GSPG

Interesting, thanks! I’m due to be in Tallinn Saturday week, all being well. I’m not sure if I could enjoy neat vodka though! Do they carry you back!

Well I can see these getting ‘attention’ soon too if they are not already. I’m sure the adult only ships are quite a bit more expensive than they were. Just when will P&O push the ‘go button’ on the bigger ships too once enough families have ‘come over to cruising’.

It’s not just alcohol, with full up ships the company’s can ‘go to work on us’ extracting every pound they can, wherever they can. All these additions, extras or less of something are being rolled out gradually, but they are mounting up now. Even for my cruise this Friday, two excursions were cancelled, then renamed with the same itinerary, but an additional £5 & £7 was added to price? From the company’s point of view they must be loving this. Their people who look at the data and pricing and come up with the decisions must be working over time compiling reports because every venture must be a successful one right now. While there appears to be no lull in the demand for cruises, cuts or increases can only go on. Their balance sheets must be looking pretty healthy right now!

Just made me think, it’s quite simple little occurrences like this that you never forget for whatever reason as the mood, the chemistry, the atmosphere, or the company was just right at that point in time.

In this regard, if you look back I believe this subject came about due to a ‘communication’ sent to TA’s about stopping spirit’s being brought on board. But it appears this was a scam of some sort, for whatever reason, and it’s been acknowledged as that. I’m sure it was messages being passed on for information purposes for other guests only rightly or wrongly, and there was no more to it than that.

Ah, sorry I need to hold my hands up here. Disinformation! It wasn’t an email which I understood it was from my OH, but something the TA’s had received and put on facebook or something. On that basis and until we hear clearly from P&O on this we may still take spirits.

While more than 2 adults do share a room, with the higher capacity’s does this tend to suggest there are more children and families on board?

Yes definitely!

Just posted on your other thread Andy about this policy, but have just seen this thread.

To let you know we had an email this morning to say only a bottle of wine or champagne is allowed to be brought on board, but no vodka, or spirits. It seems our cruise next week on Britannia is the first to do this. I also understand drink packages have gone up. Okay, I suppose there is only one way the price of drinks was going to go. What got under my skin a bit though were increased excursion charges in the change in itinerary. Because of timings and shorter stays, two excursions we booked were cancelled then put on sale again but with a different title. The excursions looked identical, but they had added £5 to one, and £7 to the other. They also did not give the chance to those who had had the excursion cancelled to book first for the ‘new one’.

I’m on next Friday on the Baltic cruise stopping at Stockholm for a couple of days. I wonder if they’ll play some Abba? Perhaps they should “Take a Chance” with them!

Is it still okay to bring a litre of vodka on board? Well, we’ll be next to Russia in Tallinn on the 18th!

Vesselfinder suggests you are on your way to Olden, if not there already? Have a good one, Olden has been my favourite place on two Fjord cruises.

There are 4 formal nights on this two week cruise. The 21st May is our last port of call re-arranged to be Copenhagen - Evening Casual. 22nd May Sea Day - Evening Casual. 23rd May - Sea Day - Black Tie. 24th May - Disembarkation. Does this make sense having a black tie on the same evening most passengers are packing their cases ready to put outside their cabin doors before a set time? I would have thought black tie could have been done on the sea day on the 22nd. I believe before the itinerary changes the black tie evening was still going to be on the 23rd?

Britannia now on the move.

Due to an earlier Copenhagen departure, while I’m pleased our cancelled trip to Tivoli has been replaced by an earlier excursion, it feels how can I say it nicely very cheeky by P&O to increase the price from £58 to £65. I have also heard another revised excursion has gone up £15pp from something like £64 to £79? Two Points For Improvement 1. Wouldn’t it have been good if P&O had offered these cancelled and revised trips to those who booked the originals in the first instance, rather than open them out to everyone. 2. Why have these revised excursions increased in price. Have any others actually decreased in price from the original pricing?

As I say, we were on on 9th July, so hopefully by then ‘issues’ may have been addressed, there perhaps were less kids around? Those bloggers did seem picky, though just my opinion the food, the decor on most of the modern medium band quality lines and ships anyway seem to be much the same, all very good.

I believe there was at the time. On our last night before we docked back at Southampton, we bumped into a senior officer along our cabin corridor and we had quite a chat. He was aware of the problems and said 1,000 kids were expected the following week. I said there was just no security presence about, nothing to make those ‘playing up’ think about getting into trouble with their behaviour, and that they were being watched. If it’s not an issue this summer that’s a great thing!

We were on Arvia on July 9th last year for two weeks in the Med. We expected kids, but thinking the schools wouldn’t have broken up then did not think there would be too many. There were 800 as the schools had already broken up in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and there were those who had left school early because of exams, college or Uni. The truth was there was not enough to do for the kids. Towards the end of the first week we noticed they were forming groups of up to twenty, and hanging out in an area next to Sindhu, and in the buffet after midnight. As time went on, lifts were being littered with food, drinks were being left in corridors, there were set two’s between parents and altercations around the pools as some families were ‘camped out’ around these and were intimidating other guests. Families had parents who were drunk most of the time, and the kids were just allowed to get on and do what they wanted to do. There was no security, they had the run of the ship. If things don’t look too good and anything like above, if your wallet of purse permits once you are onboard, my advice would be book the retreat if you can. Instead of buffets, use waiter served dining. Forget the pools. Too small for the amount of people.

If they could, but sounds like they wouldn’t wait in the first instance.

Even though we live down south in Essex, we always travel down to the Southampton area the afternoon or evening before. Heard too many instances on the M25 of people being stuck for god knows how many hours, and just would not risk it. The stress, and worry of travelling there on departure day is too much for us, it would feel like ‘running the gauntlet’! Thanks for these posts as I wondered what happened to those stuck on coaches and what the captain would do. So it seems even booking a coach through the company is not bullet proof on missing the ship! Makes me wonder, once on a cruise and taking a P&O excursion to somewhere remote and for whatever reason the people on it are going to be very late back to the ship talking six hours or so, would the ship still wait?

It was a ship tour. Apart from Stockholm, we have booked ship tours at every other port, but it’s a big shame as we were really looking forward to this particular one.

We have an excursion booked to Tivoli world in Copenhagen for 4.15pm arriving back at 8.15pm. With the ship now due to leave at 6pm, that trip looks scuppered!

Looks like changes between Day 10 and Day 12 compared to the original. Now stopping at Visby, Sweden on Day 10, then at sea, then Copenhagen on Day 12, then set sail for Southampton. Skagen has been dropped. I will be new to this area of the world, but from what I can see Visby maybe an improved stop than Skagen?

For the hull and underwater areas, I wonder if that episode in Majorca last year when she broke away from her moorings during that storm is showing any signs of wear?