Denarius

Surprised that they have a formal night at all on a two night cruise as first and last nights are traditionally casual.

Do they do anything special for you whilst you are in dock? Are you allowed off? Do they provide any extra entertainment to keep you happy? Just wondered.....

 

Agree that it will be nicer and no doubt safer tucked up there for the night tonight when looking at the weather forecasts.

 

Hope weather improves soon for all of us.

Once arrived back early on old Arcadia to escape storm. Activities on ship were as if we had been at sea.

I totally agree. A nice shaded area for those that dont like sun being reserved for the elite that are prepared to pay extra. There is limited deck space anyway so adding further restrictions is silly.

 

 

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..and then complain that they cannot get a bed in the sun!

A little dickie bird told me today she will be in the Caribbean between October15 to March16;)

Could well be. Some logic in placing your latest and best(?) ship in the prime area for winter cruising. But if she is in the Caribbean for the winter, will P&O put any other ship(s) there and if so which? Britannia, Ventura and Azura all there would probably be overkill, so I would expect at least one of the latter two to be deployed elsewhere. There could indeed be some logic in deploying a smaller ship (Oceana?) there doing different islands or possibly Panama Canal transits, then sail her through the canal to Alaska in the spring for the summer season.

I have heard about this practice before and I couldn't believe it. Why would you hand someone money before they had even done anything. smacks of bribery to me too. A tip is something given freely for good service received. Not to ensure you get good service.

Neither have I, and I have travelled to the USA many times. Tipping is a way of life there but you tip after not before, keeping open the sanction of no tip if the service provided is unacceptable. The only exception is usually the chambermaid, in respect of whom you leave a tip on the pillow every day before leaving your room to be serviced.

I agree with Denarius. I tried to walk through it a couple of times as I thought it was part of the atrium. Not a select dining area in my opinion.

It is (or at least was) part of the atrium. In the old days it served light breakfasts and lunches, informal evening meals and late night snacks. In those days the buffet was not open in the evenings and the Jardin was the only option for a sit down meal in the evening if you did not use the MDR for some reason. There was never any suggestion however that it was not part of the atrium and that you could not walk through it. Indeed, I recall that you had to walk through it to get to the toilets from the casino and Winners bar.

Café Jardin was not designed as a "select" restaurant, it was designed as a casual alternative to the MDR and used to offer pizzas and basic Italian fare in the evenings at no extra charge. Then P&O got greedy and made it a select dining venue, a role for which it is totally unsuited.

It is reported elsewhere that Azura will dispense with "jacket required" evenings for next winters Caribbean season and just have black tie and casual like Ventura - or indeed like virtually every other ship sailing there. Also, the number of black tie nights may be reduced to three as they were on my recent cruise on Ventura - again the norm in the industry. So that would reduce the number of jacket avoidance nights to 3.

IMO Oceana would be an excellent choice to base in the Med for fly cruises. Plenty of open deck space, small enough to get into Venice (?) and other smaller ports. Perhaps P&O will use the latter to their advantage with itineraries which omit the "done to death" ports in favour of something new.

Before Azura was introduced P&O always used to have only 2 dress codes, formal and casual, on Caribbean cruises, even in the days when all their ships sailing out of Southampton operated 3 dress codes. They may well be reverting to this practice in these days of ever reducing baggage allowances. On the other hand, they could be coming into line with most of the industry and operating only two codes on all cruises ...

We are on Ventura at the end of April just for a week. Will there be two formal evenings. Also can we put three pieces of luggage through at the airport. I.e 1 suitcase and two suit carriers as long as they don't exceed our allowance. Any advice greatly received.:)

The number of formal evenings may depend on the number of days at sea. On my recent 14 day cruise we had 3 formal evenings which coincided with 3 days at sea - the fourth and final day at sea was the last day so did not count.

Just returned from Ventura. Main meals are all pre plated, vegetables are not served separately. Portions are variable, some reasonably sized, others minute. Menu boring, four main courses which are always a fish dish, a roast, a vegetarian dish and one other. The always available menu has been reintroduced.

I suspect that it was because it was not fulfilling its commercial purpose of encouraging people to cruise / continue cruising with P&O. Indeed, some of the threads would probably have put off a potential P&O first time cruiser for life.

You don't need to make any different arrangements based on estimated time of lifeboat drill. You'll be given an "all aboard" time for Saturday when you leave the ship on Saturday morning (probably when you arrive on Friday evening, in fact). That's the only time that matters, and if you miss the lifeboat drill because they had it before you were back, they'll have to do you an extra one.

