Select Price or Saver price ?

[Cheshire Blue]

Not cruised with P & O for many years but thinking of doing a cruise later this year on Arcadia.  

The advertised price is (of course ) a Saver price.  The increase to get a Select Price is £1200 per cabin but the actual financial benefits which are then offered (car parking / on board spend) appear to be only £520 per cabin (plus shuttle buses).  On this basis we would be paying some £680 per cabin to be able to choose a particular cabin.  Is that it ?  or am I missing something ? 

This seems a lot to me - but would welcome thoughts from others who often book with P & O      

[yorkshirephil]

5 minutes ago, Cheshire Blue said:

Not cruised with P & O for many years but thinking of doing a cruise later this year on Arcadia.  

The advertised price is (of course ) a Saver price.  The increase to get a Select Price is £1200 per cabin but the actual financial benefits which are then offered (car parking / on board spend) appear to be only £520 per cabin (plus shuttle buses).  On this basis we would be paying some £680 per cabin to be able to choose a particular cabin.  Is that it ?  or am I missing something ? 

This seems a lot to me - but would welcome thoughts from others who often book with P & O      

If you don't want a particular cabin then it is probably not worth it in this case? Shuttle buses are sometimes supplied by the port and are free to all. You do have the advantage of being able to move the cruise with select but again the cost of select can be more than the deposit.

[jrphotog]

If you don’t want a noisy cabin (above or below restaurants and pools, near lifts etc) then it’s good to be able to choose your cabin. Find the deck plan and compare it with the cabins they’re offering.

Iona and Arvia also have a promenade, which you may want to steer clear of.

Edited March 14, 2023 by jrphotog

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Totally agree with the OP. Never bothered about the room so always go for the saver fare as the difference is quite a bit just to choose your room. 

[daiB]

20 minutes ago, Cheshire Blue said:

Not cruised with P & O for many years but thinking of doing a cruise later this year on Arcadia.  

The advertised price is (of course ) a Saver price.  The increase to get a Select Price is £1200 per cabin but the actual financial benefits which are then offered (car parking / on board spend) appear to be only £520 per cabin (plus shuttle buses).  On this basis we would be paying some £680 per cabin to be able to choose a particular cabin.  Is that it ?  or am I missing something ? 

This seems a lot to me - but would welcome thoughts from others who often book with P & O      

You also have to add in choice of dining, first sitting, second sitting or freedom. These are important to some.

[amajaa]

The only reason we pick select is because I can’t eat late and don’t want to get late sitting.
This, of course no longer matters on Arvia and Iona. so only book select on those if the price is only a little bit different. 

[Harryjacobs]

If its £680 extra to choose your cabin then I would happily take a deck 8 promenade room rather than pay that!

[pete14]

23 minutes ago, Harryjacobs said:

If its £680 extra to choose your cabin then I would happily take a deck 8 promenade room rather than pay that!

OP is cruising on Arcadia where there are no deck 8 promenade rooms to worry about. 

[Cathygh]

Some TAs will let you select a grade of cabin on a saver fare which can reduce your chance of being in an undesirable location

[roomba920]

7 hours ago, Cathygh said:

Some TAs will let you select a grade of cabin on a saver fare which can reduce your chance of being in an undesirable location

Mine did this, but now that I've studied the deck plans more I'm not confident that she steered us towards a better cabin choice. We paid about $50 more per person for a different Saver category, but although I requested midship, these all seem to be forward.

 

Does anyone know what the balcony cabin designation is for the basic Saver?

[Cathygh]

5 hours ago, roomba920 said:

Mine did this, but now that I've studied the deck plans more I'm not confident that she steered us towards a better cabin choice. We paid about $50 more per person for a different Saver category, but although I requested midship, these all seem to be forward.

 

Does anyone know what the balcony cabin designation is for the basic Saver?

For a basic saver with no grade specified you can be offered anything from an obstructed balcony in the worst location or better. I don't know what the alogorithms P&O use are but I gather it could depend on how full the ship is. 

[GOQ]

16 hours ago, jrphotog said:

If you don’t want a noisy cabin (above or below restaurants and pools, near lifts etc) then it’s good to be able to choose your cabin. Find the deck plan and compare it with the cabins they’re offering.

Iona and Arvia also have a promenade, which you may want to steer clear of.

I other words it is risk which depends upon the ship you intend to book. I have booked early savers both on Iona and Arvia, I had a lovely deck 11 cabin on Iona and the worst horrible deck 8 promenade cabin on Arvia. 

A cruise on Arcadia I had the choice of a deck 1 unobstructed sea view cabin or a cheaper deck 4 obstructed sea view cabin. Deck 1 (clear) saver fare == Deck 4 (obs view) select fare minus obc and coach fare benefits.

My personal preference was for the deck 4 cabin as it was better located and I found out that being able to select the cabin I was able choose one with a view between the lifeboats.

[rskjas]

I'm a bit confused as we just booked a cruise on Iona and chose select fare  but didn't get the option to choose a cabin! The select fare worked out cheaper than the saver fare with the coach to Southampton and OBC offered. My booking confirmation says the cabin will be allocated nearer the sail date (May this year) Anyone else had this with a select fare?

Sue 

[Josy1953]

We were looking at a cruise on Britannia this afternoon and the reason that we decided not to book with P&O was because even though we were looking at Select we could only choose a cabin grade but not the cabin number.  We have booked with Princess instead.  I suspect that it could be because it was August and so school holidays and potentially a busy time.

