x and y”. I think the current code is US200 for £200 off USA cruises. Each year I build a list of potential cruises and dither over making a decision, now I always love what I think is a good deal and when I see one of these codes it sort of helps me decide. With P&O I usually get an email or a flyer in the post but with Marella if a spot a deal it happens just by chance. So when any of you folk spot one of these codes, or if you spot what you think is a good deal could you let the rest of us know about it. Thanks

Thank you all for your useful advise. I am sort of used to getting off the plane, collecting luggage then straight onto a transfer directly to the ship. I have been doing a bit of "Youtube" both of potential destination cities and of passenger experiences of long haul flights. Taking into account the effects of long haul travelling time and jet lag it I have come to the conclusion it might just be better to have a day or two in a hotel pre-cruise in which to recover. Thanks

I had a 12 year gap in my P&O cruising. Previously my last P&O cruise had been booked by my late wife as the lead passenger. When I started cruising again by myself with P&O I found they had automatically converted my Portunus points to the Peninsular club points.

Thanks for your comments jh1809 and Bill Y, what you say really does make sense. I think I might hang on for a few months and see if any "short segments" turn up. If short segments of world cruises are finished I am sure the likes of Princess, Celebrity and RC do Australia/NZ cruises.

Thank you david63 I will have to do some thinking. I suppose my other options might be: 1. Cancel A411 and start again. 2. Transfer A411 to another cruise I might intend to book.

I booked directly with P&O online. 1. If I log into "mycruise" and I get all the details of my booked cruise, how do I actually go about altering this booking to a totally different cruise. Or do I have to join the queue and have a discussion over the phone with a P&O adviser? I have never cancelled/altered a P&O cruise before so am clueless. 2. If I have booked the original cruise A411 as Select, can I rebook the replacement cruise as an Early Saver ? 3. Can I transfer the original cruise to a TA and get them to sort it out?

With Marella on my birthday I had a card, towels made up into the resemblance of a birthday cake and a free photo shoot. On P&O I just had an email, because it was my birthday, inviting me to take part in a free prize draw for a P&O hamper. Big deal. 😬 Grump mode on/ It made me think, do P&O really care about me as a passenger, grump mode off.

This is a brilliant idea. I usually take a sea view or depending on the ship/price, a balcony because I don't really like an inside cabin. But if you can just walk outside your door a few paces into an outside area it seems a very good option. I notice Azura/Ventura also seems to have a few outside small white spaces near the aft inside cabins. I wonder if they might also allow convenient access to a sea view.

A visit/cruise from/to Australia/Asia is on my bucket list. At the moment the maximum length of a cruise I can take is between 14 and an absolute maximum of 19 days. So I have had the idea of taking a segment of one of Arcadia's world cruises, possibly something like Brisbane to Hong Kong March 11 2024, Arcadia 15 nights cruise JQR. The problem is it’s too late for this year and next year I already have a cruise booked with P&O for March 2024. Now I notice that P&O seem to have taken out these shorter segments from the Arcadia 2025 world cruise, the segments are around 41 to 51 nights are too long for me, so it seems the 2024 Arcadia world cruise will be the last opportunity I have do take a short segment of a world cruise with P&O. Sorry I have not done this before so please bare with me, the cruise I have already booked for March 2024, A411, is a Select fare which I believe allows me the flexibility to change my booking. Is it easy to change this cruise A411 to JQR and and how would I best do this.

Yes I realize that but the flights section just lists "Gatwick date time"-"flight number"- "Barbados date time". It's nice to have an actual flight ticket/email confirmation. I am quite nervous really 😬 and it was just nice to have confirmation that the ship boarding pass will do.

This is what I understand, I have booked an equivalent single balcony cabin D200 - D210 on the port side stern. The deck plan shows a hash and a raindrop on the cabin which notes the cabin has a steel fronted balcony and is partially shaded. Doesn't really bother me, I went for the location on the ship.