Help our cabin is not what we expected!

[U4icmusic]

So yesterday my boyfriend and I were given our cabin number on the Oceana. We leave on the 14th of June. We paid for a guaranteed balcony cabin. However the cabin we have received just isn’t up to standards! We are loyal customers and are paying a lot of money to go on this holiday. We have been given,what P&O call a ‘railway cabin’, it’s long and narrow and has 1 fixed single bed with 3 Pullman beds!!!! We are a couple and didn’t expect this whatsoever. We have spoken to P&O but the cruise is full booked so can’t even upgrade us!!! Can someone put me at ease and give some advice??????

 

 

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That's why you never book a guarantee room. You should have been warned.

 

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[wowzz]

That's why you never book a guarantee room. You should have been warned.

 

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But the op is an experienced cruiser, loyal to P&0, so surely she would have known about the dangers of booking a guaranteed cabin?

 

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[Tom Baker]

But the op is an experienced cruiser, loyal to P&0, so surely she would have known about the dangers of booking a guaranteed cabin?

 

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I've over 200 nights on P&O and I didn't know about these "Railway Cabins". If I'd booked a guaranteed balcony cabin I wouldn't have expected anything other than a "standard" balcony cabin.

 

 

To be fair to the OP P&O have obstructed balcony, balcony & superior balcony as cabin grades. Why aren't the railway cabins in a classification of their own?

 

 

I'm sure there are a myriad of mature couples who wouldn't miss a double bed on the cruise. I would expect P&O to be supportive to the OP given that a 19 year old could still be a customer in 50 years time, which is more than most of us could say.

[Happyday2]

Just booked guarantee cabin on select fare on Ventura. Doesn't have to be a saver fare.

[eddiecat]

But the op is an experienced cruiser, loyal to P&0, so surely she would have known about the dangers of booking a guaranteed cabin?

 

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I absolutely know the risk. However I had no clue that there could be such a big variety in what they call a “standard balcony cabin”. These “railway cabins” are totally unique to Oceana. I think the TA should have warned us about how much the Oceana differs from other ships in the fleet. Anyway your opinion, maybe we could have done more research but there are only a few of these cabins on the ship so seems unfair to blame me.

 

 

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[Enjoyacruise]

We had a similar experience last year on the Oceana. We booked a guarantee saver fare inside cabin and asked for a queen bed.

Several months later we were allocated an inside with fixed single beds. The response from P&O was hard luck you should have read the conditions better. Also our Travel agent should have pointed that risk out to us ie that some cabins on Oceana have single beds fixed and immovable.

Our travel agent got nowhere nor did we when we spoke to P&O. The cabin allocated was a higher grade inside so we suggested downgrading us but to no avail. I would paraphrase P&Os stance as being that once allocated they don’t swap guarantee cabins.

Anyway we still had a great holiday leaving this annoyancebehind us at the airport!

[Happyhummingbird]

Hi there Eddiecat. We are on this cruise too and were surprised to read about 'railway cabins' as we'd never heard of them before. After we booked it last year, P&O changed the itinerary slightly and dropped a Turkish port in favour of one in Greece. We think that this has made our cruise very popular and hence Oceana has now sold out. However, it is not unheard of that people have to cancel cruises for various reasons, so do not give up hope yet of a cabin change. We will cross our fingers for you and hope that you get a good response from P&O this week. Best Wishes.

[U4icmusic]

Exactly. Plus, it doesn't matter if you've cruised that line once or 50 times. Guarantee cabins are computer assigned and you are then stuck with that cabin if the ship is full, which they typically are.

 

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[U4icmusic]

I absolutely know the risk. However I had no clue that there could be such a big variety in what they call a “standard balcony cabin”. These “railway cabins” are totally unique to Oceana. I think the TA should have warned us about how much the Oceana differs from other ships in the fleet. Anyway your opinion, maybe we could have done more research but there are only a few of these cabins on the ship so seems unfair to blame me.

 

 

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It is absolutely not unfair to blame you. You should have looked at the deck and cabins plans for that ship BEFORE even thinking about booking a guarantee cabin. This is squarely on your shoulders.

 

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[U4icmusic]

So yesterday my boyfriend and I were given our cabin number on the Oceana. We leave on the 14th of June. We paid for a guaranteed balcony cabin. However the cabin we have received just isn’t up to standards! We are loyal customers and are paying a lot of money to go on this holiday. We have been given,what P&O call a ‘railway cabin’, it’s long and narrow and has 1 fixed single bed with 3 Pullman beds!!!! We are a couple and didn’t expect this whatsoever. We have spoken to P&O but the cruise is full booked so can’t even upgrade us!!! Can someone put me at ease and give some advice??????

