Francisdrake

On 10/19/2022 at 2:18 PM, r1955 said:

We are thinking of taking a Canary Islands cruise from Southampton in February. There are 2 days at sea getting there and back. Does anyody know what the sea is like at that time of the year? My husband is a little prone to seasickness.

I did it once in January from Southampton & it was like a millpond.

For the moment it seems booking at the death is the way to go,  with the size of Britannia, Iona & Arvia they'll take a hell of a lot to fill them particularly with them making the same port calls every year.   

I made the mistake of booking early thinking I'd need to book early to get a single balcony before they sold out.  (nearly £3400 for the fortnight in the Caribbean going 5th of November)  

Since then I rebooked again just before payment was due to be made as it was only £3100 for a standard balcony cabin including the single supplement so I paid less for a bigger cabin by re-booking even taking into account my lost deposit.       

I've just checked it out of curiosity and it's now available direct from p&o for £2238 for a balcony with the single supplement included. 

5 hours ago, ladyofhay62 said:

Hi 

 

Just wondering if anyone booked on P & O cruises to fly out and are waiting for their flight details,or have had to wait?

We booked a cruise April 2022 for April 2023 and at time of booking it stated any London Airport.

This is fine we dont mind where we fly from but need to book an overnight stay the night before with parking can't do this until we know the airport.

Told at time of booking we would know approx 8 months prior but still no news and i have rung and e-mailed no response.

Anybody any idea how long you have to wait to know 

It was only about 10 days ago I got my flight details for my Caribbean cruise on the 5th of November so presume you'll not get your flight details until much closer to the time.

Depends what you drink really, Might be worth it if you just drink pints and manage 8 or 9 a day plus a couple of speciality coffees. 

It wasn't worth it for me when I went on Iona earlier this year because I tend to drink cocktails while on a cruise & the majority were over the price limit meaning it was extra cost on top of the drinks package.   

Never had a real upgrade only supposed upgrade I've had is to a higher category of the same type of cabin but never noticed any actual difference.

I've had nothing through for my Britannia cruise on 5th of November either.

I just lost £170 deposit because of a similar issue after rebooking because current price on the Standard balcony was less than what I was paying on my original booking for a single balcony.   

(Originally I'd planned on changing the deposit to another cruise but they weren't open on the Sunday I re-booked & then during the next midweek the terms & conditions changed to say I could only transfer to a more expensive cruise but being a 2 week Caribbean cruise  & my next one being a 1 week med cruise it didn't meet the criteria.)

2 hours ago, Ginb56 said:

We were on this same cruise on Iona and quite agree about the lack of communication from the captain - and never saw an officer all week. It was all so anonymous. Gone is the gala evening in the atrium with a glass of bubbly and the captain giving a speech - just done over the tannoy instead and vouchers given to claim your bubbly in any bar. No commentary of the seven sisters falls, or a pod of dolphins alongside us one day. And we really missed the sail aways - even one would have been nice. No sign of the bouncy entertainment team  doing their dances and audience participation. We only saw 3 ents team just doing welcome announcements of artistes in venues. Sad too that the Olden sail away by the locals wasn’t mentioned in Horizon or tannoy - if you didn’t know about it or had a port cabin, you’d miss all the fun. It was a terrific sail away that week. There were things we enjoyed about the ship but decided we wouldn’t do the big ships again.

Agreed about the anonymity, lack of sailaways & entertainment team, we found the same on our cruise up the Fjords in May.   Only time we heard from the Captain was the 6pm tannoy announcements generally.

7 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

I am wondering whether to leave my DJ  at home for our next 2 cruises, both of which are on Iona. I would probably take my light coloured jacket and wear a tie for formal nights, but It does seem a bit pointless taking a DJ for just two of them, and it would mean 2 fewer items in the luggage.

When we were on Iona in May we got turned away from the dining room on formal night because 1 stubborn member of our party had decided not to bring suit jacket or tie so they do sometimes enforce the dress code.

Can't recommend Boots highly enough, £14.99 and test posted out to us, took the test & emailed the photograph through,  got certificate uploaded within the hour.

On 3/5/2022 at 12:41 PM, lujaha said:

Things must have changed since our cruise in Jan/Feb.  We never booked a main restaurant and always got seated straight away.  Usually around 8 in the evening.

Exactly this on our cruise in February we just turned up at the dining room without ever looking at the app & every single time they seated us straight away.

