vixxygal

Does anyone know what time people in suites can board from ?

I've no idea which ship you will be on but try and find some place up high and forward for the sail into Venice as it's outstanding sailing into the heart of one of the worlds most amazing cities.

And make sure you have a camera with you.

You'll love it.

One last tip. The bathroom will have a whirlpool bath in it. This thing is great for unwinding after a long day in the heat. Fill it 2/3 full at normal temp and relax with the jets on and run the hot tap so it gets nice and hot (beats the £70 for a massage on board). Put a little soapy stuff in for some bubbles (if too many bubbles put some of the hand cream in that comes in the fancy box of bits you get) this will get rid of some bubbles.

When you've had enough step into the show cubicle right next to the bath and cool off. You'll be like new.

OOH OOH OHH, one thing not to be missed is as a suite dweller you're allowed to have breakfast in the White Room or whatever they call it now which really is fantastic and the ultimate way to start the day.

If it's the Arcadia suite on the port side the room is great. The noise from the deck above is pretty minimal and you won't notice a thing after day one. Fingers crossed Charma (sp) is your butler as he's superb.

Suites come with irons and ironing boards.

Almost forgot. The Grand Casino opens at around 12pm with a relaxed dress code. You can go in and have a quick go on a fruit machine just to say you've been to one of the worlds most famous casinos and had a play.

Monaco is tiny and no bigger than a small town. The lifts are a godsend but can be tricky to find however there is a tourist information place right next to were you dock. For a taste of the high life go to the Cafe de Paris, it's a tad expensive but you can sit there in the center of Monaco and watch endless luxury and sports cars just cruise by.

If you want something to brag about when you get home book a table at The Hotel de Paris for lunch. Again not cheap but easily done and the Garden restaurant is affordable as a one off with no strict dress code during the day. Bookings can be made online via the hotels web site.

We always have the Tokyo suite on the rear quarter. The balconies for these rooms are insanely huge and you can easily get 20 + people out on one.

If you do manage to get him to try on a diner jacket etc when he comes out of the changing rooms make sure your face lights up and you tell him he looks just like 007.

No man has any defence against such a compliment.

I'm probably the scruffiest person on the planet.

A few years ago the wife nagged me into taking our first cruise and forced me to buy a dinner jacket etc. I was dreading it.

I loved every minute of it especially getting dressed up with all the others on board.

You never know.

The British Empire is far from unique. If you go back to it's height then at that time everyone from a small African tribe to the British were at it. From invading your neighbors village to invading most of the world.

The finger is always pointed at Britain as we were far better at it than anyone else. With hindsight you can easily say we were wrong but so was just about everyone else at the time.

P&O can't fill their ships though and they have a new ship due in less than 2 years. This year we have seen endless attempts at cost cutting, cruises cancelled due to lack of demand and the 'sale' that never seems to end in an attempt to get people to book. P&O need a policy that keeps previous cruisers and attracts new ones. As it stands at the moment and the desperate attempts of the last year to do something about the situation has simply made things worse.

Other lines look like they can see the problem and will next year be moving ships to Southampton to pick up the slack left by the drop in demand for P&O as frustrated cruisers look to other lines. If P&O are hoping to fill seats with new cruisers they need to get a move on and need to change their approach as things can't go on like this.

Our cruise next October has jumped from £80 OBC to £580 per person.

P&O couldn't resist bringing in something yet again to anger early bookers could it. It's an odd business policy, if you can't fill your ships you need to do all you can to make your cruises more attractive. P&O can't seem to do this with everyone in mind and seem quite happy to 'blow off' existing and long term customers if they can fill one more cabin by doing so. This is a very short term view and will put an extra people on that ship in the short term but on the other hand long term faithfull P&O cruisers like myself feel we are constantly having the wee taken out of us and have decided 'never again'.

Ventura had a refit earlier this year, what type of cruise did she do straight after the refit. If a short couple of days then one could be forgiven for thinking that P&O are putting a low cost buffer cruise in place in case something doesn't go according to plan.

P&O are going to charge you an extra £1500 for the privilege of having a choice of dinning tables/times. The head waiter might be getting a good handfull of cash but you can turn your discount cruise into a full on cruise for much less than P&O will charge you.

Booking an early saver will save you nearly £1500. Knowing a couple of cruise bargain hunters the trick seems to be to hand the head waiter a couple of hundred pounds and you'll get whatever table you want and still be £1300 ahead.

How can the current price on a cruise that sails in 14 months be called last minute deals.

I'm not sure that a sale that comes in up to 8 months before the sailing date can be regarded as last minute. The comparison with M&S isn't a good one as you got your jacket the moment you paid for it. People paying for cruises receive them at the same time. If M&S sold you a jacket but told you you couldn't have it for 3 months and in that time they knocked 50% off the price you'd certainly have something to say about it.

We had to change our dining routine for our cruise last month. We've always had just a good breakfast and then held off until dinner as that was enough. Last month we were having lunch or ordering a cheese board at dinner or even on a couple of times when time was tight had to go up the the buffet to top up the new 'rationed' MDR meals.

It is a pain. The previous system allowed you to have as much or as little as you liked. P&O now give you a very very small meal and it isn't easy to get hold of more. Even if you ask you don't always get and the time delay between the meal and the extras arriving is in my opinion deliberate to ensure you either 'like it or lump it.

I like chips and the 6 (it is always six chips) isn't enough. Roast dinners come with one roast potato, that's measly and not fine dining and reminds me of those daft fussy foods that were a fad back in the 80 were you paid a fortune for a couple of mouthfulls.

Wait until you have seen P&O's new plated system. The plates are very small and the portions given are tiny (and i mean tiny). Getting any extra is an ordeal as nothing 'extra' is available in the dinning room so you have to wait for the waiter to return to the kitchen, sort it out and return by which time the other dinners have pretty much finished their meals.

I should point out that the original published price was £3299 per person. After the discount we paid £3134 and the cruise is now showing at £3149 PP.

I didn't receive an email so phoned P&O who stated that as we had the 5% discount the current 'reduced' price is still above the total we paid (about £10 PP) and because of this we will not receive any additional OBC.

I'm certainly complaining. I booked under Vantage for which the T&C's state 'The Price Promise applies to Vantage Fares published by P&O Cruises', (note PUBLISHED) there's no mention of price paid and that early booking discounts will be taken into consideration when working out if you are due any extra OBC. The published price for our cruise was £150 PP more than currently showing however we get no extra OBC as we received a 5% discount for booking early.

Our cruise has come down by £150 per person but we aren't getting a penny as we had a 5% early booking discount which means the current price is the same as what we ended up paying. In effect we didn't even end up with the 5% off as that is what the current price stands at under the new fares.