Goodbye to P&O

[Eglesbrech]

3 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Of course you didn't.  Sorry. I just wonder what class are the people accusing P&O of going down market, to cruise line they booked themselves.

Well not me. I have never talked about people, just about a product.

 

Like most folks on here I can enjoy everything from Michelin star restaurants to a good plate of fish and chips at Wetherspoons. Same applies to cruises, it’s a product and nothing to do with “class”. 

 

[kalos]

10 minutes ago, zap99 said:

We have never sailed on Oasis class. This was on Anthem. Now that's what I call classy.

 

I think I get why P&O have people leaving their ships now?

What is a cruise ship if you aint got a plastic giraffe half way around a jogging track 🤔

[terrierjohn]

6 minutes ago, kalos said:

 

I think I get why P&O have people leaving their ships now?

What is a cruise ship if you aint got a plastic giraffe half way around a jogging track 🤔

Is a plastic Giraffe more upmarket or down market, to entertainment crew dressed up as Wallace and Gromit?

Edited October 6, 2023 by terrierjohn

[kalos]

2 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Is a plastic Giraffe more upmarket or down market, to entertainment crew dressed up as Wallace and Gromit?

 

I dunno John at a loss with that one . How come some ships have belly flop contests and P&O only have bingo, so many questions .🤔

[solentsam]

if only they had all you can eat cruises lol🤣

[zap99]

15 minutes ago, kalos said:

 

I think I get why P&O have people leaving their ships now?

What is a cruise ship if you aint got a plastic giraffe half way around a jogging track 🤔

Not just a giraffe. Lots of plastic animals.  Even the lift tells you what day it is. Anthem has a dodgem track. I hope RC don't go down market.

 

[lincslady]

11 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Is a plastic Giraffe more upmarket or down market, to entertainment crew dressed up as Wallace and Gromit?

Surely not a question of market, but which type of ship appeals - for anyone with young children, the giraffe etc. would be great.  For us more mature specimens, something a bit more sophisticated perhaps.  I never cruised with young children, but would not enjoy a trip where they were bored and whining.

[amurray88]

35 minutes ago, zap99 said:

We have never sailed on Oasis class. This was on Anthem. Now that's what I call classy.

Ah, Symphony was truly tremendous. I would have stood and gave it a round of applause. It wasn't perfect, there was still one or 2 things (queue for MDR on night one below) but it really was incredible. 

[zap99]

15 minutes ago, lincslady said:

Surely not a question of market, but which type of ship appeals - for anyone with young children, the giraffe etc. would be great.  For us more mature specimens, something a bit more sophisticated perhaps.  I never cruised with young children, but would not enjoy a trip where they were bored and whining.

They have other, more sophisticated animals. A big red plastic dog and a cow.Sorry I can't find a photo. P&O had a life sized Chesney Hawkes.

Edited October 6, 2023 by zap99

[kalos]

55 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

Same applies to cruises, it’s a product and nothing to do with “class”. 

 

Spot on ,if someone decides on a city break and someone else decides on a country break, 

who is deemed to be posh and be of class?

A cruise ship or holiday is only as good as your expectations ,if you want more pay more 

and move on ,we have all been there at sometime in our holiday years . No right or wrongs 

just our choices .

[Harry Peterson]

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

It might be worth giving them one last try before you write them off Harry. I was probably in the same place as you until July. Having not cruised since the end of 2019 (the staycation cruises not remotely appealing to us), I had read countless reviews concerning all the cutbacks and was coming to the view that that P&O had become too much of a budget operator for us.

 

We already had a couple of P&O cruises due (booked at launch a few years back) but weren’t looking forward to them due to all that we were reading. I decided to nip this in the bud by booking a short notice cruise on Britannia in July at an excellent price (amazingly, we managed to get an accessible balcony cabin). We went with low expectations, but it was a ‘filler’ holiday and if it wasn’t on a par with previous cruises it wouldn’t be the end of the world, as the itinerary was good and we had paid very little for it. 
 

