Megabear2

You wait with a pager if there's no immediate availability to sit as was always the case.

To quote the Fox's glacier polar bear "The bear is always right" .....

The start price for inside saver was originally around £2,500, it's now £1,999 isn't that a price cut? Balconies start at £6798a couple and that's much cheaper than the original start price. Select is now £8198 for a couple and that is more expensive than I'm paying on QM2.

As this is a one off it will be difficult to say. Certainly the Ventura and Aurora versions of this long cruise are usually sell outs. The thing of interest with this one is how long it will take to sell out, if at all. Price cuts indicate that although demand is reasonable they are giving it a push by cutting the prices.

You'll be surprised. This cruise is what the Americans call a "snowbird" cruise will be very near full with mainly older demographic escaping the winter. This one is apparently a one off due to Iona having to complete some certification etc, it will be interesting to see what people make of it - there aren't many ports and it goes in and out via Tenerife rather than the normal out one way Tenerife and back via Madeira the other. It is on the "warm weather" route which will attract.

Yes, that is inevitable as the figures are now back up. If you read Moley's post on the first page of this thread you will see the mention of now being able to make subtle price increases. The last couple of years fares have been artificially low on purpose, other cruise lines (notably NCL) refused to cut prices after coming out of the pandemic. P&O has to raise prices, that's always been inevitable and exactly what others have been pointing out about bargain basement prices not being the norm.

There's a lot of CC members booked on this one. The price has just been dropped considerably if you read some of the other threads. I'm actually sailing for 35 nights the same day on QM2. I booked some time ago, but there was at that time only £500 difference in a sheltered balcony on QM2 and a normal balcony on Iona. The recent price cuts make a Iona more interesting although the Ventura cruise around the same time is the one holding its price. By it's nature this one off will be an interesting experiment.

No one should feel bad about anything, that's the whole idea and you are entitled to record your experience along with everyone else. If, however someone has a different experience they won't welcome being constantly told it didn't happen to you so their opinion is of less value. That's not debate, that's saying it didn’t happen to me so what's wrong with you. A lot of the people you are "debating" with over Arvia are actually talking about far more recent cruises on her than yours and also in a completely different environment with a totally different set of cruisers. These really "cheap" ex Southampton cruises will have totally different clientèle to the Caribbean fly cruises with the inevitable consequence they are in no way comparable.

Unfortunately when you own the company or are a solo trader you need decent Internet because you can't be off duty.

That's just my opinion and two pennuth! Others might like it, I can't speak for them. Seriously I just don't see the need to challenge each other. This who like something aren't going to change to dissenters just because someone else pushes their point, and basically that's all I meant by "bulldozing".

Bulldozing? By that I mean ending every point you make an answer to with a question mark, almost like a challenge. We all have things we feel are right or wrong but we don't challenge people to enter into the same old discussion every time a new topic comes up. We are all fully aware you love Arvia and Iona, I get it and great that you love them. Unfortunately my experience with the cruisers on Arvia - young and old - very much mirrored Majortom's with people failing to control children being loud and argumentative and overall selfish with their me first attitudes. My opinion (please don't question mark me!) is that the ship with its known problems with queues etc breeds anxiety which in turn rubs off on people, many of whom would not normally act this way. As a result I can identify with Majortom and Jeanie, however I am also aware that Caribbean cruises are completely different to European, particularly Mediterranean voyages so listen with interest to your opinions, with the caveat you haven't sailed on Arvia since last year and she had only just been introduced. The people flying out to join her this year will have different expectations and I doubt that they'll be as willing to put things down to teething troubles or post pandemic at this stage. DaiB very helpfully set up this thread, lots of full and helpful thoughts and opinions were/are being made. My bulldozing comment refers to every comment made by others being challenged and queried.

I'm happy to say some book on price but your constant bulldozing of alternative opinions to yours - and I don't mean me before anyone screams at me - is at serious risk of undermining any alternative opinion and as a result people will just stop posting and leave the conversation.

