Early Saver Restrictions on Dining

[kevinyork]

Been keeping an eye on an Azura 14 night cruise for next year. There is a pretty good Early Saver Fare for a cruise however, of course, you cannot choose your dining choice ( freedom or club) or time ( club early or club late). We travel as a group of four and could not do early sitting as it restricts daytime activities and were just not hungry at 6.30. Freedom always seems to be the most popular option so we would be gambling between early or late sitting.

 

However, to secure a choice of dining would cost us £372 per per more! That simply isnt worth it and ultimately means we will look elsewhere.

 

I appreciate P&O want to create some differenciation in terms of choices for Early Savers versus those who pay full whack but are there many happy eat at any time they are told to with no option to change? Other lines offer reduced guaranteed cabin bookings but no other line restricts your dining choice.

 

From my point of view they have shot themselves in the foot. We wont risk a poor dining allocation and wont pay nearly £1500 more as a party just to secure a dining time. Result.....we go elsewhere.

[kersh]

Hi Kevin,

We wouldn't eat second sitting and are still unsure if we will risk booking an early saver.

 

On Ventura there are 2 freedom dining restaurants and only 1 club dining. This means that the chance of getting the only sitting we don't want is quite small. However on Adonia it is 50/50.

 

Also the early savers are not likely to be the final reduction. The final getaway or whatever they are going to call it at the 90 day mark will get the left over dining sittings. The early savers will still get asked for their preference and if available will get it. In reality how many people are going to pay the full select fare to get their dining sitting?

 

The jury is still out for us. We are booked up now until the end of March and also for next summer so will probably wait to see how it all pans out.

 

Sue

[kevinyork]

Hi Kevin,

We wouldn't eat second sitting and are still unsure if we will risk booking an early saver.

 

On Ventura there are 2 freedom dining restaurants and only 1 club dining. This means that the chance of getting the only sitting we don't want is quite small. However on Adonia it is 50/50.

 

Also the early savers are not likely to be the final reduction. The final getaway or whatever they are going to call it at the 90 day mark will get the left over dining sittings. The early savers will still get asked for their preference and if available will get it. In reality how many people are going to pay the full select fare to get their dining sitting?

 

The jury is still out for us. We are booked up now until the end of March and also for next summer so will probably wait to see how it all pans out.

 

Sue

 

Phew....its not just me that thinks its a strange promotion then......i can cope with being allocated a cabin anywhere in my grade, paying for shuttles but not being told when and with whom I must eat....thats not a holiday,

[tjwa]

Another fine mess they have got themselves in.

[the english lady]

As has been said how many select payers will there be on a ship..they are the only ones to be guaranteed their dining option. If not many then the early saver fares would probably get their choice. I have already said I don't think we would go for getaway in future, basically becase of the lack of dining choice.

I can understand how Pando need to justify their select fares by saying you get these bells and whistles if you pay this. Thing is they need to make a profit and they don't make much of one with the majority of sailings with getaway fares.

I guess other lines get their profits in other ways....adding extra costs on drinks and shuttles etc.

I guess the question is --how would you help Pando make a profit. Cheap fares are not the way.

[Josy1953]

Been keeping an eye on an Azura 14 night cruise for next year. There is a pretty good Early Saver Fare for a cruise however, of course, you cannot choose your dining choice ( freedom or club) or time ( club early or club late). We travel as a group of four and could not do early sitting as it restricts daytime activities and were just not hungry at 6.30. Freedom always seems to be the most popular option so we would be gambling between early or late sitting.

 

However, to secure a choice of dining would cost us £372 per per more! That simply isnt worth it and ultimately means we will look elsewhere.

 

I appreciate P&O want to create some differenciation in terms of choices for Early Savers versus those who pay full whack but are there many happy eat at any time they are told to with no option to change? Other lines offer reduced guaranteed cabin bookings but no other line restricts your dining choice.

 

From my point of view they have shot themselves in the foot. We wont risk a poor dining allocation and wont pay nearly £1500 more as a party just to secure a dining time. Result.....we go elsewhere.

Agree completely. I am in position to go at very short notice so will wait to see how the new structure pans out before making a decision, but right now my feeling is that taking away choice of dining times is a step too far given the difference in price, I have only ever booked late deals 3 times and have managed to get the dining choice that I wanted each time. Before retiring I had to book early in order to schedule my annual leave and really looked forward to the day when I would be able to get bargain priced quality cruises, I now feel P&O have taken that away from me.

