Megabear2

Well I'll see the Wellness Studio for myself in a few days as I certainly intend to use it if there's yoga etc there. I cannot speak for Grills passengers as I'll never be amongst them but I do think it's nice for the rest of us number maker uppers if we are getting a nice view on any line for once. It could of course be the full programme for this area isn't fully up and running yet. I'm sure the designers won't in any way be hurt as everyone is entitled to express an opinion.

Are there any more recent updates on the situation, ie is there still a threatened crew hands down or what? Her next cruise is 25 May so not far off if they are going to do anything drastic. This ITV news report seems to suggest there is going to be a meeting on 25 May, that's pretty useless for boarding passengers many of whom will be in Southampton or on the way. https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-05-18/health-officials-to-meet-p-and-o-cruise-after-gastrointestinal-illness-outbreak

I think perhaps you are over reacting to my health conscious comment. I'm a long way off young at 68 and my reference was not to older people not being health conscious more that Cunard have a stated desire to encourage younger people onboard and these younger folk are perceived, rightly or wrongly, to wish to follow a different health regime to those of my generation and above. My observations on Arvia's vegetable based restaurant are just that, ie many said it wasn't being used and was a failure but it has subsequently proved not to be the case. What I meant by that is the prejudging of it as a failure was wrong. Whether a restaurant is based on any eating style is surely a matter of personal choice. For my part I do not like Indian food or curry of any description, however I would not be so silly as not to understand others love it so an Indian/Eastern restaurant or theme night is a good thing. I'm not vegetarian either, but I would say the meal I had in Arvia's vegetable based restaurant was one of the best I've had a sea on any line in recent years, so horses for courses. I understand the Wellness Studio is an area open to all, not just Grills passengers. My comment really is that just because it seems under used at the moment it may prove not to be going forward. I'm sure the ship designers would not wish after 1 1/2 voyages to be told their design is wrong and I doubt very much Cunard would want to redesign things either at this point.

I'm very happy with any time. As I say I sail in the bilges, those who pay thousands are more than entitled to board earlier as far as I'm concerned.

The Wellness Studio is surely there to appeal to younger demographics. I understand all the early voyages are heavily loaded with a large number of very frequent Cunard cruisers and possibly and older demographic as a result. Once things settle down more younger people and first time travellers will start to book and this area may well prove popular with them. I'm basing this on the premise that P&O experimented on Arvia with a vegetable based restaurant which was barely used initially and yet now in second season is heavily booked by mainly health conscious younger people. The Wellness Studio may yet prove a hit. I'm also guessing the next voyage is also heavily loaded with Diamond CWC members as I have been given a boarding time of 3.00pm and am indeed one so any lack of use should really take a season to be properly judged on popularity.

Fabulous! Thank you so very much, now I can relax and look forward to getting onboard.

Hopefully with a gold bladed lawnmower for the money they made on the sale of Upton Park.

At the moment there seems to be a lot of bravado by those who successfully get an "illegal" bottle on. It seems very naive to post it all over social media like some badge of success as I would have thought that would strengthen P&O's resolve to be seen making the policy work.

We had never sailed Princess when we took a staycation. My husband had taken five P&O cruises at that point, the first being on Azura's fourth cruise. This strange symbol came up on his booking and on enquiry our travel agent was informed it was his Elite membership. We kept quiet but I have the distinct feeling they mixed him up with our uncle who was very much an Elite. Myself I'm a lowly Ruby.

Slight difference here though, we actually reported ourselves as we did to EUFA. We will be damned whatever we do by other fans. Chelsea have accepted the punishment given on two occasions, didn't go to appeal spent a year under a player embargo and paid the EUFA fine last year. It's not the club or the current ownership who make the decision on the penalties for misdemeanours and breaches, it's the various hierarchies. We accepted wrong doing and paid up. Other teams have squirmed and wriggled to get off the hook, City among them along with the big Spanish and Italian teams. The situation with Everton, Foredt and Leicester is ridiculous but Chelsea or for that matter City, are not responsible for that decision. The constant pushing for investigations of Arsenal and Totttenham is growing yet their "crimes" seem to be related to building new stadiums for the benefit of their fans. Unlike Man City and West Ham no one came along and gave them what effectively belonged to the tax payers of Manchester and London for virtual peppercorn rents compared with market rates in those two cities.

Have a wonderful time on the beautiful Queen Elizabeth who I have very fond and special memories of having sailed on her Maiden voyage with my mum and said goodbye to her from when we had her ashes scattered from Elizabeth in a ceremony six miles from Gibraltar. I'm also having Cunard website problems as there's something wrong with their servers apparently but being Cunard they're very laid back and taking the no problem route. My round of haircuts, colouring, nails, toes and other excitement starts on Wednesday. Meantime today is a ride to town to collect some tights for my cruise. Went to M&S and our local department store on Friday to be told they no longer carry stock and they have to be ordered online into store! Apparently ladies no longer require them so I wonder what that makes me!! Putting my tin hat on here with the footie fans, but just want to mention the amazing success of the ladies of Chelsea with their fifth title in five years. So sad to see the departure of the wonderful Emma Hayes to the USA, she'll be sorely missed. Hmm ... our boys didn't do too bad either in the end!!! Thinking of everyone who is under the weather, has the worry of family and friends who are unwell or is just a bit down. I hope your problems ease soon. Have a wonderful day everyone, it's a beautiful world we live in! Oh, by the way ... meet Designer Sunset and Harry's Rose who sort of adopted me yesterday!!!

Bet she would be a Cunarder!!

True, but maybe a new ship deserves a new godmother. Your Annabel Croft suggestion perhaps.

