Megabear2

Perhaps the Caribbean ones? The islands have been very tight on testing so far.

The canopies which were meant to help with soot have apparently made the upper deck aft balconies be completely shaded. I not sure how far down is affected but met a very disgruntled lady at Christmas.

They do cover covid if you are vaccinated though. They have an interesting take on covid in that their staff when asked about declaring it state "well everyone has had it so no declaration required"!

Depends on the insurer. Some require you yo declare if you have had covid. The follow up questions for those insurers seem to lead to long covid. If I recall correctly Staysure don't ask but M&S and LV do - don't quote me on that though it's a couple of months since I looked at any policy.

The whole world has just gotten judgmental and likes to have someone to look down on. Just been reading comments on why Newcastle shouldn't host Eurovision, unbelievable the rubbish people spout, really hope they do host it just to shut them up. Cruising like the rest of the world shouldn't be elitist or stuck in the past. Move on and let the new generation decide what they'd like. The so called "golden age" is a bit like the war years I frequently hear being reminisced about - not something we would enjoy as much as we are told and certainly not for the modern day. Instead of harping for the past maybe we should embrace the here and now and enjoy what the ships are giving us. They still take us to foreign and far flung places in comfort after all.

Figures last week showed a big increase in the demand for cash as people are using it to budget. A quote from Asda that people ask the till operator to stop when they reach £30. Doubtful the UK will ever do away with cash, there's too many who rely on it.

As I said above, every single booking is an individual contract and therefore the terms should be as per the date of booking. The blanket approach is exactly the one the government website warns against. Just because no one challenged it previously doesn't mean it's not been dodgy all along. We just accepted it, it only needed some people brave enough to challenge it for it to be tested. If MX never reports back I think it will be pretty clear that P&O don't want this challenged as it would open the floodgates.

This will be interesting! I've wondered for many years after the successful actions against tour companies over loss of deposit when holidays are resold whether anyone would tackle a cruise line, particularly over the must cost more clause. Others will without doubt take the cruise lines to battle either via lawyers or channels such as Watchdog or Simon Calder.

These countries have been card payments for years. The costs are so high even a round of drinks after work necessitated a credit card because of the amount of cash you'd have to carry for a night out!

The trouble is there was no notice. A rapidly removed post by one our posters on Friday 29th following some FB posts was all that was known of it. According to Gov.uk and Barbara's post from Lexis every person with a booking should of had notification of the intended change, and apparently should have had a free cancellation option at that point.

So you are saying online amendment superceded the brochure? What about those who didn't book online? I booked a couple of cruises by telephone (now taken or cancelled). No one said the brochure was overridden or directed me to the website - which many could not use anyway. Perhaps Moley's right then, misleading advertising so ASA for the disgruntled. Personally rather than risking bad publicity the allow one change to any cruise regardless of cost might have been the better option to stop bad feeling. Is it really good business to refuse MX's offer to pay the same to move to the slightly cheaper cruise? I'm not a shareholder, a lot of you are. What would you prefer, keep the 5% low deposit and try to resell the cruise in the most serious recession in years or take the several thousand pounds guaranteed by MX moving, plus of course the onboard spend? I've no axe to grind either way on this one. Only taking the cruises I have booked and I only moved one cruise (because it didn't sail). I never used to book a long time in advance previously because it was locking in to something uninsurable with all the associated problems when events conspired to make cancellation necessary. There's very few itineraries that need that lock in approach nowadays so if I want a cruise (which is under serious consideration after the Princess debacle) I will go last minute when I know the cruise line won't screw me with ridiculous prices.