[tartanexile81]

We pay full price- by whatever name P&O chooses to call it! The reason we do this is that it is OUR holiday and we want to choose everything that will make the holiday perfect for us!!

 

We would therefore feel very aggrieved if people who booked an early saver got the same deal as us but paid (significantly?) less. We have twice booked a guaranteed cabin and both times it in an OK position but not ideal for us and both times we were lucky enough to be given second sitting which is our preferred option. However we've decided that we don't want to take the risk any more so book early and pay full price to get our preferred options. This option is open to everyone. As some people have said if you don't like the way P&O are doing things now you can try another cruise line but we've travelled recently with RCI and by the time you've paid all your gratuities, shuttle buses etc, you might have been cheaper staying with P&O.

Edited November 26, 2013 by tartanexile81

[kersh]

We pay the full fare for our 'must do' or main holidays and may well continue to do that. For our extra cruises the ones we fit in at fairly short notice we have been booking getaways. We have been pleased with our cabin allocation and except on our last getaway have always had our first choice of dining which is Freedom. Our last cruise Freedom was booked up but we managed to get our 2nd choice of 1st sitting. We would not have booked had we not had confirmed dining allocation.

 

Sue

[vixxygal]

Booking an early saver will save you nearly £1500. Knowing a couple of cruise bargain hunters the trick seems to be to hand the head waiter a couple of hundred pounds and you'll get whatever table you want and still be £1300 ahead.

[kevinyork]

Booking an early saver will save you nearly £1500. Knowing a couple of cruise bargain hunters the trick seems to be to hand the head waiter a couple of hundred pounds and you'll get whatever table you want and still be £1300 ahead.

 

Looks like there are going to some very happy, and very rich, Head Waiters then.

[vixxygal]

P&O are going to charge you an extra £1500 for the privilege of having a choice of dinning tables/times. The head waiter might be getting a good handfull of cash but you can turn your discount cruise into a full on cruise for much less than P&O will charge you.

[kevinyork]

P&O are going to charge you an extra £1500 for the privilege of having a choice of dinning tables/times. The head waiter might be getting a good handfull of cash but you can turn your discount cruise into a full on cruise for much less than P&O will charge you.

 

I agree however there is still uncertainty and no guarantee he will be able to move the dining option which would leave us very unhappy.

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[crompton21]

There is an elephant in the room here, P & O have yet to disclose what they will call the last minute (well three months before) pricing. First of the new pricing structure cruises are April, so January should be interesting.....

[jeanlyon]

Fred Olsen seem to have got it better. If you book an Anchor Fare, (Saver), you can choose to pay just the extra to get which sitting you want. £2 pp per night of cruise.

 

Having said that, although we could not eat at 6.30, the early sitting seems to be the most popular, so you would be unlikely to get that.

[kevinyork]

Fred Olsen seem to have got it better. If you book an Anchor Fare, (Saver), you can choose to pay just the extra to get which sitting you want. £2 pp per night of cruise.

 

Having said that, although we could not eat at 6.30, the early sitting seems to be the most popular, so you would be unlikely to get that.

 

Ok thats reasonable. However Ap&O want to encourage early bookers with lower fares and yet reduce their options. Surely the people who's business they secure earliest should have all the options?

[davecttr]

Ok thats reasonable. However Ap&O want to encourage early bookers with lower fares and yet reduce their options. Surely the people who's business they secure earliest should have all the options?

Of course they should and we will have to wait until next year to see if P&O have got the message or if the new fare structure is just another cynical marketing ploy. I have 3 Vantage cruises after April and will be expecting P&O to contact me offering free upgrades :rolleyes:

 

If Thomson had a decent set of single cabins or allowed you to book a double at less than 100% single supplement I would go back to them. No club dining so no arguments about sittings and reserving a particular cabin costs £42 per cabin, not thousands. Early booking discount is usually a free drinks package worth about £200 per week per person.

[rubydoobydoo]

If I was booking a cheap deal and saving a lot of money I wouldn't let the fact that I have no choice on dining put me off

 

I only ever book freedom dining and if I wasn't allocated that choice I would just eat in the buffet each night, there would be two empty seats at the table each night but I wouldn't eat in there unless it suited me

 

The lack of cabin choice would be more of an issue but if the price was right I could cope with it

 

I would much rather do that than pay full price to choose my cabin only to be moved on an upgrade I didn't want

[wilson2579]

If I was booking a cheap deal and saving a lot of money I wouldn't let the fact that I have no choice on dining put me off

 

I only ever book freedom dining and if I wasn't allocated that choice I would just eat in the buffet each night, there would be two empty seats at the table each night but I wouldn't eat in there unless it suited me

 

The lack of cabin choice would be more of an issue but if the price was right I could cope with it

 

I would much rather do that than pay full price to choose my cabin only to be moved on an upgrade I didn't want

 

Same here rubydoobydoo. I did book Vantage for my summer cruise next year but have booked early saver for the fjords in May. I will take what I have been given for the price.