[terrierjohn]

48 minutes ago, rskjas said:

I'm a bit confused as we just booked a cruise on Iona and chose select fare  but didn't get the option to choose a cabin! The select fare worked out cheaper than the saver fare with the coach to Southampton and OBC offered. My booking confirmation says the cabin will be allocated nearer the sail date (May this year) Anyone else had this with a select fare?

Sue 

If you used the online booking then there is an option to choose your cabin, but blink and you miss it.  If you want to select your cabin then I suggest you ring P&O and sort one out that's suitable for you.

[rskjas]

10 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

If you used the online booking then there is an option to choose your cabin, but blink and you miss it.  If you want to select your cabin then I suggest you ring P&O and sort one out that's suitable for you.

 

I did book online so probably blinked and missed it! Thanks for replying. 

Sue.

[bobstheboy]

Very subjective the Select or Saver choice. It is a matter of cost for me. I don't mind paying an extra £100 pp to choose a cabin, anything more I wont pay. I compare the two prices and take into account the OBC for the Select and that's it.

[yorkshirephil]

1 minute ago, bobstheboy said:

Very subjective the Select or Saver choice. It is a matter of cost for me. I don't mind paying an extra £100 pp to choose a cabin, anything more I wont pay. I compare the two prices and take into account the OBC for the Select and that's it.

Pretty much the same here, when booking onboard the extra OBC for select outweighs the added cost of select which is quite minimal for some cruises.

[bobstheboy]

1 minute ago, yorkshirephil said:

Pretty much the same here, when booking onboard the extra OBC for select outweighs the added cost of select which is quite minimal for some cruises.

I should have added that I get Military and shareholders OBC so that is also taken into account.

[terrierjohn]

1 minute ago, yorkshirephil said:

Pretty much the same here, when booking onboard the extra OBC for select outweighs the added cost of select which is quite minimal for some cruises.

We are finding it difficult to spend the extra OBC which is now being offered, without buying perfume etc. The food in the specialty restsurants does not appeal to me and since my wife drinks very little and I try to avoid being drunk in charge of a wheelchair, neither do I.

[yorkshirephil]

2 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

We are finding it difficult to spend the extra OBC which is now being offered, without buying perfume etc. The food in the specialty restsurants does not appeal to me and since my wife drinks very little and I try to avoid being drunk in charge of a wheelchair, neither do I.

We have never struggled to spend the OBC but have bought a few things we may not have usually bought or taken the odd ships tour. We don't drink a lot and to be fair P&O drinks are relatively cheap. Our biggest outlay on P&O is usually Costa. Ironic that we now get the 10% Peninsular discount but don't get much opportunity to use it, but no bill is still better than 90% of a bill.

[majortom10]

49 minutes ago, rskjas said:

 

I did book online so probably blinked and missed it! Thanks for replying. 

Sue.

That is one reason I would never book online direct and use a specialist cruise TA on top of the fact you would get a cheaper fare.

[kruzseeka]

It's a tricky one.  We once had a cabin under the Jacuzzi on the lido deck.  The noise of the pumps kicking in and out all night meant we had two sleepless nights.  We had complained and they said theyd get their engineering dept to look into it.

 

At 3.30 am the next morning we rang reception.  They said a deck officer would come.  He eventually arrived.  No noise!  But thankfully part way through our discussion the pump started up.  He immediately changed his tack and said would you like to move to a cabin further down the corridor to get some sleep and move your things tomorrow. We did!  (They really couldn't be unaware of this situation - they must have had complaints before.) 

 

But it has made us very wary of cabin location - checking out what's above and below.  No doubt the greatest percentage of cabins you could be allocated would be fine - but it is just how comfortable you are with that uncertainty. (Sun lounges being put out on the lido deck early morning, being under the running track, nightclub etc.) 

 

Price differential is obviously going to be a deciding factor and obc contributes to that consideration but as already mentioned spending the obc can become a bit of a project.  Nice to have no drinks bill and 'free' excursions/speciality restaurants etc. but the amounts involved especially with additional benefits like share holders can make it a bit of a challenge.  Not one that would beat me though!  We left with  6x bottles of gin last trip and some nice whisky (and did try to go through the 'Something to Declare' but no customs staff to be seen anywhere!) 

 

Of course obc is worth a great deal more to us than it costs P&O.  It's a marketing strategy to pull us in and creates this very dilemma.  🤔

Edited March 19, 2023 by kruzseeka

[Interestedcruisefan]

On 3/14/2023 at 5:55 PM, amajaa said:

The only reason we pick select is because I can’t eat late and don’t want to get late sitting.
This, of course no longer matters on Arvia and Iona. so only book select on those if the price is only a little bit different. 

Yes it's irrelevant to dining times on Arvia and Iona

 

Also re being worried about noise from a cabin. We've cruised about 8 times now.  Never had a noisy cabin until our last cruise

 

Our last cruise we did and we complained and were moved from a noisy inside cabin to a quiet balcony cabin

 

So as long as you aren't booking a school holiday totally full cruise I think the low risk of a noisy cabin can be overcome

 

I think people who are paying for balconies may want to be more careful as location of a balcony can be far more important

Edited March 19, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[Interestedcruisefan]

58 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

We are finding it difficult to spend the extra OBC which is now being offered, without buying perfume etc. The food in the specialty restsurants does not appeal to me and since my wife drinks very little and I try to avoid being drunk in charge of a wheelchair, neither do I.

Send some credit my way!!

 

Lol

 

Can you change currency at guest services with OBC?

Edited March 19, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan