S1971

But surely in the circumstances Cunard should've shown some discretion, in all honesty they shouldn't of even questioned a refund, it should of automatically been refunded. They were quite clearly aware of the situation, to hide behind a policy for the sake of few quid is unacceptable on Cunards part. Even the loyalist of Cunarders must admit this is unacceptable.

The food is always very subjective but I found it to be perfectly acceptable and I never went hungry, dress code is reasonably casual with normally one dress to impress night on a 7 night trip if one feels the need to dress up, long trousers only in the MDR's. Theatre shows are generally very good and professional, guest acts normally a comedian I've always found to be good and not sweary, the late shows can be a bit closer the the edge but never derogatory. Resident bands in the various venues also generally very good, performing to most musical tastes. Although it's all inclusive cruising, I never really witnessed any unruly behaviours other than the odd person with the wobbles. The crew are still the best I've ever experienced at sea, across several cruiselines. I hope you enjoy.

I didn't imply it, others did. The term "clickbait" was used to imply others were sensationalising the story, it obviously worked. All over now, well hopefully.

I do not disagree, but lots on here have claimed it was a non story and clickbait, but obviously not. If that is true and nothing of any significance, a no need announcement simply fanned the flames and gave some onboard the chance to grab their 15 minutes of fame.

Absolutely no need at 6am, knowing full well there was no emergency, according to reports it was a small machinery fire in a non public area, extremely unlikely smoke would've got in to public areas so vey unlikely anyone would've been any the wiser. An announcement could've been done later in the morning, simply to explain to the small majority who may of heard it in the public areas.

I would've agreed if the fire alarms were sounded ship wide when it was discovered, they obviously weren't, so according to some posters on this thread, either the ships fire procedure wasn't followed or the captain has got discretion not to sound the alarm across the whole ship, which appears to have been the case in this instance. Once it was deemed out and safe, there would've been no point in announcing it over the in cabin speaker as most of the ship would have been totally unaware, all it done was wake everyone up, and as has been said gave clickbait to others.

I tend to agree, as the held funds are not available to spend until they are released, which in my case was two weeks later. My experience was slightly different in that I had a £75 credit, which Marella took off my final payment when we disembarked, but the £75 remained on the holding account, which confused matters having two different balances.

Not the case with me, Marella do exactly as P&O and in my experience have done for quite a while. Account taken and cleared within hours, yet didn't release holding account for 2 weeks, but as I understand it does vary with Marella on how long they hold funds for.

From what was said in earlier posts, it is protocol to make a ship wide announcement when a fire is discovered, clearly by your posts that didn't happen ship wide until after the event. That's was the point.

So there was obviously a fire onboard and the captain never announced it until after it was extinguished. Thank you that clarifies the point I was making, no official fire alarm so obviously not the protocol of the ship and the captain must of had discretion. The fire was out, therefore no need to alarm and wake up all onboard at 6am, could've made an announcement later. That would've put pay to the alleged "clickbaiters" and news articles.

"Just to clarify — the announcement from the captain at 6:00am was the type of announcement where it is broadcast from the speaker on the ceiling inside your cabin (which woke everyone up). I do not know my technical terminology for that type of communication. A few minutes before that announcement, however, there was an announcement calling the crew and that announcement was not broadcast into guest cabins, but you could hear it faintly coming from the hallway speakers" I only noted two announcements from the original quote above.

As has already been pointed out you won't get off the ship until your account is zero, the annoying part is why the need to hold your money for so long before releasing it. Two or three days perhaps just incase you have a late spend, but two weeks is totally unnecessary. Doubt it'll change though.

It wasn't a general announcement, the corridor announcement minutes earlier was for the crew and probably only heard by a handful of people, even then I doubt the call was fire it would've been code A,B,C or similar, most people of which wouldn't have had a clue.

What by announcing the fire is out after the event?? Seems a very strange operational procedure.

Judging by what @ChrisMV said previously, a crew announcement was made a "few minutes" earlier on the corridor speakers, I'd of thought a few minutes would've been enough to establish whether serious or not. The captain then announces the fire is out over the cabin speaker, why the need to do that at 6am if the fire was out, it doesn't make sense, unless of course it was initially something more serious, in which case the cabin announcement should've been done immediately and not after the event. We'll probably never know.