[kevinyork]

Well after considering this early saver deal on Azura Ive now booked a cruise....with Celebrity, still to the med just a few days earlier than the Azura cruise. This is for a 2 week cruise in May on Eclipse ( sailed on her this year and really enjoyed it ).

 

I went looking for a US agent. Found a great deal and booked it up over the phone.

 

C3 Concierge Balcony -£1465pp

Free Drinks Package worth $55 per day pp

Free Tips worth $104 pp

$300 per cabin OBC

 

The UK price for a C3 is currently £2255 with no OBC.

 

Despite it being an offer, I could choose the exact cabins and dining choice without restriction. Very very pleased with this deal. If P&O hadnt restricted dining choices for early saver prices they would have got my booking about a week ago however Im very glad now that I waited.

 

After 5 P&O cruises this will now be my third cruise in a row away from P&O......hope they sort out their price structures so I can consider them again in the future.

[bee-ess]

Sounds good, P&O can't compete with that - which agent did you use ?

[kevinyork]

Sounds good, P&O can't compete with that - which agent did you use ?

 

Cannot name them on here. Its a biggie and not a 'con'. Hope that helps.

[davecttr]

Sounds good, P&O can't compete with that - which agent did you use ?

I wonder just why P&O can't compete with that.

 

Modern cruise ships are similar and I would have thought operating costs etc etc are pretty similar so why can some cruise lines offer more attractive and logical deals than others.

 

I suspect that Carnival has been operating P&O as a cash cow, they won't reveal the profit levels of their different lines so we can't be certain. The Vantage fare fiasco has found them out and they are struggling to maintain the profit levels that Carnival demand. Now customers are trying other cruise lines and realise P&O is not the only option

 

Any tiered fare structure needs to offer real concrete benefits to early bookers. Choose a cabin is nice but only worth £42 per cabin (the price Thomson charge). choice of sitting on club dining is nice but not worth thousands of pounds. Possibbly getting offered a free upgrade to a better cabin is nice but hardly a huge perk, especially if P&O attempt to upgrade you to a cabin you don't want.

 

Early booking incentives need to be real 'cash' offers.

 

Free drinks packages are common, usually worth about £200 per week per person. They could start with introducing that for early bookers.

 

how about this idea - everyone booking the earliest fare gets included in a draw and on each cruise a few happy customers are informed that P&O will give them a complimentary refund of the fare they paid. Plus an additional 20% discount on a future cruise.

[Brayman]

 

Early booking incentives need to be real 'cash' offers.

 

Free drinks packages are common, usually worth about £200 per week per person. They could start with introducing that for early bookers.

 

 

I'd rather have £200 OBC credit than a drinks package, then I can choose whether I spend it on drinks or something else!

[kersh]

Cannot name them on here. Its a biggie and not a 'con'. Hope that helps.

 

I have just googled US travel agents but can't find one doing those sort of prices. Can you give us another clue?

 

Sue

[bee-ess]

I wonder just why P&O can't compete with that.

 

 

They cannot compete with Celebrity on the product in my opinion and now it seems they can't on price either.

 

We have only been on Celebrity twice - in 2009 we cruised on Summit and thought it was good but not vastly superior to P&O. We then cruised on Solstice at the end of 2012 and felt that it was vastly superior to Ventura in March 2013. I don't think that Celebrity had changed that much but that P&O's standard had dropped significantly. We have booked Celebrity again for 2014 and feel that free drinks package, tips and OBC makes it for a us a good deal (albeit not quite as good as the OP's).

 

You are right that P&O should be able to compete but stupidity like the situation that the OP found with the Dining choice will make their customers look elsewhere. Situations like this and the Vantage fare debacle will finish them and now many are just waiting around for a Getaway or whatever they get renamed to, which forces P&O to run cruises with many passengers on low fare which in turn forces them to downgrade the product to trim costs.

 

I feel now that P&O are good for last minute deals and also the Caribbean with the 'free' flights but I would not pay full fare now for the product on offer.