Cathygh

I have just realised Cunard guests also have to queue outside if they are early. Not just us plebs on P&O then!

On my last Princess cruise I discovered, quite by accident, a huge selection of cakes in the buffet on the last sea day, at about 11.30 am. It was an amazing display. Lots of choice and of course people piled their plates up high.

Yes that is sensible. You will need to pre register on line before you go but that doesn't tie you to using the club. My grandchildren loved the clubs on Iona.

Booking opens on the app at 8.30am or possibly 8am the day before. I don't think it's open on boarding day but you can book the next day when you board.

My workaround was to get a pager at 6 and tell the staff I wanted to eat at 8. We got seated at 8 every night. We found this out from another passenger who heard us moaning about the 2 hour wait for dinner for the first 3 nights of our cruise.

You can try. I am not sure of the rules when people sharing a cabin have different boarding times. Certainly groups who are in different cabins who have different boarding times are told to board at the latest time if they all want to get on together.

I love the Princess procedure they know exactly what they are doing

Most people travel on the day and arrive later so there will never be 5000 pepole arriving all at once. From reading this whole thread people who want to get on early seem to be those in hotels who have to check out early and some people who come by train who can only get one that arrives at 12.30 ish.

I have been there for an MSC cruise. Boarding started at 10. Security scanners are right inside, go through there to check in then straight on to the ship. Very fast and no waiting out side.

Yes it was and no rush to get off the ship although we had to leave the cabin at 7.30.

Yes MSC have boarding from 10 am till 4pm and passengers from the previous cruise can on board till noon. I now see I am repeating myself as I'm sure I've said the same on this thread before. 😪

I can only state that from my own experience of boarding Iona with 5700 passengers also boarding that security was not a bottleneck. The only thing that slowed me down was my DH taking off his belt and lace up shoes and putting them back on again. I am going to buy him elasticated trousers and slip on shoes🤣🤣

On other cruises where you pay a lot of extra money for the privilege of a Chef's Table children are not allowed, shouldn't be a problem on P&O

I'm sceptical as well, but would P&O lie in an email?

Something else I noticed which I hadn't seen before is that you can now select by port. So if you want to go to say, Alesund, you select that port and you get a list of the cruises that call there.

To clarify, no one was sitting inside, all the chairs were empty. People go in straight to check in, no waiting at all.

That is correct, but older people are being brought chairs to sit outside, so why not let them sit inside?

Yes of course employees should do their jobs but I have not explained the wider context. In a customer facing role sometimes you have to use your discretion and treat people as individuals. So this lady told me she had let a family through as they had a child with a hidden disability and said ' I hope I don't lose my job over this.' I was right behind so I stopped to chat with her. She had made a choice to help the family, as they needed time to settle the child on to the ship before it got busy onboard. I can only guess that the child has adhd and/or autism. I would say that was reasonable decision. At the top of the stairs the family was stopped again and a supervisor was called who waved them through. BTW I have taken this up with P&O, who told me it is not their procedure, it is that of the ground staff.

I am glad to hear it. I spoke to the staff about the procedure as I wanted to understand why it was done in that way. One lady answered that she was worried she would lose her job if she let people through. As an employer I would be mortified if one of my staff felt she had to do something in a certain way or lose her job. That implies I had bullied her.

In brief, making people queue outside is not acceptable unless the waiting area in the terminal is full. On my recent visit the seats were empty. Some of the staff are being bullied IMHO.

I have just been given an interesting piece of information regarding the queuing system. I complained to P&O about staff managing the queue being worried that they would lose their jobs if they let people through early. That is what one lady told me. To my mind it sounds like the satff are being bullied. However it transpires that the queuing system is not in the control of P&O, it is the ground handling staff ie Associated British Ports who own the port and Intercruises who employ the staff. I don't know if sending those companies feedback will do any good.

Some people park at West Quay multi storey, £5 a night, and get an uber to the port

Dave can I be nosey and ask how much you bid please?

Also ask P &o if you can book their coach. If not try Intercruises or Eavesway as they run coaches to the port

I am right in thinking you are from Canada? Just be aware that the railways are on strike and the dates for September have not been announced yet. You might want to consider a National Express Coach from Victoria to Southampton and then an uber to the port.