Non UK Residents... Can't buy online..

[Krydstosser]

I think it´s weird that P & O don't allow foreigners buy Cruises online... P & O customers service (Lucy) said it was a currency issue?? ... but with Rccl, Celebrity and Carnival are there no problem with my danish master or visa credit card or currency issues?? 

 

For me it is more Convenient due to language issues to shop online, so I must shop elsewhere... with Rccl or other companies. 

 

Why lose customers because of currency matters?? I think it is bad business. 

 

Best regards

 

Soeren

(Don´t mind my spelling i am danish) 

 

 

[jeanlyon]

Hi Soren, I personally would never buy online, you don't see what cabins are available.  I use a good Travel Agent.

[Krydstosser]

If you are UK resident you can actually choose cabin on the P&O website. 

 

Soeren 

[Harry Peterson]

1 hour ago, Krydstosser said:

If you are UK resident you can actually choose cabin on the P&O website. 

 

Soeren 

As you say, you can see the cabins available, and a bit of online research will give you much more information about them than you'll get from most travel agents.

 

Perhaps you could choose your cabin and book it through an agent, either in Denmark or in the UK?  

[majortom10]

I get as much info I can online from cruise forums and cruise lines own websites and then contact a TA who will then book whatever you ask for and if a specialist cruise TA will have a wealth of knowledge and will also be cheaper than booking direct with P&O online.

[comcox]

Yes, I ran into this problem when booking my April cruise.  I had researched available cabins on P & O's website but could not complete my booking there so I called P & O directly.  Fortunately I have family in the UK and the P & O agent let me use their address for booking; otherwise, my only option was to use Vacations-to-Go for bookings from the U.S.

 

Fred Olsen used to have this same requirement of working through a designated U.S. agent.  For a while they had a great agent in Florida but then they switched to this terrible agency in New York.  Now, however, they will take direct U.S. bookings via phone.  I find it so much easier to book direct.  Saga also allows direct booking for U.S. passengers.

[woodley]

Another way is to use a proxy server then you can change the location to where you need to be.

[jeanlyon]

You definitely do not see all available cabins when booking online.  For instance on Oriana whenever I did it, it only showed A Deck cabins for inside, you then had to type in an example cabin - say D141, or D142.  My travel agent has access to all cabins.

[Harry Peterson]

41 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

You definitely do not see all available cabins when booking online.  For instance on Oriana whenever I did it, it only showed A Deck cabins for inside, you then had to type in an example cabin - say D141, or D142.  My travel agent has access to all cabins.

Without in any way doubting your own experience I’ve always been able to see all available cabins and suites on the P&O website.

 

Having found the ones I want I’ve always then made the booking with my favourite TA to obtain a 5% discount over and above any P&O deals.

[kerryincork]

Hi Soren ,

 

I am also a non UK citizen. I use a well known specialist cruise agent in the UK to book my P/Ó cruises. If you use Google you should be able to find them. I am not allowed to give you their name due to the rules of forum.

 

You can book fully on line, view the available packages and look at availability of cabins. I pay with either my non-UK visa/debit card (in euros).

 

I have been using this company for about 6 years now and find them very reliable.

 

They also offer additional services like airfare, transfers and excursions.

So you should be able to find something on line.

 

[Krydstosser]

16 hours ago, kerryincork said:

Hi Soren ,

 

I am also a non UK citizen. I use a well known specialist cruise agent in the UK to book my P/Ó cruises. If you use Google you should be able to find them. I am not allowed to give you their name due to the rules of forum.

 

You can book fully on line, view the available packages and look at availability of cabins. I pay with either my non-UK visa/debit card (in euros).

 

I have been using this company for about 6 years now and find them very reliable.

 

They also offer additional services like airfare, transfers and excursions.

So you should be able to find something on line.

 

 

Thanks very much for the advice, but I still think it´s ridiculous that P & O excludes foreigners from their webpage...... we are in year 2019 after all. 

