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Britannia current cruise

davecttr

By davecttr,
in P&O Cruises ( UK )

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davecttr

davecttr

Posted
Posted (edited)

According to the maritime tracking sites Britannia should have arrived at Kirkwall in Orkney at 7.00 am today but she is currently over 100 miles to the north west. Has there been a late change of itinerary? One site has her at about 9 knots pursuing an eastwards course

Edited by davecttr
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CarlaMarie

CarlaMarie

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Whether it was originally today and changed, I don’t know, but it’s definitely due tomorrow - Sunday 18th.

 

Doesn’t help that the ship has set their eta, which publicises via AIS, as Today!

 

I was going by her AIS. I wonder if she will get there a bit earlier?

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Dermotsgirl

Dermotsgirl

Posted
Posted

There has been some interesting comments elsewhere about this cruise.

 

The passengers are having to pay 20% VAT on all purchases and services (including drinks and food)

 

The reason for this is that all the ports are in the UK.

 

Normally, a Round Britain cruise will have at least one non UK port, e.g  in Guernsey, Ireland or France), meaning that UK VAT is not applicable for the whole cruise.  

 

It's quite unusual for all ports on an itinerary to be in the UK, so people have been surprised by this, and say that they would have hoped that P&O would have flagged this up before the cruise, rather than them finding out when on board. 

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molecrochip

molecrochip

Posted
Posted

P&O's website was selling it as tomorrow, Not sure where. Even the cruise agent who had advance sale on this one has it dated as tomorrow. So not sure why some sites list it as today.... or why the ship set it as today on their navigation consol.

 

This has been a weird cruise all the way through... originally a Baltic cruise, then replaced by an around Britain cruise which went on general sale. It was then pulled from general sale and made an exclusive cruise with one agent + entertainment.

 

It later went on general sale again as there were so many cabins left.

 

It is likely that because it was a replacement cruise, that non-UK port options were limited. For example, P&O wouldn't usually book Britannia for Guernsey, Cork or Dublin due to her size. Brugge, Le Harve or Cherbourg might have been options but it all depends on the rest of the itinerary being able to move a day one way or other.

 

image.thumb.png.40b77a666377dcef042946b1e6825cf4.png

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Gettingwarmer

Gettingwarmer

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

No, I think there was something technically different. Can’t remember if it agreements by the cruise lines or a government thing… but it was to get the industry moving.

Maybe technical but not to do with only being UK. 

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Dermotsgirl

Dermotsgirl

Posted
Posted
43 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

Maybe the Agent had the same problems NCL had recently. Not got right documentation. 

NCL wouldn’t serve drinks at all in some U.K. ports. I wondered if it was because they had misunderstood the regulations 

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9265359

9265359

Posted
Posted
36 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

No, I think there was something technically different. Can’t remember if it agreements by the cruise lines or a government thing… but it was to get the industry moving.


Quite probably, because the cruise lines would have wanted to do ‘foreign’ stops but it would have been the UK (and foreign) governments preventing it.

 

This time it’s P&O’s choice to do a ‘trips around the bay’ cruise and not go foreign.

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Dermotsgirl

Dermotsgirl

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Gettingwarmer said:

Yes

I’m wondering if the cruiseline paid the VAT out of their own coffers. They were trying to entice people back, so clobbering the passengers with VAT would not have got people rushing back to cruising. 

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Gettingwarmer

Gettingwarmer

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Dermotsgirl said:

I’m wondering if the cruiseline paid the VAT out of their own coffers. They were trying to entice people back, so clobbering the passengers with VAT would not have got people rushing back to cruising. 

That needs more confirmation, purely speculation. This was an agent led cruise  originally only available through them. Some strange cruise to be sure. 

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Dermotsgirl

Dermotsgirl

Posted
Posted
30 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

That needs more confirmation, purely speculation. This was an agent led cruise  originally only available through them. Some strange cruise to be sure. 

I thought we were just having a conversation 🤷‍♀️

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zap99

zap99

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, molecrochip said:

P&O's website was selling it as tomorrow, Not sure where. Even the cruise agent who had advance sale on this one has it dated as tomorrow. So not sure why some sites list it as today.... or why the ship set it as today on their navigation consol.

 

This has been a weird cruise all the way through... originally a Baltic cruise, then replaced by an around Britain cruise which went on general sale. It was then pulled from general sale and made an exclusive cruise with one agent + entertainment.

 

It later went on general sale again as there were so many cabins left.

 

It is likely that because it was a replacement cruise, that non-UK port options were limited. For example, P&O wouldn't usually book Britannia for Guernsey, Cork or Dublin due to her size. Brugge, Le Harve or Cherbourg might have been options but it all depends on the rest of the itinerary being able to move a day one way or other.

 

image.thumb.png.40b77a666377dcef042946b1e6825cf4.png

We were in Guernsey on a holiday. This is a picture of a ship visiting the Island. 2015..

20150911_123950.jpg

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CarlaMarie

CarlaMarie

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, zap99 said:

We were in Guernsey on a holiday. This is a picture of a ship visiting the Island. 2015..

20150911_123950.jpg

 

This may have been for one of her "private" cruises. I know that they do have them occasionally, and they last only a couple of nights (you will notice a gap in the cruise schedule). 

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zap99

zap99

Posted
Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, CarlaMarie said:

 

This may have been for one of her "private" cruises. I know that they do have them occasionally, and they last only a couple of nights (you will notice a gap in the cruise schedule). 

It was a proper cruise. We were on a Spain/France Britannia cruise that was scheduled to call into Guernsey. Didn't happen as it was a bit too rough.

B720. JULY 2017.

Edited by zap99
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