crompton21

4 hours ago, Eglesbrech said:

Welcome to cruise critic. 
 

This is an old thread with the last post being in November 2023 so in terms of any issues with Noro, it is out of date information.

 

Are you cruising on Ventura in the near future? If so I’m sure there is nothing to be concerned about, P&O are usually very quick to get on top of any issues like this.

 

The Southampton Daily echo has a report dated 4/5/24 stating that there has been a Norovirus outbreak on Ventura (allegedly confirmed by a P&O spokesperson).  Ventura did arrive and depart yesterday as the article states. 

As a factual comparison, Aurora is doing a 3 night cruise to Zeebrugge on 21/4/25 and 21/4/26, so that's the same ship to the same destination at the same period of year.

The 2025 cruise is available to book this morning at £558 for an inside early saver, the 2026 cruise available to reserve this morning is £598 for an inside early saver.

I think that makes the launch price more expensive than booking a cruise which is a year away which isn't what people tend to post as being the case.

There will be many reasons to explain the pricing, but as a direct like for like comparison it doesn't tend to reflect what many people believe regarding launch pricing and booking a year out (myself included until noticing this)

19 hours ago, Bazrat said:

Alas my sarcasm at the great and good eluded you my apologies, but I was referring to most threads on here usually degenerate into cutbacks on p&o.

It probably is a cut back.  The majority who post about the casino nearly always appear to believe that they win, so closing it must be going to save P&O money (unless in reality some don't do quite as well as they seem to believe)

17 hours ago, zap99 said:

Arcadia....probably the oldies who think they know best. I don't know how many of the ' new audience ' go on Arcadia. Not many I suspect.

There's currently another live thread bemoaning children and the parents of the children.  Now this one bemoaning oldies.

Is there an age group that can avoid receiving random age related bigotry?

I haven't spotted a recent attack on Gen X, perhaps someone could start one?

32 minutes ago, oceanlad said:

You would still need to load £2,000.00 to that card for every £1,000.00 that you spent onboard though.

 

Sorry to labour this point but P&O can collect payments for your onboard purchases at point of sale, without creating a duplicate authorisation here. 

 

The problem is that they are putting needless financial barriers in the way of people, which in a cost of living crisis has the potential to be extremely damaging.

I understand that you are making a fair and valid point, however I do smile at the irony of discussing spending a thousand pounds on alcohol and food and linking that to a cost of living crisis.

Butlers always appear to be hard working and active, in recent times there seems to have been less butlers employed and consequently I think that they are probably busier and faced with more requests than was once the case.
If the attendance of your children in the kids club on a specific day is important to you then I’d recommend booking it yourself.  It will take longer to explain to the butler what you want and then to confirm that it has been arranged than it will take you to do it yourself.

5 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

I don’t see why they would have moved to the Stockperks app to then discontinue.

Is it possible that by using one contact point to process the data there was suddenly a greater visibility on what it was actually costing across all the companies?  Hopefully it's just an oversight that the information is currently missing.

The details of the share holder benefit are published in the annual report, as most will be aware the benefit has always been time limited with the current scheme being valid for bookings made by 28/2/24 and departing by 31/7/24.

The annual report for 2023 was published yesterday.  As far as I can see, there are not any details of a share holder benefit scheme included within it.  You can check this by going to the Carnival investor relations website and looking at the annual reports for 2022/2023.

An oversight or has it been removed?

32 minutes ago, Denarius said:

This wine is a single vineyard offering from Villa Maria. A bit more upmarket than their standard Sauvignon Blanc, it is currently on sale in the UK for £17.99 a bottle (Majestic) So at £47 a bottle you are talking of a mark up of around £30 a bottle on UK prices. A nice little earner for P&O!

Never let it be said that there aren’t significant savings to be made by products being duty free 🍷😊🍷

You can buy either but they are not the same price.  Over the last few years the uk ones have been cheaper, hence why Carnival spent a period buying back uk listed shares whilst issuing American listed ones to pay for them.  Logically they should really be the same price.

Also to hold the US listed shares you need to apply for a W8Ben form in order to hold them.  

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

Still dire I’m afraid. To make it worse, the digestives (which I don’t think are McVities) always taste stale 😂 

Incase you haven’t spotted it, the cheese plate on a celebration night is actually a better offering, both in description and reality.  As far as I remember it doesn’t go as far as Mcvities though!

2 hours ago, Mollag said:

I don’t think we’ve been told the full story Selbourne, I was walking the prom deck earlier and there was a lot of activity forward where the crew deck is, lots of crew with fire hoses and what looked like pumps to me, also I don’t think we’d just be lying here dead ship if they were trying to save fuel as we’ll have to speed up when we eventually move again the 2.5 knots showing is just the drift rate with the little breeze that’s blowing. 
The wind in Key West has been a steady 14-16 it’s with occasional gusts to 22kts I’m not familiar with the port layout there but that doesn’t seem too bad. I’m with you on the Captain never had so little information. I’m thinking whatever we’re lying here stopped for is the reason we didn’t get to Key West but we’ll never be told the true reason 

In December I managed to look through the open door into to that area, it appeared to be housing some shipping type containers that were being used for food storage.  Crew were wheeling away trollies filled with food stuff that had come from them.  I am fairly sure that I noticed that at least some of the containers had generators attached as I remember thinking that it seemed a strange arrangement.