I don’t know if you followed my live blog, but we enjoyed the cruise. We weren’t going out of our way to look for the cutbacks, but having cruised regularly with P&O over the last 25 years, we couldn’t help but notice them and there were a good couple of dozen things that we picked up on. However, and this is the key thing, in all honesty very few of them had an impact on our enjoyment of the holiday. With most of them, there was a workaround. I did a separate post on this after the cruise. The only one that still sticks in my mind as being a negative that we couldn’t work around was the reduction in guest lecturers. We find sea days to be quite boring (we cruise for the ports and the other cruise ship style ‘entertainment’ doesn’t appeal to us). The other big negative was that Freedom Dining was a bit of a mess at peak times, as the app system doesn’t work when they allow walk ups and use pagers as well. We have changed our Ventura bookings to Club dining as a result (which is a shame, as we prefer Freedom) but ironically Freedom dining worked much better on Iona (where less people avoid using the app as most cruisers are first timers).

 

Other things that we expected to have a problem with we didn’t. I had read countless reports about food in the MDR being poor but, in all honesty, we found it to be fine on both Britannia and Iona. In fact, we had better consistency in the MDR than we did in the (extra cost) specialty restaurants, especially on Britannia. 
 

We tried our first Cunard cruise this year and, yes, it was better than P&O but, ordinarily, their prices are quite a bit more, so I guess it’s a case of you get what you pay for. The approach I have taken is that I have lowered the maximum price pppn that I’m now prepared to pay with P&O to a level that I think still offers great value and I am managing to make bookings at or below those prices. Whilst the cheapest cruises are on Iona and Arvia, we are discounting those having tried Iona. Britannia and Ventura are also offering very reasonable prices on some cruises, and they might be the ones for you to give P&O another try before finally deciding to ditch them. We are on Ventura in a few weeks time so I’ll be able to see how that now compares with Britannia. Recent reviews haven’t been good (particularly the MDR) so it will be interesting to see how we find it. 
 

Having been 100% loyal to P&O, 50% of our future cruises are now with Cunard. We have also been keen to try Saga, but @Dermotsgirl recent excellent comparison has made me question whether they will be worth paying 3 times the price per night that we are now paying with P&O. So my advice would be to find a low priced cruise that appeals to you (probably on Britannia) and give them a go again. If it confirms your belief that P&O is no longer for you then it hasn’t cost you much to find out. However, like us, you might be pleasantly surprised! 

Thanks for that. Funnily enough, the thing we miss most might well align with yours - the removal of most of the speakers that made helped sea days pass quickly. We’re not lovers of sea days, but the wide range of really good, well qualified speakers on interesting topics such as the history of cruise ships, films and the English legal system kept us very happy. All of these sessions were well attended, so their removal was simply an economy. 
 

We were also disappointed with the failure to keep the ships up to the standard we’d grown to expect from P&O. The suites used to be nigh on faultless, but they became tired and shabby, complete with plumbing issues. No issues with the food, as it was, but I’ve not been impressed by some of the reports I’ve seen - I’m glad your experience was positive though. 
 

We’ve been unable to cruise since 2019 for health reasons - simply too crowded, enclosed and therefore high risk of infection. The people who put us on to P&O in the first place have all now defected, some to Saga and some to Celebrity.  Our next cruise, subject to the NICE approval of one particular drug, will probably be with Saga because it’s got to be right after all this time! Having said that, thanks for the suggestions - nothing’s ever ruled out. We weren’t very keen on the idea of cruising at all originally, but after the first one we were converts.

[kalos]

5 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

We’ve been unable to cruise since 2019 for health reasons - simply too crowded,

 

I really hope you get your treatment approved and get back to cruising Harry.

We chose the Queen Victoria  as only carries just over 2k . She has all the things 

you have come to love ,like turn down service ,a really decent room service and 

we had speakers such as a former Red arrows pilot during the day .

Think Selbourne has used this ship as well and liked her .

Our choice was a p&O ship at the time ,all we would have saved in fare comparison was £25 each in total . I like P&O but have to say the little extra was money well spent .

