arlowood

If you can , get a tour that takes in the City of Arts and Sciences with fabulous buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava and Felix Candela. BTW Santiago Calatrava also designed the World Trade Centre "Oculus" Station in NYC

Seems your claim should be directly with TUI and you should be eligible for £520pp according to the Citizens Advice website https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/holiday-cancellations-and-compensation/if-your-flights-delayed-or-cancelled/

Sorry - but my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I did know what you were alluding to.

Being a UK member, my eyebrows went north when I read your post. Then I realised that by WC, you meant the World Cafe 😁. Across the pond, WC most often refers to a "Water Closet" or toilet so I was a bit perplexed about the location of the juice machines.😨

I don't know if it's true but when we were on our first Saga cruise last year on SoD, we were told that we would be limited to one booking initially in the three specialty restaurants to allow everyone an opportunity to get a table. We were advised to check again in a few days when the initial booking rush had subsided to see if other bookings could be made. We were not sure about booking over the phone so we went down to the Promenade deck where the three restaurants are located (The Club, Coast to Coast and East to West). We noticed that there was a fairly big queue at The Club reception so carried on to book Coast to Coast where there were only two people in the queue. We overheard one of these people booking Coast to Coast but also making a booking at East to West. So it appears that the reception staff at each restaurant have access to the booking system for any of the three. If there is a queue at the Club, try going to one of the other two to make your bookings.

We did our first Saga cruise on SOD in August last year and were sufficiently impressed to pre-register for the Summer 2024 season. From those who have experience of the pre-registration process, can you explain the procedure. Am I correct in thinking that you receive an email with an outline of the new itineraries for Summer 2024 and this is followed by a telephone call to confirm your interest in one or more cruises and take a deposit payment accordingly. The gap between email and phone call will depend on where you are in the queue based on the date you pre-registered. My question stems from a concern that the release date has now stretched potentially into March 2023. We have a holiday planned in Cyprus at the beginning of March. While I will be able to access my emails when away, I'm a bit more concerned if the follow-up telephone call comes when we are in Cyprus. Dealing with UK calls and potentially having to divulge credit/debit card details over the phone are something I'd rather not do while abroad.

We've cruised many times with P&O since 2007 and have become progressively disillusioned with the service and the "nickel and diming" that has been a feature in recent years. We have also cruised with Viking on their river cruises and on 3 ocean cruises. We did our first Saga cruise in August 2022 and my initial impressions were excellent. The boutique nature of the ships and the other "included" services meant that Saga won hands down over what P&O is now offering. Many hard and fast P&O supporters balk at the headline price of a Saga cruise but my opinion is that they don't do the sums and really cost out what extras they pay for on P&O that are included in the price of your Saga cruise. For example WiFi, Shore excursions, specialty dining, included drinks packages are all added costs on P&O but are included with Saga. Turning to Viking, we love the Scandi ambience of their ocean ships and, like Saga, there are included excursions, wifi, drinks and specialty restaurants. Viking don't have any formal dining nights so that removes one potential headache from the "what to pack" list. The major drawback in our view is the need to fly to the start point of most of their cruise itineraries. There are a limited number that either start or end in London(Tilbury) but you still have to fly at the end or beginning of your cruise. If they offered round trip UK cruises then we would be sorely tempted but until that happens (if ever) we will now be opting for Saga as our provider. Just waiting for the Summer 2024 itineraries to be released (we have pre-registered)

This has been my train of thought since I first heard of the Zodiac incident and the subsequent news reports and comments in this thread. Excluding the possibility of a fuel "explosion" based on the location of fuel storage tanks on this type of vessel then my thoughts drifted to the very remote possibility of a stray piece of ordinance left over from the Falklands War in the 1980's. But in that instance some form of floating mine would probably have wiped out the Zodiac completely rather than just pushing it upwards violently and buckling the floor. As Chengkp75 indicates, if the "porpoising" penguins were observed at or around the time of the accident, then a surfacing predator could be a logical explanation for the what happened. Will be interesting to hear any other witness evidence .

I may be wrong but I think if you are on a saver fare you are allocated Freedom Dining by default. Those on select fares get the chance to decide if they want fixed dining at either 6.30 or 8.30 or they can opt for Freedom Dining if they wish. With Freedom Dining you will not be assigned a specific time ahead of your cruise. Once on board you will have the option to book a dining slot using the on board "App" or you can just roll up at whatever tine suits you and join the queue or be seated straight away if you are lucky.

Just accessed the site in via Chrome and had no issues. Can't explain what your problem might be unless you hve inadvertently altered some internal Chrome settings

I think the issue might be related to fly cruise itineraries. Formal nights just add an extra tranche of clothing to the luggage weight limits imposed by most carriers. I know that the majority of P&O cruisers fly on specially chartered aircraft but I'm not sure if the weight limits are more relaxed on those flights than on normal scheduled routes We did a fly out - sail back cruise on Artemis many moons ago and were on Thomson (TUI) chartered flights then but I can't remember the luggage restrictions back then.