 

Soeren

[Harry Peterson]

2 minutes ago, Krydstosser said:

 

Thanks very much for the advice, but I still think it´s ridiculous that P & O excludes foreigners from their webpage...... we are in year 2019 after all. 

 

Soeren

Get a VPN. Solves little problems like this at a stroke. 🙂

[claudiniusmaximus]

Yeah it is a little odd. In a roundabout way some (maybe all) of the American cruise lines have a similar (albeit not quite the same) sort of thing with the currency issue. 

 

Eg I was looking at a New England cruise on the Princess website at $900 when just generally hunting around but couldn’t actually book through the American website and got redirected to the U.K. website where the same cruise and cabin was £900 (it should have been about £650 with the currency exchange) so we were being way overcharged in the U.K.  

 

Similarly with Celebrity - on the celebrity US website they have all sorts of offers and inclusions that when you go to book on the UK website aren’t available (and you can’t even access the US website anymore it just autoredirects to UK version). 

 

Also both princess and celebrity allow you to cancel without penalty on the US website which we can’t book through. 

 

The difference of course is that those companies do have country specific websites for many different countries so we can  book with them albeit it as less favourable rates and terms, whereas p&o don’t have websites in other countries. 

 

Also re:using a VPN to access different country websites, I’m sure I recall reading on one of the American cruise line forums on here that if you do use the american

sites to book from another country then turn up at the dock they may refuse entry on some technicality that is fraud-related but of course don’t know whether p&o would do that. 

[claudiniusmaximus]

On 2/2/2019 at 1:27 PM, jeanlyon said:

You definitely do not see all available cabins when booking online.  For instance on Oriana whenever I did it, it only showed A Deck cabins for inside, you then had to type in an example cabin - say D141, or D142.  My travel agent has access to all cabins.

 

That’s odd - I always book online and it allows me to go deck by deck listing all the available cabins in different categories on each deck, and I can always see what’s above and below the cabin etc etc. You have to click on each deck but they have always always been there. 

[davecttr]

Apparently the cabins can be released in batches so in some categories it looks as if there are only a few left. This encourages customers to buy now rather than later

[Krydstosser]

 

In 2014 we booked online and had a wonderful 12 day cruise with Oceana in the med. 

 

I have now booked with another company, sad that P&O don't wan´t my credit card. 

 

Soeren

[I_r_a]

Bummer

[terrierjohn]

On 2/3/2019 at 4:58 PM, claudiniusmaximus said:

 

That’s odd - I always book online and it allows me to go deck by deck listing all the available cabins in different categories on each deck, and I can always see what’s above and below the cabin etc etc. You have to click on each deck but they have always always been there. 

Can you please post a guide to how you do this, I have never been able to see a list of all available cabins by deck, and quite often if you try checking by cabin they all state not available, sometimes even the ones that they list as available.

[claudiniusmaximus]

44 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Can you please post a guide to how you do this, I have never been able to see a list of all available cabins by deck, and quite often if you try checking by cabin they all state not available, sometimes even the ones that they list as available.

 

I just went through as if making a booking - when I got as far as choosing my cabin I chose which grade I wanted (and in this particular case because the price for inside and balcony was so close I tried various cabin grades). The next screen that opened was “choose your cabin” or something like that and it showed a list of available cabins on eg A deck in that grade with a sort of cabin 

 

On the left of the screen was the option to click on different decks and see the cabins on those decks in the same grade. 

 

I kept a deck plan open open on another page so that as well as using the cabin map to see what cabins for each grade were available I could also see what was above and below. 

 

FWIW I also did a dummy booking on an online cruise agent website and the same options came up there too. 