It may be because you are sailing with mainly international guests, particularly Americans you are having early dining problems. Traditionally a lot of Americans eat an early dinner, on most sailings I've done with lots of US passengers, even in Europe, the restaurants early slots are filled first and the fixed dining early sitting is also most popular. Even on P&O if you want fixed dining the 6.00pm sitting is generally the one booked out. Some of your problems with booking early meals or walk ups, not the queuing, would definitely in my experience occur on international sailings, particularly ex North America or Asia. Europeans on the other hand eat far later and the late sittings are more popular. The early dining problem without reservation is not unique to Princess in North America. Late booking on RCI and Celebrity has on occasion left me with the late dining time.

She's already Azura's godmother.

I think you misunderstand me. I completed both forms online myself. The agent making my booking for Aurora asked the mandatory question about mobility and walking aids and said that my husband would require one to one assistance as the very minimum. When my booking confirmation came through it was there in big letters at the top and indicating I should complete the form immediately. The other booking for Britannia (a fly cruise) the booking agent asked the mandatory question, asked if we needed airport assistance and when I explained my husband's illness just said I should complete the form due to the walking stick. When that confirmation came through it was not marked as one to one assistance being mandatory, in fact there was absolutely nothing on it indicating it was not a straightforward normal booking. My cruise personaliser/itinerary was also not marked. When I completed the form with identical information it was accepted and marked beside my husband's name "Form submitted "x" date" but there was no indication as to what action if any, the submission had triggered. I monitored this for quite a while and nothing changed, then all these problems started to appear on CC and in the press and conscious of it being I fly cruise where denied boarding would be in Barbados, I emailed the Carnival team to ask for confirmation that sufficient help was being allocated under their rules. The reply stated I should resubmit the form requesting one to one. On doing this a new confirmation was triggered which states Mandatory one to one assistance in an emergency.

The agent who took my booking marked it as mandatory - my confirmation invoice states it too. Once I completed the form it appeared in about 24 hours. However my one not marked as mandatory did not show anything at first save the form being submitted. This discrepancy is what I was talking about above. I've now submitted new forms for December stating we require one to one in emergency and it appeared about a day later.

If you login to your booking and click in to Your Itinerary on the first day it will show your special request. Mine shows my husband's name and then 121 ASSISTANCE Things To Know 121 assistance required in an emergency

Thanks for the info. I was referring to the price quoted by CountryStyleMe for the Deluxe package. I have this booked on Britannia in December as P&O very kindly gave me all my remaining OBC from when I was I'll on my cruise earlier this year. At that time it was a 20% discount on the classic plus a top up of £252 for the upgrade. I have another P&O booking in October as a single. The offer was £615 for the classic with 10% off plus £126 for the upgrade, total £741. These are the current prices before sailing I believe and the one quoted was for buy onboard? My Cunard package is a gift from my husband and at tye exchange rate last week was £808, hence my comment. I hope that explains.

Thank you so much.

It's been a long night! Went to bed early as I felt very tired and then woke at 3.00am for the cat to go on his nightly explore. Couldn't get back to sleep after that busy packing and repacking my suitcase in my head as I'm so stressed about the weather going forward. Then after having a panic about this I caught up on the Cunard CC thread and gave myself something new to worry about as to what's above my allocated cabin. I clearly never learn! To compound it the blue sky at 4.00am has now disappeared and its grey and muggy making a very depressing start to the day. We have some gardening to do before I go away on Friday including digging out a rose bBush to put it in hospital for this season. To cheer me up my husband is taking me to the garden centre to buy another one.

Yes. The upgrades started being allocated weeks ago, there are some on the roll call who were upgraded as soon as they bid.. I was offered one immediately on booking. It was about £1,000 less than making a new booking to go from inside to outside. An outside when I booked was £3,700 or thereabouts whereas my upgrade bids started at £325pp so £650 for one. I did weigh it up and it's actually still open to me but in the end decided to stick. Queen Anne is going to be expensive for solo travellers on first booking so if I like her it will most likely be late offerings for me. I booked on a whim as we had cancelled our September cruise on her to sail on P&O Aurora with our entire family in August instead. I wanted to say I travelled all four Queens in one year and this was the easiest solution.

On this occasion it was a take it or leave it cabin. At the time I booked at the end of March the offer was on a guarantee basis only. Annoyingly this changed shortly after and a considerable number of Cunard fares opened up but by then too late for me. The only grade consistently sold out has been as normal Queen's Grill. Interestingly as at yesterday only insides are sold out with availability at all other levels including Queens Grill. My guess is that the dreadful UK weather has scared a lot of the British off and as a result lower level cabins have not been taken up by those as a result. In my experience international guests seem to prefer the higher grade rooms and I'd guess this is reflected in the lack of take up below Club Balcony. The last few insides were on sale at £999 two days ago, as a solo I paid £1779 at the end of March. At that price I'm more than happy to take my chances and in my experience Cunard are much more likely to be sympathetic if I have a problem.

Thank you for the suggestion. Courtesy of Mr Amazon I now have one arriving tomorrow!

Cruising in Alaska on any line is normally very relaxed hence the lack of formal wear. There are even discussions on the Cunard board about how dressed down people can be, shock horror. The queues look pretty dreadful sorry you're having to deal with all that. From my nightmare Arvia experience last year you have every bit of my sympathy! I do not understand how the management of these ships think this is acceptable and rather than just treating it as the norm should at least acknowledge their existence and apologise. Personally I've always found Princess very formulaic, ie every ship has the same vibe and entertainment etc. Americans in particular seem to like that, familiarity making them comfortable. Clearly your inner David Attenborough is getting another great treat with the whales. After the white rhino sighting in Africa in January could I suggest you book a cruise taking in India in an effort to add a Bengal tiger to your list of rare animal sightings? I'm glad that the wonders of Alaska and Canada are offering you a sight of someone other than the backs and behinds of the US residents onboard !