There's a link in the thread mentioned by Gettingwarmer above (#2) which might be of some help. https://www.poamericas.com/ This takes you to a page where you can select specific destination areas, dates, no of nights, ships etc. Norway is listed separately so you should be able to narrow down the fjord itineraries that are on offer. I don't know if you can drill down any further. I too am puzzled that you were unsuccessful when you switched to a VPN search - but I'm no IT whizz kid so maybe someone else could offer a suggestion.

OP has 2 young children with her so I'm guessing there would be more entertainment options available ashore in Lanzarote ( Lido's, beaches, water parks etc) than Cadiz. Maybe that's why she's apparently a bit miffed about the missed port.

Yes - as far as I understand it is fleet wide. However a word of caution from our experience in August on Arcadia. We found it to be very temperamental with the connection dropping out repeatedly as we moved around the ship. We also found that it never worked when we were in our cabin. That made it extremely difficult to join any virtual queue for a dinner reservation as you have to keep the booking page active the whole time you are waiting so that they can alert you when a table is available. Having read other posts on the topic it appears that the older ships (Arcadia an Aurora) have a lot more metal in their construction in the passenger areas and this apparently makes it difficult to achieve a consistent WiFi signal. So if you are sailing on either of the above ships then be prepared to be frustrated on a daily basis. I found that if I wanted to do anything important on the App I had to find a location with good WiFi (in this case the LIbrary) and just sit there until the job was done.

Our experience was a bit different back in April when P&O cancelled our Arcadia cruise to the Baltic at short notice. They were re-deploying staff from Arcadia to the larger ships due to staffing issues at that time.. Not only did they give us a full cash refund based on the price we actually paid but they also offered a 15% FCC and extra OBC of £100pp. Perhaps the recent downturn in the global financial situation has driven them to more stringent (and stingey) refund policies. I have to say that we used that FCC pretty quickly by booking a Spain and Portugal cruise in August. I wasn't and still am not confident that Arcadia and Aurora will survive in the fleet for too much longer.

Just out of interest I had a quick look at a 14 night cruise on Azura this December as a comparison. Standard Balcony select fare is £2149pp. Add 14 nights drinks package at £560 (£39.95pppd) plus 14 nights WiFi at say £200 plus 4 meals in a speciality restaurant at say £120 plus 4 paid excursions at say £160. That totals £3089. So in essence it's still cheaper than Saga but not by a huge amount and that does not factor in the convenience of the chauffer service from home to ship. I'm not a rose-tinted spectacles person. I like to look in detail at the product being offered and the value of the overall package. Based on my recent experience I will be seriously considering Saga for any future cruises

On our Arcadia cruise back in Aug/Sep we used CPS but found we were left to our own devices to transfer the bags to the appropriate "hole in the wall" at the Mayflower terminal. Not much evidence of porters around for those with mobility or other issues. Luckily we stopped almost opposite the "hole" assigned for our deck so it was fairly easy. I think it's another sign of the staffing issues and economy measures being implemented. In pre-covid times the porters were falling over themselves to grab your bags and shuttle them off for loading.

Yes - you can opt for free parking at the port if you don't want the chauffer driven service. Only observation I have on that was that on our cruise in June we were supposed to embark at Dover but the SoD was delayed at its final port of Cadiz and left there 17hrs late. It meant that there was no way to make it back to Dover for the turn-around so the embarkation port was changed to Southampton. Caused a few issues for those with their own cars as they had to be bussed from Portsmouth back to Dover to pick up their cars. I accept that these were exceptional circumstances but the change of port did not affect those with the chauffer service

A useful summary by Glenndale but a little out of date since Viking have modified their Covid protocols and now no longer do daily testing and there will be other changes so it's worth checking both cruise lines website to see where there safety protocols are. Clearly they could both change significantly between now and June 2023. We have sailed 3 times on Viking Ocean but only once on Saga (June this year). While the Saga ship (Spirit of Discovery) was impressive we preferred the more relaxed "Scandi" styling of the Viking ships. This is down to personal preference and is not really a significant difference. You won't be disappointed by the decor and appointments on either line. The food on both is excellent and the free specialty restaurants are very good. Saga has 3 specialty restaurants while Viking only has two and one of those (Manfredi's) is extremely popular and can sometimes be difficult to book. On Viking only the wine/beer at lunch and dinner is included unless you but the Silver Spirits package. Saga is all inclusive and for 2023 they are including premium wines and spirits in the offering. No formal nights on Viking - dress code is smart casual in all eating venues (no shorts or jeans and collared shirts in the restaurants but the rules are more relaxed in the World Cafe buffet restaurant.) Saga has usually 2 formal nights on a cruise up to 10 days and 4 or more on longer cruises. Dinner suit, Tuxedo or dress suit for men and dresses or smart separates for ladies. Main restaurants enforce the dress code but the buffet is available if you don't fancy the formality schtick. As said above you almost always have to fly from UK to join a Viking cruise. There are a couple of itineraries where they start or finish in London but you still have to fly out or home at the beginning or end of the cruise. Saga cruises all leave from the UK and offer chauffer driven exclusive or shared transport to the port. This is free up to 250miles from the departure port (Dover, Southampton or Portsmouth). If you live outside the 250miles you will have a surcharge per mile over that limit. All-in-all we would be happy to cruise with either line again (we have an Adriatic cruise already booked for August 2023 with Viking - a carry over from a pandemic cancelled cruise in 2021). For us that will entail flights from Birmingham to Venice and returning from Athens. So no direct flights (Viking only use the main scheduled carriers) and probably connecting flights through Amsterdam or Frankfurt. Not a prospect we are relishing but hopefully air travel may have got its act together by then. On balance we might lean slightly towards Saga in the future - mainly for the lack of hassle getting to and from the ship. However if Viking ever start up round trip itineraries from a UK port then we will be biting their hands off.