The problem for the cruise lines as I see it - this isn't only a P&O situation - is that they need their customers to keep the faith and stay on side. There is an enormous economic shock about to hit the UK public. Using grey area regulations which can easily be shown to verge on unfair trading will not make the situation any easier to keep goodwill. Cruises are an expensive outlay for a great number of people, often a toe in the water type holiday. This board is a tiny sample of their customer base, a great many of whom are retirees, and yet here we are on week one with two disgruntled and unhappy people openly upset and angry. Multiply this by many tens of thousands of already booked passengers and that number affected swells into thousands too. There are eager journalists sniffing all around the travel industry for stories since the pandemic. Regardless of how shareholders have to be "rewarded" any sensible company will need to be aware of this. Carnival have no dividends to dish out because they came perilously close to ceasing to exist. They aren't a BP or Centrica but any mention of bad treatment of customers will be leapt upon by news outlets and consumer champions. The world has changed since January 2020 and rightly or wrongly Joe Public isn't going to allow itself to get kicked around by big companies who have hidden behind grey and dodgy terms and conditions for years. Any resulting bad feeling could have been avoided. Yes the as many moves as you like had to stop at some point, but why not allow that one move to be to any cruise on sale rather than only to a higher cost one? Lots on here have cruised for years and just accept things as they were and believe it's got to revert to how it was. It didn't actually need to be that way, it could have been more flexible, a sort of halfway house so to speak. The cruise lines could have allowed a little more flexibility for people booked before 3 August. They could have thought outside the box a little more when seeking to end flexibility. They could have shown they're listening to what's happening in the outside world and realise that an awful lot of those already booked cruises may never be sailed because the people just might not have the money to pay for them. They could have thought that sledgehammer might be a bit too big for that nut ...

Very true, however we live in a totally different world now and consumers having had such a tough ride from holiday companies are now very much more aware of their rights and the requirements under the law. No one asked P&O to allow all the flexible bookings, they made the choice in an effort to curry favour and keep people on side and to carry on booking. It is doubtful so many bookings would have been made or indeed the company survive without the flexibility. In fact perhaps the cruise companies should be thanking people for having kept the faith! The interesting point here is the cruises booked before 3 August which were made when p&o advertised move to any cruise, no mention of what value. By selling cruises under those terms they have left themselves wide open to problems. If they'd offered a little more flexibility on those bookings such as one free move to any cruise regardless of cost it may have been fairer. In MX's case the offer was made to pay the same price for tur cheaper cruise and it was turned down. If you look at that in the terms outlined above about unfair variations it looks like a failure on two fronts. No notice period of the change is also wrong. Companies desperate for survival though off the hoof to survive. It wasn't done for love of their customers.

Interestingly reports from Britannia have shown big improvement on restaurants etc. I wonder how much impact the staff arriving at Gatwick specifically for her have had? When I chatted to the lady who was waiting for them to get off the plane she emphasised she'd only been collecting staff for Britannia and Queen Victoria.

Or maybe stop the obsession with Norwegian cruises for a while! Looking at the number of ships that get sent there you can see why they are making restrictions. Norway is light years ahead on environmental issues so surely to be expected and start to plan something else for Iona in the next batch released for 2024.

And therein lies the problem the Gov.uk site mentions for large organisations. Every individual booked under different terms depending on when they paid their deposit. Therefore every booking is a single contract and every individual is most likely entitled to personal notification of a change of t&cs. which also means the right to cancel without loss .... That of course is impractical for P&O so the sweeping 3 August announcement without notice is their answer. Regardless of the historical booking t&cs I doubt there are many bookings left in the system which would have been covered by them and so current bookings made before 3 August will have been made during the flexible terms period. Assumedly in MX's case the right to cancel without penalty is also relevant as P&O won't allow the change. There have been cases won by consumers regarding holiday companies' terms stating loss of deposit on cancellation. It should be noted that the gov.uk document deals with this issue as well, ie "reasonable costs". With a cruise so many months off it is more than likely that the cruise MX booked on will be resold (probably at a higher fare as its select) and it is therefore questionable if P&O will make a loss. As I say, interesting times! This has been happening for many years and we all just accepted it because realistically the need to change has always been one person not thousands so no one was really worried. The last two years or so has made the travelling public much more keen to know their rights, particularly as the holiday firms, airlines and cruise operators did rather take the p... at the start of things. The only more expensive rule has always been in my opinion a controversial one but unless you were impacted by it we all just just ignored it. I'd love to know how many deposits have been thrown away by people over the years as I'm sure the money outweighs any loss to the companies.