You cannot state that - you really don't know. You are speaking purely on price and very many don't book just on price. My 35 year old friends booked Celebrity for their first cruise with their boys. They've just booked two more, yes they are fly cruising as they want to introduce the boys to some cultural spots in Europe with higher quality and P&O don't offer much of that nowadays, certainly not on Arvia. Then the Caribbean in November, again another Celebrity. My 30 year old niece has sailed RCI with her parents when she was a child, again her and her partner are now cruising as a couple and their go to company is RCI as it's a brand she knows. Overall the cost is what they are prepared to pay for a brand they know and trust. They looked at Arvia and Iona as their parents have sailed P&O and decided not for them as they want a better itinerary. So yes, the other lines are getting new cruisers. Some time ago Moley stated the Ant and Dec generation were P&O's target audience and they most certainly are not 16-24! You are forgetting not all families want a tiny cheap inside cabin, those with more disposable income who stay in the likes of TUI Blu family resorts do not pay bargain basement prices. They want comfort over cost and hence the big expansion of that side of TUI's business which is their fastest growth area since the pandemic and ironically is helping drive the lack of aircraft for TUI to charter.

Why ever not? Celebrity in my experience is full of a far younger demographic than P&O. Their "problem" is they sail one ship from the UK and like most of the other lines are obsessed with northern cold weather sailings. Their US and far east cruises are filled with young cruisers. I don't remember you sailing on either Celebrity or Princess in recent times so you aren't assumedly in a position to state these lines are full of oldies. I also see you referring to these young non drinkers as being in the 16-24 year olds, yet you quote the average age demographic as 49 years old. Not many 16-24 year olds are going to be booking a cruise when they are still some 20 years younger than the demographic. As for Carnival ships themselves, they are the party ships of the Caribbean and as such carry lots of heavy drinking Americans on short breaks. It comes at a price as Carnival are having to take action over the drunken fights and antics onboard. That's cheap and pile 'em high on the other side of the Atlantic. If all these young people are rushing to cruise why is Virgin not drawing them in, a British brand much loved and well known on both sides of the Atlantic? https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Virgin-Voyages-aiming-for-youth-draws-the-young-at-heart

Yes, they charge. The big rush for seats tends to be larger family groups and PE passengers. With the 3 3 3 seating couples can generally book a window and middle or two aisle seats either side of the walk through. There are also those securing extra legroom seats. These also carry another charge on top of the £45.00 although I note Cash123 did not get charged. With the TUI planes the "extra legroom" seats come with some problems. The bulkhead seats in the middle row are not meant to be walked through but people constantly do which is annoying for the occupants. The exit seats are narrow - 17" - with fixed arms. They are also by the lavatories and quite large groups of people congregate there. Unlike on other airlines the crew do not make any effort to limit the number of people waiting and congregating at the lavatories. The main advance bookers tend to be PE passengers. The cabin is small and in a 2 3 2 layout. There are 9 rows of seats so 18 with a pair rather than being split. If you do not act early and pay the seat selection fee your chances of being seated together are greatly reduced. Here is TUI's fleet description for their dreamliner: "Boeing 787 Dreamliner You can fly direct to selected long-haul destinations on our 13 state-of-the-art Dreamliners, including eight 787-8s and five 787-9s. Each one has between 300 and 345 seats, inclusive of Premium and economy seating. Partially made up of composite materials, the Dreamliner features a General Electric GEnx-1B engine. Inside, you’ll find features like LED lighting and bigger windows with dimmer switches. If you want to see it for yourself, you can take a virtual tour."

Thank you for your explanation. I wish you good luck in your pursuit.

Forgive me for being thick here, seat selection on P&O is £45 each way per person so £180 for a couple. We are talking TUI dreamliner here? The extra legroom seats are those at the bulkheads and emergency exits which have an extra charge - only used them once but I recall it was £100. How much are they charging (even if you didn't pay it) for an extra legroom seat? What is your flight number, in and out.