Yes - we registered aboard SoD during the Icelandic Adventures cruise in June 2022. The lady taking our registration was quite clear that there would be a 2-phase release which she referred to as Winter 2024 and Summer 2024. Opting for both required a double registration fee. We were only interested in cruising between May and September so wo took out a single registration for the "summer" release. I'm guessing the priority queue will be handled the same way for both releases - ie in date order of pre-registration

Yes I share your confusion. Under the Ocean Cruise FAQs, I clicked on the "VIP Car Service" option and found the following "We’ll send a car if you live within 75 miles of the port. If you live further away you can buy extra miles. They cost £1.85 per mile for a shared car or £3.70 per mile for a private car. Find out more." However if you click on the "Find out more" hypertext it takes you to a section with the following information:- "Door-to-door chauffeur service up to 250 miles each way One of our chauffeurs will pick you up from home in a car or MPV, and drive you to Dover or Southampton, then meet you on your arrival back in the UK. If you live within 250 miles of the port, we include a shared chauffeur service. If you live within 75 miles, we include a private chauffeur service. Additional miles can be purchased if needed at £1.85 per mile for a shared car where you may share all or part of the journey with other Saga customers. If you’d prefer to have the vehicle all to yourself, this can be arranged, for an additional £3.70 per mile." This clearly has no mention of the mileage charge for distances in excess of 75 miles but less thn 250 miles, so I'm not sure what Saga are trying to say. Have they changed their free transfer policy for journeys beyond 75 miles but less than 250 miles and forgotten to proof read all of their online content to bring it into line? Or is the initial statement about mileage charges an error that has sneaked through?

Yes we took out our pre-registration on board SoD back in June of this year. It was clearly stated that you had the option of "Winter Schedule" which I assume is the January to April 2024 or the "Summer Schedule" which is April to December 2024. We chose the Summer at a cost of £90pp. I think choosing both schedules would double that cost.

I can only assume that the table you book for 8pm will probably be occupied by pax who have booked or turned up earlier than 8 - say between 6 and 6.30pm. So I'm guessing the booking system algorithm works out the likely times a certain table will be free for others to use and then calls you forward about 15mins before that time. If service is slow or people linger to chat rather than leaving the table then your allocated table may not be available when predicted. I think that is the reason you are asked to keep your phone open and live on the booking page so that you are alerted at the appropriate time. All of the above is conjecture but may explain why you can't just roll up at the time you pre-booked and expect to be seated immediately. My experience of the booking system on our Arcadia cruise earlier this month was pretty dire as I could not maintain a reliable connection to the ships intranet system. So the virtual queue was impossible to operate unless I logged in at a location where the Wifi was stable and sat there until I was notified. Not convenient at all. Of course this could be a symptom of the wifi issues on the older ships like Arcadia and Aurora - it may not apply to the newer ships where the wifi was built in from the start.

Used it on Arcadia for our cruise earlier this month. What Cathygh says is pretty much correct I think you need your Surname also and maybe your cabin number as well as the last 6 digits of your boarding pass or cabin key card (Located under the bar code of your cabin access card). The only thing I would caution you about is that I was never able to sign in from my cabin. For any reliable access I had to find a public area on the ship where there was likely to be a good and reliable signal. On Arcadia that was usually the Library. If I wanted to do any bookings, I usually went there. I did find that the quality and reliability of the Wifi signal varied considerably as you moved around the ship and more often than not I found that I had lost access to the My Holiday "App" and had to reconnect from a location with a good signal. This meant that I eventually gave up on the virtual queueing system for the Freedom Dining as this required you to keep your booking page open and active while you waited to be notified that a table was available. From my experience that would have meant joining the virtual queue in a public space and not moving from there until your were called to your table. Very inconvenient IMHO. Maybe it was my phone/tablet that was at fault but I did hear others muttering about the connectivity issue.

Hopefully they will stick to these dates. We've pre-registered for the summer 2024 sailings (April to December). Got a family wedding coming up in mid-2024 and would like to nail down our cruise dates ASAP