Very interesting. Which law changed to allow P&O to change the t&cs? Standard terms and conditions on a take it or leave it basis is actually very frequently abused. From Gov.uk under common myths: Changing the terms of a contract If you have a term that gives you the right to change elements of a contract after it has been agreed with your customer, this is known as a variation clause. You might try to use this type of term to adapt a long-term contract if the circumstances around it change. Variation clauses are likely to be unfair if they have the effect of a ‘blank cheque’, allowing you to adjust an agreed price at your discretion, or to change other important agreed aspects of the contract to suit yourself. A term that gives you the right to make changes regardless of the consent of your customer may also be blacklisted in some circumstances by legislation. These terms may be challenged on that basis, without needing to prove that they have failed the fairness test. This fair contracts section also covers the loss of deposits and "reasonable" loss for a company. There have been successful challenges by consumers against tour companies on this point although I'm not sure any were against cruise lines. Interesting times indeed! (Apologies for the fonts going haywire, no idea why!) UCT_06_Variation_order.pdf

Celebrity, MSC and NCL are moving to a "ship within a ship" format on their newer ships. These areas need keys to access them and are taking quite a chunk of outside space - on Celebrity Edge they had their own pool so only one available for non suite guests. There was no forward outside space for anyone else.

If its select you should be allowed one free change to something costing more which assumedly one with a flight will be?

So assumedly you don't want to pay the extra cruise fare that these ships charge and the likes of P&O are better for you?

I wasn't actually arguing with your point! My comment refers to historically the booking conditions have always been thus (albeit I think unfair). I have never agreed with long term bookings being locked into only upwards pricing (the same applying to property leases and being a big influence on our empty shops). The rules are more or less what they were apart from no charge to change. They have always been rigid. Personally I will not book anything else long term as the world is far too unstable so will take my chances on late savers. I feel very sorry anyone genuinely caught up in the change as new cruisers in particular will not be used to the must cost more clause.

This has always been the old chestnut, long before covid. The terms have always been totally against the consumer as in some cases - a world cruise for instance - it is virtually impossible to find a more expensive voyage and you were expected to pay a penalty for moving your cruise as well. Traditionally voyages going on sale 2 or even 3 years ahead offered lower prices. Covid has seen this off because of all the FCC washing around in the system. As a result select prices in particular have been extremely high and as has been discussed elsewhere a massive gap has opened for those booking on launch to secure cabins and those being tempted very late to fill the ships up. The downside of this for P&O etc al has been the generous terms they offered to move cruises in an effort to keep people on side. With some clearly having been "playing the game" and abusing the system to their advantage the door has been closed and genuine people are back in the trap albeit without a fee at this stage. It has always been this. I was charged £100pp to move a cruise when my father was dying and a further £50pp to change the passenger name from my mum to my husband. P&O did have the good grace to be embarrassed but still charged it!

You might find this interesting! https://ironcladapp.com/journal/contracts/terms-and-conditions-legally-binding/ https://www.law365.co/blog/can-i-change-my-terms-conditions

Hmmm. This is exactly the scenario I foresaw last week! You will most certainly not have been the first and no doubt won't be the last. They tried to distinguish between bookings before 3 August and those after but the only real difference is that if you book after 3 August only select fares are free to move. I think it is probably legal but as to whether its ethical a totally different matter. However my straw poll showed the majority were happy with the reintroduction of the more expensive only option. For my part I've always thought it unfair but there you go.

At the end of the day we all want different things from a holiday. As someone who never had one until I was 23 (a prize won by my new husband in a work competition) even a week in a caravan at Leysdown sounded like a huge treat when my friends at school talked about it. I never had children and after I had the good fortune to recover against expectations from cancer at 38 holidays became my lifeline when a lot of other pleasures were stopped. Life moved on thankfully and after becoming unofficial carer to my parents these holidays started to take them in and became different - cruises with my mother became very dominant. My mum left the UK for her first real holiday on her 80th birthday for a trip on the QE2 to the Canaries. She was a child in a sweet shop after that. Absolutely nothing would coerce me to go on a holiday I wasn't going to enjoy it. I feel very sorry for Aldousmo that their holiday looks like a chore rather than a joy. The real problem for them is they like small ships and cruise lines have very few that aren't adult only, a difficult conundrum. This forum is littered with people saying they want small adult ships and here we have someone who wants a small family ship. You clearly can't please all of the people ...