 

 

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Travel agents don't know every detail about every ship. Should have done some homework or booked an actual balcony you could be happy with.

 

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[kalos]

Why are you winding up a 19 year old? Have you nothing better to do? You've made your point, I'm sure she's grateful for your support (not) Time to take your leave and go back to the American boards, I'm sure you're a hoot over there (with a capital H) :rolleyes:

Agreed Tom .

Hindsight is a wonderful thing .If we had known sooner we could have pointed her in the direction

 

of the P&O guru of Tennessee :rolleyes:

 

Some would do well to research the word HELP as that is all she was asking for .

[Selbourne]

Forgive my ignorance - we only book ‘Select’ fares as we want specific cabins only - but what is a ‘Guaranteed’ booking versus a ‘Saver’?

 

The only thing that I can assume is that with a guaranteed booking you get all of the benefits of Select bookings with the sole exception of the choice of cabin number, unlike a Saver where other than choosing a cabin grade you are at the whim of P&O re dining arrangements, no shuttles etc. Am I right?

[Tom Baker]

Forgive my ignorance - we only book ‘Select’ fares as we want specific cabins only - but what is a ‘Guaranteed’ booking versus a ‘Saver’?

 

The only thing that I can assume is that with a guaranteed booking you get all of the benefits of Select bookings with the sole exception of the choice of cabin number, unlike a Saver where other than choosing a cabin grade you are at the whim of P&O re dining arrangements, no shuttles etc. Am I right?

 

We've found Saver fares are approx. £800 less per balcony on Ventura, Azura and Britannia. We don't care where on the ship we are provided we've got a balcony, that is unobstructed. We've recently saved over £1600 by booking a guaranteed Superior Balcony. We know that there are only 2 decks of these on Ventura and most are at the rear.

 

 

It's pointless paying the Select fare because on Ventura we are 99% sure we will be given Freedom Dining and as there are 4 of us we don't care about transfers as we tend to hire a car at each port.

 

I would have done the same on Oceana because I would have assumed that all balcony cabins were a set standard. Admittedly I've only sailed on 21st century ships but never come across a cabin as described by the OP and would also be gutted.

 

I have noticed on the P&O website on trying to book Ventura that a Select fare can be booked on a Guaranteed basis when any cabin numbers are not available to book

Edited May 6, 2018 by Tom Baker
Adendum

[majortom10]

I am sure if you make P&O and your TA aware that you are not happy with your cabin there is every chance even at this stage that even though the cruise is sold out there will be cancellations and something might become available and you wish to be considered if it does.

[eddiecat]

Agreed Tom .

Hindsight is a wonderful thing .If we had known sooner we could have pointed her in the direction

 

of the P&O guru of Tennessee :rolleyes:

 

Some would do well to research the word HELP as that is all she was asking for .

 

 

 

Thank you. It’s not wrong of me to assume that the Oceana would be like any other of her sister ships? We did do research but it seems unfair to assume we went through the possibilities of cabins with a tooth pick! Anyway thank you again for your support. This post was only to see if people understood my disappointment and whether anyone had any suggestions :)

 

 

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[eddiecat]

I am sure if you make P&O and your TA aware that you are not happy with your cabin there is every chance even at this stage that even though the cruise is sold out there will be cancellations and something might become available and you wish to be considered if it does.

 

 

 

They’ve been contacted. The TA was useless however after having a conversation with P&O they seemed as if they were going to do everything in their power to resolve this. However, it is fully booked and they said there might not be anything they can do. I’ll let you know what they say when they get back to me tomorrow!

 

 

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[the english lady]

Forgive my ignorance - we only book ‘Select’ fares as we want specific cabins only - but what is a ‘Guaranteed’ booking versus a ‘Saver’?

 

The only thing that I can assume is that with a guaranteed booking you get all of the benefits of Select bookings with the sole exception of the choice of cabin number, unlike a Saver where other than choosing a cabin grade you are at the whim of P&O re dining arrangements, no shuttles etc. Am I right?

They brought these in when Britannia came on line. You do get all the bells of a select fare, except the cabin choice. Its when a grade is close to selling out. You tend to have the option of paying more for the next grade up...or accepting a guarantee grade, which means you will probably get the next grade up anyway..So pando can still say select fares are upgraded first.