Possibly a ship for you to consider ?

 

Take care and hope you get back to sailing soon .🙂

[molecrochip]

18 hours ago, sweep2907 said:

Following many cruise forums, these sorts of posts are prevalent on all of them. Every cruise line is losing long time loyal customers. On flip side they are gaining many many new passengers new to cruising. Grass isn't always greener and times are a changing where cruise passengers will flip companies year on year. The old days of staying loyal to one brand are coming to an end. Most cruise companies are putting a lot of their effort into attracting new passengers rather than working on keeping loyalty. 

Probably the best, most accurate, comment I’ve read on here this year!

[Presto2]

15 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Probably the best, most accurate, comment I’ve read on here this year!

I also think it is fair to say that many former cruisers are going back to having land holidays once again and vice versa. That's just from observing friends and the people who we work with.

[Eglesbrech]

1 minute ago, Presto2 said:

I also think it is fair to say that many former cruisers are going back to having land holidays once again and vice versa. That's just from observing friends and the people who we work with.

I agree and some of that is to do with the changes to availability of insurance to cover ship to shore on cruise ships. 

 

Post “you know what” insurance is more difficult to get for older folks.

[Megabear2]

Cruise ship wildlife ...

 

Celebrity Edge and Allure of the Seas

 

Oh did someone mention belly flops???

[kalos]

Nice photos 🙂 

[zap99]

1 hour ago, Presto2 said:

I also think it is fair to say that many former cruisers are going back to having land holidays once again and vice versa. That's just from observing friends and the people who we work with.

We normally have about 50/50 cruise/ land holidays. Flamenco dancing in the hotel tonight. Just hope it's not the Elvis bloke dressed up.🦩.

[zap99]

11 hours ago, alpha whiskey said:

Definitely. P&O offer a great product, competitively priced. Love both the new ships.

They have me as a future customer for sure, but will still keep my eyes on the other lines too! 😉

That fits us as well. We need a few more nights on NCL and RC To go up a bit in the loyalty tiers, but generally we are loyal to them all.

[Presto2]

48 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Cruise ship wildlife ...

 

Celebrity Edge and Allure of the Seas

 

Oh did someone mention belly flops???

Now that is Mr Edge -- us Celebrity mad fans watched the ship being built and am proud to have been in the group who named him. When we boarded the first thing I asked was 'Where is the horse?' The staff member thought I was mad and said, " There other great things to see!". We sat by him on sail away and I made a point of walking past every night and stroking his nose. (After a few drinkies) but had to stretch as he is very tall. Beautiful, classy ship -- and of course Mr Edge was the show stopper for us 😉

P.S. Am quite sane really .........................

Edited October 6, 2023 by Presto2

[Castle25]

Indy of the seas  

[zap99]

33 minutes ago, Castle25 said:

Indy of the seas  

Have you got one of the cow above Ben & Jerry's.  Some folk think these things are tacky.🤣

[Megabear2]

46 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Have you got one of the cow above Ben & Jerry's.  Some folk think these things are tacky.🤣

Can't help there, but I'll raise you a Smurf on MSC Divina ...

[Snow Hill]

20 hours ago, Eglesbrech said:

I agree and some of that is to do with the changes to availability of insurance to cover ship to shore on cruise ships. 

 

Post “you know what” insurance is more difficult to get for older folks.

Yes we had some eye watering quotes for our annual insurance premium this year. We played around with the add on’s the add on for cruise cover was greater than the add on for winter sports holiday, my wife skis, I don’t. I am convinced that travel insurance companies have hiked their premiums to increase profits rather than provide a better service, it’s time that the CMA investigated them to ensure the consumer is getting a fair deal.

[Froxfield]

Agree, beyond eye-watering quotes for insurance this year! I am not sure if it is the cruise element or Caribbean/USA costs that are the problem.  Of course, I am awaiting a course of treatment so was expecting the worst!! We decided to suck it up and booked some extra trips to reduce the cost per day.  Nevertheless, I sincerely hope the insurer makes a lot of profit out of me!