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

As I’ve said before, for a supposedly advanced country, they are decidedly third world in how they deal with some issues. I am anticipating issues, not least because of the added complication that we have of me going on a tour and my wife not. 

As correct as your thoughts maybe, be careful what you say, you never know who’s reading this😁

I notice the original poster mentions a stocksperk app, then others have mentioned shareperks.  The security on my iPad really doesn’t approve of the only link I can find for shareperks, which of course may mean nothing at all.

Please be careful when entering financial information to unknown companies, particularly if there is confusion as to which company you should be giving personal financial information to (as I’m sure you all are)

14 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Sometimes you look at a social media question and think...for goodness sake. How many pairs of socks should I take for a 14 night cruise ?. What tea bags are used ?.etc.

Does anyone have experience of land based holidays where you can only get a meal if you use an app, to enter into a resort bar you must book with an app, to see entertainment you must book with an app etc.  

Probably my naivety but I would be quite shocked to find that sort of arrangement was now common place at most resorts.

Fortunately I am fully fit and healthy but there are people with disabilities who can't easily use a smart phone, visual impairment, muscle control to name a few of the possible reasons. It seems a shame to stop these people from taking a cruise, but maybe the 95% with a smartphone are the ones that count....  

2 hours ago, david63 said:

There are occasions especially when in port that a butler may not be available. It depends on the ship and how many butlers there are - most ships only have two butlers these days and Aurora I believe only has one

There were two butlers earlier this month on Aurora.

Have a look at the Ms Maud thread on the Hurtigruten board.  Surprised this hasn’t made the U.K. news as the ship was heading to the U.K. with British passengers when it became disabled on Friday.  Everyone is apparently ok.

2 hours ago, john watson said:

All cruise ships have a useful life before leaving service.  If you examine  the ages of ships within fleets many seem to be withdrawn which were built around the year 2000. If people think these ships will be with P&O in 5 or 10 years it is very unrealistic.

 

Regards John

Had the finances of carnival not been significantly damaged by the losses and consequent borrowing incurred as a result of covid then what you say would be true.  Carnival have zero new tonnage due for delivery in 2026 or 2027 and have indicated quite strongly that 2028 is currently unlikely.  
If there are not any new ships then they either make do with what they have or reduce their capacity.  Currently the feedback appears to be that the service life of Arcadia and Aurora may extend beyond what has recently been seen as the norm.  It’s a long way from unrealistic to say that they will be around in 2028.

There are a couple of blokes in jeans who have diligently been attaching a bizarre looking set of antennas to the rear of Aurora.  They’ve been out there in bad weather on sea days holding on tightly as they work.  Amazing how hi tec can look rather low tec to the casual observer.

As to whether this is starlink I don’t know, but I assume it’s a fair assumption.

The good people at Cruise Critic have twice recently sent me offers for upcoming cruises starting at £41.00 per night.  I assume most people reading this would have received them.

I can’t imagine how cheap the prices would be if P&O were not holding their pricing and all the new cruisers weren’t either rushing to book or returning in droves.

17 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

The price per day alters according to how long the cruise is, the longer cruises are cheaper by day. 

The cruise is 16 nights which according to the website makes it eligible for the stated longer cruise discounted price…..so there must be more than one level of discounting.  In fairness, £17.65 is a discount from the quoted £18.00.

8 hours ago, yorkshirephil said:

 

If I log onto my cruises with the booking numbers I get this page, you can select the "Browse cruising" button or select different offers individually

I have an upcoming cruise on Aurora, the deal price on the ultimate cruise internet plan is £14.12 per day reduced from £17.65.  Surprised/ hadn’t realised that the internet cost appears to vary from ship to ship, particularly as Aurora apparently doesn’t have the starlink capability yet.

9 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Why indeed?  A somewhat dubious marketing ploy from P&O.

I bought something from Amazon yesterday, it was £69 at 8.00 am, £63 at 2.00 pm and today as their Black Friday event has started it’s £99…..

1 minute ago, Megabear2 said:

Why email it's limited of not, wouldn't that border on false advertising?

14x (54.95-10%) is £692.30.  So if you are going on a 14 night cruise yes it’s 10% discount, plus the loyalty discount on top to follow as you say.

I supposed that technically as the offer expires before departure date it could be deemed to be limited.  The email is certainly disingenuous but probably not quite false advertising.

I could buy a fur coat for that sort of money lol

53 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

No idea but the "Limited availability per cruise" caught my eye which is why I asked if it's  a special deal or are they normally limited for sale and if so why? Perhaps someone who uses it might be able to clarify for me?

 

Re wifi I've already bought it yo take advantage of all my discounts and the 15% special offer.  Quite good value this time.

I have the same email, I assume it is special because it is limited.  If you just go to the website and pre book a drinks package the discount is the same but it’s less special as it’s not a limited offer….