sandancer

We did this in Spring 2023 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of sea days, very relaxing and of course no horrible overnight flight home. 

On 2/1/2024 at 1:40 PM, Clodia said:

He's from Tyneside. When he returned home after x factor my school had over 200 extra absences as young girls took the morning off to welcome him back.

Joe is appearing at our local theatre next month. Tickets £75 each in the stalls. Glad we saw him on Arvia. 

I think Fionboard meant once Aviva take over. I hope that is not the case as we will be trying to return to Nationwide for our cover. 

10 hours ago, kruzseeka said:

Have you looked at Nationwide FlexPlus?   It is changing its insurers from UK Insurance to Aviva in May but with the bank account a £13 p.m. charge gives you annual world wide insurance. 

 

There is an age extension which covers 70+ and a medical screen which may incur additional charge but as you say you have no serious medical conditions there may be no or little extra to pay.  It includes cruise cover too (and AA Breakdown cover) though to be eligible to claim for a missed ports/cabin confinement is extra.  (And with the new insurer apparently payable per trip but no indication of additional premium yet - the current insurers charged £40 p.a.with no limit on number of cruises.) You can also get an extension for cruises longer than 30/31(?) days. 

 

You don't need to have FlexPlus as your primary bank account ie no minimum monthly payment in or need for direct debits being paid out. If you have a joint account it covers both parties.

 

Might be worth a look - if it's suitable for you there could be considerable savings on £600.  

 

 

 

Maybe we will try again to get cover with Nationwide when our current policy is due to expire. We have banked with them for over 30 years and for many years have purchased travel insurance from them. This year they refused to cover my DH due to pre existing medical conditions. We had to go elsewhere and paid £1600 for an annual policy. This is not worldwide cover. Maybe Aviva will be more flexible. He does not have any life threatening conditions but is 80 this year. We wouldn’t even consider travelling without insurance, even on our British Isles cruise this year. 

6 hours ago, TigerB said:

If you book via your Cruise Planner for the earlier times they will shows on the dining reservations section on the My Holiday app/non-app after you have boarded and logged on for the first time; it is on that where you have the option to cancel reservations.

Yes, you can make reservations for both MDRs, subject to them being open for bookings on the Cruise Planner.

We had the brilliant idea of getting into more than one virtual queue at a time and then we would go to the one that came available first. That was a no no. Can’t be in more than one virtual queue at a time. 

What I can tell you for sure is that you will be waiting in a queue when you visit the future cruise dept. Do not leave it until the last day when the queue was ridiculous on our Iona cruise. There are 3 agents but sometimes only 2 are in attendance. Also you might ask if there will be any offers later in the cruise. They were offering an extra 10% discount on longer cruises but that didn’t come into effect until around day 3 or 4. 

Anyone know the cost of the FCDs in £. I assume the rate is not calculated using the latest exchange rate and is probably set at some point during the financial year. We book direct with Princess in the UK. 

We were on Iona in December and they were offering extra obc and reduced deposits. I was told that the offer varied depending on the cruise booked.  

4 hours ago, ChristopherTracy said:

TBF I called the call centre a couple of weeks ago, it literally rang three times and they picked up and sorted my query (prebooking the wifi at the old rates).

 

Competence doesn't correlate with where you are in the world. I don't have any issue with offshore call centres. I would rather have a human in the Phillippines than an AI chatbot!

I have also had a good response from the UK Call Centre when I had queries. 

We regularly book future cruises onboard with Celebrity and P&O. Usually get OBC and/or reduced deposit. Do Princess have this option?

You should see the information on your cruise personaliser on 3rd Feb which is 2 weeks before you sail. That is when all the speciality restaurants become available for booking. 

2 hours ago, Bigboybaz said:

Me and my wife are booked on a cruise on Arvia in May and will be joined by 2 of our friends. So we have booked under the Select option and they have not.

 

Its our first time on a P&O cruise and are not really sure what this will mean when it comes to dining times or choices of restaurants? Or does it really make no difference at all?

 

Thanks in advance.

There are so many dining options on Arvia that your main problem is going to be deciding where to eat. 

11 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

You need to be looking at the "web version" of the app in the cruise personalizer.  Open cruise personalizer.  On the FIRST tab (not the dining tab) which I believe is the "Summary" tab, scroll down just a short ways until you see:

 

Yay!  It works. 2 speciality meals reserved via the cruise personaliser using dining credits. Thanks Jeannie. 

44 minutes ago, ninka26 said:

I also have Princess Premier and was able to make my reservations without being charged. I used the web based cruise personalizer vs the app and it was easy peasy.

When I tried to book via the web it redirected me to the app to make dining reservations. 

We have upgraded to Princess Premier which includes 2 speciality restaurants. Is it correct that I will have to pay upfront and then claim a refund onboard? 

I’m the OP and after carefully considering all of the posts we will go for the Premium package. It’s a special occasion cruise so we are going to have everything we want. 

You don’t need to buy Wi-Fi. You turn on airplane mode and log onto P&O guest Wi-Fi. Scan the QR code which you will find in your cabin and complete the required info and you’re done. There is a desk in the atrium where they will help if you can’t do it. Joining a virtual queue is easy and you have 10 mins to claim your reservation. 

We have decided to take the Plus package on our Princess cruise this summer. For an extra £15 pp pd we could have the Premier package. If anyone has tried both, could you comment on if the extra cost of £360 is worth it. 

I think you can only book the package direct either by phone or on the IHG website. 

Holiday Inn right next to the dock do a package which includes B&B, parking and a taxi each way to the ship. I highly recommend asking for a room on a lower floor  as it’s a nightmare getting a lift. Suggest you ask the receptionist to store your luggage overnight and just take a carry on to the room so you can use the stairs.  

We are considering a wine package and I thought I read that if you buy the package it entitles you to 25% discount on individual bottles bought once you’ve used the package. Can anyone confirm or have I totally misread the the information. 
EDIT

Just went back and of course I’ve got it wrong. The up to 25% is the saving you (allegedly) make against buying individual bottles. I think that might have been wishful thinking. 

The basic fare for us with BLC saving would be around £83 pppd for a cat BB balcony without Princess plus. 

18 hours ago, devolve said:

 

Hi

we are considering a cruise around the British Isles, has anyone experience of this cruise they can share.

We are also from the UK and we’ve booked the Regal Princess for this Summer. We have always headed for the sun (other than Alaska) and have been to some of the ports on this itinerary, just not on a cruise. It will be great to see it all from a different perspective. 

We were happy with the coach service provided by Intercruises and will be using them again in March for our next Iona cruise. Driver going down was excellent. Return driver not so much. However, that being said, after this one it will be The Baggage company for us in future. Thanks for the heads up, we would never have even thought about travelling without suitcases. What a joy that will be. 

Thank you both. That’s very helpful.