What I would say about Iona though is it seemed to lack atmosphere throughout the day in particular in the sky dome area as there was no background music or entertainment going on at all.    Whenever I've been on other cruise ships there's always been something going off up there even if it's just music played in the background.

53 minutes ago, latin princess said:

Scroll to the tip of the linked page and then find section 1 before you cruise click on med fly cruises

I've read that but it makes no mention of any lateral flow/pcr test required at the Airport or Port before embarkation which i'm quite surprised about, not sure if it's an omission or they've scrapped testing prior to boarding.

For those of you flying to Malta have P&O confirmed what the situation is with regard to Covid testing ?   Considering booking on one for May but can't see anywhere on the P&O site explaining how any Covid testing works for fly cruises.

I was on a balcony on 15 last week and did hear noise but just put it down to the wind if i'm honest with the conditions we had.   Have to say it never really bothered me though i found it was quite soothing along with the movement.

Definitely self service on Iona at the minute as I only came off the ship yesterday.   The biggest queues tended to be late in the breakfast period during the days at sea.

The new itinerary works for me, might get a chance of some sunshine which is a bonus.

Hadnt actually filled out the uk PLF either so it's only 1 extra form for me to fill out.

On 2/5/2022 at 11:09 AM, Fionboard said:

Itineraries changing all over the place. Lisbon being dropped and my neighbours have two stops in Italy dropped from next week's cruise. All because of covid requirements. Might as well just do "mystery cruises"  as you don't know where you are going to end up!

Last time I went on a mystery trip I ended up for 5 days in Blackpool 😂   Would definitely sign up for a mystery cruise.

Managed to sort mine eventually, after lots of re-trying and refreshing.  Still struggling to get the health declaration done for the family.

Won't even let me login, saying it doesn't recognise my booking.

16 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I assume that's because Hamburg is one of its current home ports, so it probably qualifies as a German based cruise ship.

That would make sense though seems strange as they are picking up passengers in Southampton each time on this itinerary, i nearly booked with them over the P&O one but the dates didn't quite fit.

1 minute ago, terrierjohn said:

Nothing of the sort, Germany is not allowing foreign cruise ships to dock in Hamburg.

Simply not true,  MSC Magnifica is there this weekend.

Not sure it's the testing that's caused the change on this itinerary, they've actively swapped to a port that insists on pre arrival testing in Le Havre, seems like a cash grab with the charging for pre-arrival testing and savings in fuel not having to go to Hamburg.

23 hours ago, tring said:

 

What do you mean by a "ten day vaccination period"?  I thought all cruisers have to be fully vaccinated and probably need to be boosted as well by next month.  Hence, I do not see what more they can ask for regards vaccines..  I know Fred are asking for boosters now.6.  

 

We are due to travel to those three countries on a Fred cruise in March, (though docking in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Antwerp, and staying overnight in all ports), and we are hopeful the cruise will go ahead as planned now the covid numbers are going down.  We really like overnights when we can be out into cities until late and it is rare to find more than one overnight on any cruise,

 

Barbara

 

 

 Apologies, bad habit of mine not to double check my post before posting, I did mean a 10 day isolation period but hopefully the fact we're technically coming from Germany will alleviate that as Rob alluded to.

I've booked on this one as I suspect it'll be going, can't imagine they'd cancel at such short notice.

There may be some itinerary changes depending on restrictions in Netherlands/Germany/Belgium at the time but as it currently stands we'd be able to disembark in Germany and Belgium.    Netherlands looks like an issue as they are insistent on a 10 day vaccination period due to the UK being a high risk country so we may lose the Netherlands port of call & call somewhere else instead.

2 hours ago, Denarius said:

P&O are no longer good value for solo travellers. Single cabins are few and far between and tend to be in less than desirable locations. Single supplements on other cabins have risen and I suspect often approach 100%. So much so that I have found that booking a single cabin with Saga and taking advantage of their early booking discount costs little more, especially after you factor in things like personal transfers, free wifi, included drinks and no additional charges for speciality dining or cabin service. Which is why my next two cruises are with them rather than with P&O.

The prices on the single cabins (single guarantee saver fare) have shot up as well,  I booked a single inside on Britannia for a Baltic cruise (in May 22) on Britannia In November 20 at £1699,  i've just gone to look at prices of a Balcony to potentially upgrade to a balcony & noticed the price of single guarantee if i was to book same fare today for the same cruise it would be £2129 which is just over 20% increase.