pete14

If there are valid medical reasons which in this case there are, if you don't get first sitting or freedom dining you should see maître D in main dining room once you are settled onboard. You shouldn't need a £10 note as previously suggested. Alternative dining areas are available. The Plaza is a buffet that usually has themed nights where you just turn up and help yourself. Great views of the sea as it is at front of the ship. Cafe Jardin is excellent and good value at £5:25 I think. Also good for light breakfast and lunch for free. Horizon grill is also great and again good value at £8:50. In good weather, you eat outside, in poor weather, they use a separate area of the Plaza. You will need to book the 2 speciality restaurants so best to book early.

If your car parking has been booked with P&O it will be with CPS. You turn up at the terminal and they will unload your car, take your luggage to be loaded onto the ship and drive your car away. It is a short walk to check in but if you have a wheelchair there should be no problem.

Have a great cruise.

The answer to both questions is no, at least it didn't last week. A mini cruise may be different but I doubt it. That said, it is a great place to eat and the £5:25 cover charge for the evening meal is great value. The chocolate mousse is to die for!

You don't need to claim loyalty points, they are added automatically once the cruise is completed no matter how you book.

When you book via phone with P&O do you receive documentation stating the cost of the cruise and payments made?

 

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They send an email usually within minutes with the booking confirmation which includes cost, payment made and balance due amongst other things. The system has always worked well for me and the agents who answer the phone are always helpful, professional and UK based.

We returned the day before on Oceana and there were absolutely no problems. This was at about 8:30 though.

Apart from some reservations about the ability/need to book tables in all restaurants (how will it work in practice, Celebrity get around it by putting a limit on the number of tables that can be booked in advance leaving some capacity for impromptu diners, will RCI?) it all seems good to me. I have long believed that in the era of multiple choices Club dining would eventually be discontinued; it seems wasteful of resources to leave tables empty, reserved for diners who have chosen to dine elsewhere. It is also logical to discontinue mandatory Black Tie evenings in favour of restricting this code to certain restaurants, leaving those who wish to dress formally able to do so in the company of like minded people and those who do not to dine elsewhere; this is effectively the case at present.

It seems a little silly to radically change a system that does not seem to be broken. Unless this new system is fully thought through, I can see people wandering around looking for a restaurant that has a table, loads of people sitting in bars with pagers waiting for their table to be ready, diners rushed in order to free up their table for somebody else and people having to use restaurants they would not normally want to use because there is nothing else left. All in the pursuit of choice!

It may be slightly wasteful to have empty tables in club dining restaurants but in order for this new system to work, there will have to be extra capacity built in which means empty tables. If there are 3000 diners, I guess there must be at least 3500 covers needed across the restaurants as a whole to allow it to offer a realistic choice.

I only wear formal dress on cruises. One of the great things about formal nights is that the large majority are dressed in this way. If this becomes a small minority, it won't be long before it disappears completely and take away one of the traditions of cruising.

I completely agree that internet charges are high but do recognise that if they were not so high, more people would use the internet on board and the system couldn't cope. O2 have started a scheme to opt into that gives a certain amount of data for £1:99 (about 6 minutes on P&O). You don't get a huge amount of time (but much more than 6 minutes and less frustrating) but it is good for checking emails and looking at a few websites. They let you know when you are reaching your limit in case you want another £1:99's worth. It can only be used in port when a land based mobile signal is available but it is certainly a better deal than P&O and much quicker. I guess other providers have similar schemes so it is worth investigating.

I phoned them to discuss something else related to the booking and asked whether cabins had been allocated yet. She said yes and told me cabin number. emails should go out today but not a promise.

I have to say the system has worked for me. Been allocated an excellent cabin for the maiden cruise, probably one of the best positioned in the cabin type. Only problem is I have a year to wait.

Oops! Just realised we haven't been given a deck. It just says GUAR. As long as I get a balcony I don't mind. C deck would be nice tho! ;).

If you have paid for a balcony, you will get one - if not, you won't. The deck it is on is completely down to P&O's choice. Let's hope you are lucky.

An opinion you are quite entitled to! I have no issue with early saver or saver fares - I have not used them myself although I made use of the getaway fares under the old system. All I wanted to raise was that the possibility of an upgrade is not the only benefit of select fares. I have two cruises booked for later this year. They are both on select fares because I considered all the benefits of select and decided that for each cruise, the whole package best suited my needs.

 

I think there is some confusion about upgrades. People who book select fares book a type of cabin - inside, outside, balcony etc not a category of cabin within the type. It seems as though some are being allocated cabins that are not in the lowest category of the type of cabin and are considering this as an upgrade. It is nothing of the sort. An upgrade would be in the type of cabin e.g from outside to balcony not being allocated a higher category than they expect in the type of cabin they booked. Provided P&O stick to their own rules, this should be clear to everyone and will be of great help when people are booking.

'People who book select fares book a type of cabin - inside, outside, balcony etc not a category of cabin within the type' (para 2) - Sorry, I should have written saver fares, not select in this sentence.