A time for the lifeboat drill will be given in the daily Horizon paper. It will also give a time by which all passengers must be back onboard; this will be before the time of the drill. The actual time of sailing will not be given - it could be any time after the onboard time but in practice will after the drill; they want you to get outside after the drill and spend money in the bars:).

Try the following:-

 

Select TOOLS from your tool bar and click on COMPATIBILITY VIEW

 

This will add a tick against Compatibility View, which will add the website to your compatibility view settings and therefore you should then be able to sign in to Cruise Personaliser

 

 

Trebara

This works on IE 11 too. I can now login.

Never had problems before, but now cannot access my Personaliser.

 

Go to sign in and get a pop up arrive, which says along the lines "cannot validate and HTML doc" tried to copy to post full wording but no joy.

 

I manage to close the pop up and the reg screen comes up, I type in all details it says connecting then goes blank and the pop up returns.

 

Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong please:mad:

I am in exactly the same position. I am using the new IE 11. I just go around in circles, which is annoying as I sail in 2 days time and really wanted to check it before I go.

Sadly, I concur Denarius's statement. I have always given St Vincent the minimum score possible on every P&O questionnaire. We are on the Ventura in February specifically because it doesn't stop at St Vincent.

Terry

I am on Ventura next Fri and was relieved that St Vincent was not on the itinerary. P&O have however rescheduled all the ports, which are all still there, albeit in a completely different order, apart from Dominica. This has been replaced by, you've guessed it, St Vincent. Not a happy bunny!

St Vincent is sadly the least interesting port I have visited in the Caribbean, second only to Palau in my whole cruising experience. As the island has no good beaches tourism has never really developed and the port makes little or no concessions to it. It is a scruffy workaday place with little to recommend it. The only things worth seeing are the botanical gardens at the far end of town from the pier and the Anglican and Catholic churches which stand across the road from one another at the back of town; the former redolent of what one might expect on the home counties, the latter being eccentric architecturally to say the least.

Alternatively ask for a transfer to freedom dining if available, where you can be allocated to a different shared table every evening and meet many (usually) interesting people.

The drill is usually held about an hour before sailing. Passengers are expected to be back on board.

Definitely shorter and fewer queues on Oceana compared with Azura. I love the mid sized ships. They're big enough to take rough seas but small enough to feel a comfortable level of personal service.

In context, Oceana at 77K tonnes is slightly bigger than the QE2 was, and only 3K tonnes short of the original Queen Mary. A couple of decades ago she would have been described as a very large ship.

Oceana has a much more relaxed feel than the larger ships, and queues are shorter. This is particularly true of tendering operations, where the limiting factor is often not the number of launches the ship can muster but the number the port quay can handle. Light breakfasts and lunches in the atrium restaurant are a pleasant alternative to the MDR of buffet, there are no equivalents on Ventura or Azura.

I first sailed on Oriana when she was new, in the 1990s. I recall that the two levels of the main shop were linked by a small spiral staircase within the shop. This was not there when I sailed on her some years later, and a recent conversation with an Oriana regular cast doubts on whether it ever was. Does anyone else remember this staircase, or is it just my imagination?

5 years ago, on the Ventura they had a Caribbean night where everyone wore bright Caribbean clothing. Bright dresses for the ladies and bright, colourful loose shirts for the men. Do I need to pack my shirt again please?:p

If you still have it, and it still fits :D If not, you will find suitable shirts on sale on the ship especially for the occasion but can buy better ones for less money on shore.

For some time now Oceana has reverted to the 3 dress codes in the winter.

 

As far as I can tell in September she will have 2 dress codes.

Then why does the new brochure clearly state otherwise? Page 11 of this brochure, which covers all cruises from Jan 2014 to March 2015, shows Oceana only having black tie and evening casual. Page 22 lists the ships operating a smart, jacket required code - Oceana is not one of them. P&O really do need to get their act together on this!

Agree completely with that. We're going on a 28-nighter to the Caribbean on Oceana next month and we've got 7 formal, 7 jacket required and 10 casual, so for 14 nights my OH will have to wear a jacket. We will conform to the dress code and we always do, and which we enjoy in moderation but if this isn't over-egging the pudding I don't know what it.

According to both pages 11 and 22 of the latest P&O brochure (January 2014 - March 2015) Oceana has only 2 dress codes, Black Tie and Evening Casual. She does not have Smart, Jacket Required. This appears to be at variance with the above post. Have the goalposts been moved yet again? P&O really does need to make up its mind on this vexed issue of dress codes instead of constantly spinning like a weather vane in a gale.