 

Ive just done a dummy booking now

and took some screenshots. 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2019 by claudiniusmaximus

[terrierjohn]

2 minutes ago, claudiniusmaximus said:

 

I just went through as if making a booking - when I got as far as choosing my cabin I chose which grade I wanted (and in this particular case because the price for inside and balcony was so close I tried various cabin grades). The next screen that opened was “choose your cabin” or something like that and it showed a list of cabins on eg A deck in that grade with a sort of cabin “map” showing it’s position on the ship on the right of the screen and a separate graphic showing the cabins above and below I believe (but that was too small to make out). 

 

On the left of the screen was the option to click on different decks and see the cabins on those decks in the same grade; as I clicked on each deck the cabin “map” on the right opened up to show me the cabins on that deck that were available (so I could see eg if there was a laundry room or whatever next door). 

 

I kept a deck plan open open on another page so that as well as using the cabin map to see what cabins for each grade were available I could also see what was above and below. 

 

FWIW I also did a dummy booking on an online cruise agent website and the same options came up there too. 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately those lists do not give the total number of cabins available, they normally only list about 10, and as I commented in the early post quite often if you try to use the cabin availability feature it does not work.

I find it far better to use an online TA, their systems do give them access to all available cabins and have a far faster response time, plus you can generally receive an additional discount,especially if you are a regular customer.

[claudiniusmaximus]

24 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Unfortunately those lists do not give the total number of cabins available, they normally only list about 10, and as I commented in the early post quite often if you try to use the cabin availability feature it does not work.

I find it far better to use an online TA, their systems do give them access to all available cabins and have a far faster response time, plus you can generally receive an additional discount,especially if you are a regular customer.

 

I just edited my post above to show some screenshots (and remove my comments about a map which apparently isn’t there, don’t know where I got that from).  

 

They show 50 deluxe balcony cabins in total at the moment to choose from. There may well be more available in reality but for me that’s plenty to choose from.

 

I can totally understand your preference for a TA esp if you want to check a particular cabin number. 

 

In this case as I was completely flexible on cabin grade I was able to see around 200 cabins. Back in the days before the internet I remember going to a TA who was able to check cabin by cabin or

suggest eg “C243 is available”. That didn’t work out any more helpful as I still neeeded to look at deck plans etc. I’m sure these days they are able to be more comprehensive. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by claudiniusmaximus

[Harry Peterson]

2 hours ago, claudiniusmaximus said:

 

I just edited my post above to show some screenshots (and remove my comments about a map which apparently isn’t there, don’t know where I got that from).  

 

They show 50 deluxe balcony cabins in total at the moment to choose from. There may well be more available in reality but for me that’s plenty to choose from.

 

I can totally understand your preference for a TA esp if you want to check a particular cabin number. 

 

In this case as I was completely flexible on cabin grade I was able to see around 200 cabins. Back in the days before the internet I remember going to a TA who was able to check cabin by cabin or

suggest eg “C243 is available”. That didn’t work out any more helpful as I still neeeded to look at deck plans etc. I’m sure these days they are able to be more comprehensive. 

Same for me - though having selected a cabin I'd always book through a TA.

 

I suspect what you see may depend on which browser/device you use.  So often the case.

[NSWP]

Having done 4 cruises on P&O UK, Arcadia x 2 plus Aurora/Oriana, we could not book direct with P&O UK, but had to go through a T/A in Australia or P& O Australia.  Strange I know.  Yet I was able to book a QM2 cruise direct with Cunard Site, as I always do with Princess, our favoured line.

Edited March 7, 2019 by NSWP

[MUAAZ]

On 3/7/2019 at 9:38 AM, NSWP said:

 

 

On 2/2/2019 at 5:47 PM, comcox said:

Yes, I ran into this problem when booking my April cruise.  I had researched available cabins on P & O's website but could not complete my booking there so I called P & O directly.  Fortunately I have family in the UK and the P & O agent let me use their address for booking; otherwise, my only option was to use Vacations-to-Go for bookings from the U.S.

is there any solution to get a PnO cruise if i dont have a UK address?