Tongue firmly in cheek, can I suggest that those paying select fares are given more and better chips than those paying saver fares? Straw chips could be reserved for those booking less than 2 weeks before cruise departs.

The early saver for the two of us is cheaper by £1,000. We haven't cruised before, but I do a lot of research! We have parking, with Park at my house, for £60 for the two weeks. We are doing a private tour of St Petersberg. We do intend to do some select dining, but didn't think it was worth paying an extra £1,000 for 'perks' we may not use! Just my opinion tho!

 

 

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An opinion you are quite entitled to! I have no issue with early saver or saver fares - I have not used them myself although I made use of the getaway fares under the old system. All I wanted to raise was that the possibility of an upgrade is not the only benefit of select fares. I have two cruises booked for later this year. They are both on select fares because I considered all the benefits of select and decided that for each cruise, the whole package best suited my needs.

I think there is some confusion about upgrades. People who book select fares book a type of cabin - inside, outside, balcony etc not a category of cabin within the type. It seems as though some are being allocated cabins that are not in the lowest category of the type of cabin and are considering this as an upgrade. It is nothing of the sort. An upgrade would be in the type of cabin e.g from outside to balcony not being allocated a higher category than they expect in the type of cabin they booked. Provided P&O stick to their own rules, this should be clear to everyone and will be of great help when people are booking.

If you are lucky enough to receive a upgrade please let me know.

And put if it was a select,early saver or an saver fare. So i can work out the best price structure that p&0 are selling.

Surely any analysis and judgement of the best price structure should not just be based on possible upgrades. There are many other benefits in booking select fares, first option on upgrades is just one of them. In my opinion the certainty of 15% deposit, free parking and OBC are all more attractive features than the possible chance of an upgrade. According to P&O brochure, early saver fares are available on some cruises only and they have second priority for upgrades. We are all different and have different priorities when booking a cruise. All I am saying is that if you only use the possibility of being given an upgrade in making the choice of tariff you are neglecting other criteria which for many are more important.

Good I hate the straw potatoes they serve with my steak. So I can ask for chips instead

 

 

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You can possibly have chips but don't expect more than half a dozen.

On the question of gratuities, as we only used MDR twice (once with a waiter who was incompetent and rude - hard to believe I know!) I didn't feel obliged to give them their automatic tip. As we dined elsewhere, including for breakfast, at the end of the cruise we paid gratuities to the alternatives together with the excellent cabin steward.

Just returned from Iberia cruise on Oceana and can report that not only is Sport24 shown on the screens in Winners bar it is also on the TVs in the cabins on channel 34.

How does this changing the menu work now everything is plated up?:rolleyes:

Just back from 11 days on Oceana. If my experience is anything to go by, I suspect there will be less flexibility. Starters and Sweets were as I expect but the main courses were poor. Portion sizes were much smaller than we are used to. Duck breast in a main course was 4 thin small slices; around a third of a whole breast. Roast beef main course consisted of two small, thin slices with a roast potato, a broccoli floret and a few slivers of parsnip. You can request extra potatoes etc. They have gone back to offering steak, chicken or salmon as alternatives. A lady on our table had steak which came with no potatoes and a couple of others had chicken with 5 standard frozen chips. We only ate in MDR twice! The plaza, cafe maison and grill were excellent!

We had mini suite on Oceana last year and we had lunch served in the freedom dining restaurant when we got onboard. Very civilised!

We booked a saver fare on Wednesday of this week. Our cruise is on the 25 th June and its a cabin for 4. Got our cabin number today. Same grade as we book. Very happy with position. But with it being a saver fare could we be moved ?

I think that as saver fares are not eligible for upgrades, it is extremely unlikely once your cabin is allocated that you will be moved. There would have to be an excellent reason, and not just that somebody else may prefer it.

According to P&O website, those booking select fares will be eligible for upgrades if available and those booking saver fares will not. This is just one of the ways they are trying to persuade people to book select fares rather than saver (along with OBC /M&S vouchers / free shuttle bus / guaranteed choice of dinner sittings etc). Seems fair to me but different from vantage / getaway system where it appeared as though getaway bookers were upgraded more often than vantage.

The current M&S promotion is not for later bookers. Nor was the OBC one it has replaced. It is available for selected cruises well into next year and is only for select fares and not saver ones. Who knows how low prices will go as cruises get nearer. Advice to book early or late if choice of cabin etc is not important to you is the best you will get.

Presumably because there are bookings made with Vantage fares that they would have to honour with OBC if they dropped the price. You can bet they won't be automatically giving the M&S vouchers to those Vantage bookings.

These bookings are for select prices which have replaced vantage so the price promise does not apply. Just checked 2 cruises I booked last month and the OBC offer last month for each is better than the M&S voucher offer although both offers are quite generous.

So sad to see such negativity about a ship that is a year away from it's maiden cruise and based on limited images and video, all taken from plans and not actuality. Maybe the pessimists will be proved to be correct but why not wait until next year when passengers can tell us first hand of their experiences? Don't forget, travelling on Britannia is not compulsory.

I started the first thread for the maiden cruise on the newly created Britannia roll call yesterday. See you there!