[Scriv]

Re the price paid for this cruise, perhaps it is high because of the price of flights? Just a thought....?

[eddiecat]

Why are you winding up a 19 year old? Have you nothing better to do? You've made your point, I'm sure she's grateful for your support (not) Time to take your leave and go back to the American boards, I'm sure you're a hoot over there (with a capital H) :rolleyes:

 

 

 

Thank you for the support! I posted this on TripAdvisor as well and I got some very angry folks telling me it was all my fault and I got what I deserved. Whereas on this forum everyone has been amazing, can’t thank everyone enough. You have all made me feel so much better :)

 

 

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[Selbourne]

They brought these in when Britannia came on line. You do get all the bells of a select fare, except the cabin choice. Its when a grade is close to selling out. You tend to have the option of paying more for the next grade up...or accepting a guarantee grade, which means you will probably get the next grade up anyway..So pando can still say select fares are upgraded first.

 

Ah, I see. It’s still a level of risk that wouldn’t be for us, but thanks for explaining.

[eddiecat]

Re the price paid for this cruise, perhaps it is high because of the price of flights? Just a thought....?

 

 

 

Yes, however the flights only came to around 200£ a person for the journey there and back. So the cruise itself still comes to around £3000 a person. It costs so much money to do this holiday, point is I just wanted it to be what we expected no surprises or strange cabins! ( plus we live on an island called Guernsey and flights to gatwick from here are very expensive )

 

 

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[the english lady]

I really hope this works out for the OP.

 

It raises a question, as to why Select bookings should offer Guarantee cabins? I know they do, as I recall paying something like a £30pp ‘premium’ to take the next (inside) cabin grade up from the lowest (guarantee) when booking a very cheap Oceana repositioning cruise. We really didn’t want to find ourselves in the cabins ‘behind/in front of’ Cafe Jardin, which make moving around that deck difficult.

 

So, should P&O cease making Guarantee available to Select bookers, or should customers pay a relatively small amount more to chose their cabin when booking? I think the former. I can’t see how a ‘pot luck’ cabin can constitute a ‘pay the highest amount to tailor your holiday’ Select booking

These were brought in so instead of pando saying, what you want is sold out..you can pay extra for the next grade up..or you pay guarantee, and quite likely will be upgraded to the next grade anyway. you pays your money and decide which to go for. you still get the bells with select bookings. If you know what the cabins are like on a ship..and what any sort of upgrade path maybe a guarantee may be better.

[Scriv]

Yes, however the flights only came to around 200£ a person for the journey there and back. So the cruise itself still comes to around £3000 a person. It costs so much money to do this holiday, point is I just wanted it to be what we expected no surprises or strange cabins! ( plus we live on an island called Guernsey and flights to gatwick from here are very expensive )

 

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Oh OK... Guess it is fluid pricing then seeing as the cruise was almost full when you booked in Feb according to your TA.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Scriv

[Happyhummingbird]

I'm not sure if you've cruised on Oceana before Eddiecat, however we have and what I will say is this...

 

Oceana is a really lovely, welcoming ship. Hopefully, P&O will come up with something for you and you will be able to change cabins BUT even if they don't, I'm sure that you will have a wonderful cruise. As I mentioned in my previous post on here, we have never heard of 'railway cabins' before, but I'm pretty certain that if they were that bad then everyone would have been mentioning them online and they're not, so please try not to worry. It's a lovely itinerary, on a very special ship (that captured our hearts years ago and hopefully she will do for you too). Chillax, go with the flow and have a good cruise. We will. Best Wishes. :)

[eddiecat]

I'm not sure if you've cruised on Oceana before Eddiecat, however we have and what I will say is this...

 

Oceana is a really lovely, welcoming ship. Hopefully, P&O will come up with something for you and you will be able to change cabins BUT even if they don't, I'm sure that you will have a wonderful cruise. As I mentioned in my previous post on here, we have never heard of 'railway cabins' before, but I'm pretty certain that if they were that bad then everyone would have been mentioning them online and they're not, so please try not to worry. It's a lovely itinerary, on a very special ship (that captured our hearts years ago and hopefully she will do for you too). Chillax, go with the flow and have a good cruise. We will. Best Wishes. :)

 

 

 

Very true. It is a wonderful itinerary, I’m very excited regardless of the cabin! I hope they do sort something, if not I won’t worry about it until I get on board. Thank you for the support, it’s really good to know talk to someone who has been on the ship :)

 

 

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