We don't actually know that. What we know is P&O planned a series of cruises using a ship that carries 5,200 people whereas previously they used one with 3,100. That ship came on line last year, did not sail a full winter Caribbean season and they still could not source enough flights for the number of passengers. Any planning department worth it's salt should have been preparing for this year and probably next way in advance. They will have known some considerable time back that TUI most likely didn't have the spare aircraft. The questions really are how long have Ford Aviation taken to find someone with the required number of aircraft, should P&O have continued to sell PE if they were aware they were at risk of only being able to source single class aircraft and why they chose not to tell the travel and cruise agents (even confidentially) what was happening before dropping their "bombshell".

I am always lead passenger when i book for my husband and I, so I do not understand why your husband is automatically put first unless it's because he has cruised more and is a higher tier for benefits. When I booked for my aunt and I she became lead passenger due to her higher status.

Have you found outif you're on it yet?

If you read the thread in its entirety most have great sympathy with those who have lost their PE seating. However all the worrying and upset is not unfortunately not going to change P&Os mind. As it stands they are it seems fulfilling their obligation in refunding the fare for the PE. Although it would be morally correct to allow free cancellation to those people they have chosen not to. It is their right under the contract. Pressure from travel agents and bad publicity may change their mind, although personally I doubt it. No one is being nasty, this is a site where P&O's actions, customer service etc is regularly discussed. I am one of those who is regularly in dispute on these boards over P&O's offering, believe me others knock me down regularly! They aren't being nasty just expressing their opinions.

No but when you seat select some of the operators do so I assume he is referring to that. I was offered a supposed PE seat on TUI from Kefalonia, it was actually 2 rows of seats with extra legroom in rows 2 and 3. They charged £78 for the dubious privilege but thanks to a warning from Wowzz I didn't book it.

This must be a European flu cruise and therefore assumedly it will be at the seat booking/picking stage rather than booking PE at the time of booking with P&O?

Clear and crisp up here in Newmarket today - well it's up for me anyway!! Beautiful morning out watching the early lots and just awaiting my brunch at the hotel before heading out this afternoon for the racing. It's going to be a lovely day for it. Been an exciting birthday week for me with a couple of lovely meet ups with family and friends, two great dinners out and unbelievably a win for Chelsea! Hoping to crown it today with a great run for Dutch Decoy in the Cambridgeshire later today - he was sixth last year. After that back home tomorrow and hopefully a rest after all the excitement. Hope everyone is now fit and well and has a wonderful weekend.

As I said way back in this thread the real conundrum is not those individuals who are already booked but the effect this decision will have to future bookings, ie the cruises still on sale - and there's a lot of them. Once the dust has settled on the bookings made P&O is clearly going to have customers having a crisis of confidence in them. The sensible thing to do would be to put their hands up, say we are sorry for how we handled it both with the agents and those booked. I've just revisited the list of flights involved: there appear to be 40 in total. If every PE seat has been booked on these flights (and I doubt that is the case) we are looking at 63 passengers per flight which means we have a maximum 2,520 people affected. If each person has paid in full their £409 supplement, again doubtful, P&O have already committed to refund £1,030,680 due to not being able to offer this cabin. Given that a large number of these 2,520 people won't have paid their balance we are looking at most being on a 10% deposit. Using my own cruise as an example at a cost of £6378 plus £818 PE supplement (total £7196 for 2) we are looking at £719.60 deposit for PE customers and using £1,300 as the entry cost for a basic inside saver cabin plus £818 PE supplement (total £3418 for 2) we are looking at £341.80 deposit if they have PE. This gives us an average of £530.70 deposit and we know that many of the deposits will not be 10% (my own is £300, Pastyfeet's was £200) but for this exercise we will work on 10%. If every one of those 2,520 people were given back their deposits P&O refunds £1,337,364 in full to the PE passengers across the season. We have therefore already refunded/awarded £1,030,680 already refunded £189,000 in OBC granted If we allow free cancellation of PE passengers we can add at a rough estimate another £1,337,364 to those figures. Faced with these losses which are at the least £1,219,680 adding a rough estimated further £1,337,364 to the loss is inevitably going to be fought. What P&O now need to consider is whether the damage to their brand and the confidence of the future passenger and travel agents is worth this £1.3m or so. Answers on a postcard ...