joro44

I wondered as two of our young grandchildren will be on board one of the ships next summer.

The whole issue of volume in the theatre is a mixture of musical taste, hearing acuity, P&O's fleet production management,and a ship's audio technician.

Over the past 26years of cruising I have spoken to a number of technicians, solo artists, and production managers across five cruise lines. Always with the general complaint that the audio balance between the band and the artist was incorrect. This can be confirmed by buying an artist's CD, where the balance is correct. A major problem is the insistence that the soloist uses the percussionist and brass instrumentalists even when unsuitable to the item being sung. Compare the times when there is only a keyboard a complement. The young soloists I have spoken to feel too insecure to insist on their choice of sound level for fear of not being contracted again. Compare this with an Italian tenor acquaintance we had, who insisted in setting his own sound levels and usually sang one aria/song without amplification, that filled the theatre to show how it could be done. This on Cunard and RCI.

Regarding production shows, the backing music is normally pre-recorded and the sound  levels set by the shore side production team. I am told that changes in levels can only be made by reference back to the shore side management. For an example, our last cruise had the first staging of a new show on the ship. Production management were aboard and when I spoke to the technician he agreed that levels were incorrect and said that they were being adjusted for the second show. I did not stay up to listen.

Conclusions, complain to fleet production management for shows and ship's production management for other performances.

Incidently, have you noticed the transparent, acoustic screen now in place in front of the percussionist, to protect the others on stage? A Health and Safety measure.

ptf2009, might it not be that the audio technicians who 'live' with the very loud sound for months on end, have suffered the very damage to their hearing you mention? So, in order to hear the 'music'  they have to crank up the volume.

Majortom10, is the 100% based upon  a hearing test or your subjective assessment?

May I suggest that MAJORTOM10 tries my experiment mentioned several days ago, in order to rate his hearing.

I suggest that most of those who post on this site are of a certain age and have some degree of hearing impairment, hence the comments about hearing aids. 

Consider for a moment what P&O's  marketing slogan FAMILY  FRIENDLY indicates. Yes, young persons! Next time your family's young persons visit you, please try this experiment.

Switch on the TV with the sound turned right down. Then slowly increase the volume to a level that the children can hear the programme. Can you hear it? Increase the level until you can. What sort of difference, if any, is there? Most likely for the majority there is.

One can therefore conclude that taking children to shows on so-called family friendly ships COULD HARM THEIR HEARING.

To give you an idea of the artists that are on a MFAS, the following gives an indication of those planned to be on Aurora R920. 

Nick Bailey (Host), a soprano, mezzo/Director of Trial by Jury, pianist, violinist, flutist, Spanish guitarist, tenor, baritone. The Aurora Chorus will take part in the Trial by Jury production. Usually there are a couple of programme items each sea day, with one on port days. Running in parallel is a ‘normal’ PO entertainment programme. Hope this answers your initial enquiry.

OH! OH! Tablelamp you are giving a false fact! There is a MFAS on the Aurora, sailing from Soton 20th October to the Canaries, the compère will be the first voice heard on Classic FM, Nick Bailey. MFAS was suggested by PO’s then chairman, Lord Stirling and he asked BBC’s Richard Baker to front the programme. These have continued over the years, up to five in a year, latterly on Oriana, Adonia, and Aurora. There seems to be a reluctance on the part of PO to commit to continue the series, as PO strives to attract a customer base to fill the new, large, Carnival type ships. I suspect that this will be a hard task in the off-season, unless they reduce fares and thus the standard.

.Quite right in the PO fleet the Adonia was most expensive. 

With the soon demise of the ORIANA, the supply of quality cruising on PO ships is reducing, hence the price inflation. Check out today's prices compared to their launch ones. We have three AURORA's booked, including the Music Festival at Sea departing in October.

Also just back from the 19 nighter on Aurora, her second cruise following a multimillion refit. A substantial part of that was for behind the scenes upgrades including a new 'exhaust system'. We were held on shore for some five and a half hours in weather as described by Jean. Returning quickly from a shore visit after my wife was blown onto a parked car!

l have complained often about the sound levels of the production shows being too high, the response from the 'techs' is that the audio is pre-recorded and the level is set by the HQ production management. To get it reduced to a comfortable level PLEASE CONTACT HQ PO SOTON. Given that this is a common complaint by many of us of a certain age, with associated hearing loss, I worry about the harmful effect it is having on the hearing of the youngsters on the family friendly ships.

The Excecutive Vice-President, Paul Ludlow, spent a couple of days on board, but failed to put in a public appearance in spite of the fact that the ship was crammed with frequent PO Shareholding cruisers. What do you think of this?

We went on an island tour by PO, that included a visit to a pineapple farm. The cultivation was in greenhouses, showing the different stages that are linked by flat paths. The visit included the farm's showroom/ bar to taste pineapple tipples.

Reference my post above, related to on-board deposit of £50 pp. and in reply to daiB:

PO Booking Conditions: See page 149 clause 38 of the current brochure.

From the date of booking until 91 days before departure, cancellation charge: Deposit

From our own experiences of booking cruises on-board, at no time was an explicit statment made to negate the above clause that I suggest would be necessary to enforce a variation from £50pp.

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Since the introduction of future cruise sales on board PO's ships, following RCI's lead, and the incentive of a deposit of only £50pp, I understand that some cruisers book as a maybe cruise and make the final decision when the full balance is due. (Long sentence!). Thus, there becomes available cabins some 90 days before departure.

In any case with the trend towards mega resort ships with their huge capacity, there will always be last minute cancellations, hence the concepts of upgrade and guarantee grade offers.

A REAL BARGAIN: a Florida criuse friend had heard of hopefuls turning up on the quayside on days of departure and getting a deal. I believe that PO requires 4 days to do the post 9-11 induced checks.

On each ship in the fleet we have sailed on, we have found the BAND not backing the artists but fronting them. So bad is the balance set, that often one cannot hear the solo or group singers clearly.

Indeed, a recent successful court case where a member of an orchestra sitting near the percussion section suffered hearing loss, has resulted in precautions being taken on the ships. Look for the transparent screen now placed in front of the drummer and trombone player.

Most solo singers offer dvd's for sale, none have the same accompanying loud, over brassed sound.

I have spoken to the sound technicians and they say, they cannot alter it, as it is set by "fleet" in Soton.

The artists say, as part of their contract they have to bring with them music for the seven part BAND, and can have one or two items without all seven band members.

The notion that the present set-up is what guests want, I suggest is what hearing damaged young folk in the 'fleet office' want to hear.

However, on our cruises, mostly out of season with other greypounders, many of whom have some hearing loss, we have mostly heard the criticism that the BAND IS TOO LOUD.

If you agree, then make you opinion known.

Note: This is not a criticism of the excellent, sight reading members of the band.

Ex-Decca

We have sailed on the Aurora many times and on the Arcadia only once and never to be repeated for various reasons.

1.The air con in the cabin was very noisy, unlike on the Aurora which you can barely hear.

2.The Captain's cocktail party was held in the swimming pool area.

3.The Arcadia is not as seaworthy as the Aurora.

4The Arcadia does not have an Atrium.

5.The cinema on the Arcadia is a joke compared to the lovely Playhouse on Aurora.

6. The azipods on the Arcadia are not as effective for getting on and off the berth as the propulsion system on the Aurora.

As I posted some year or more ago the current system springs from an unofficial, berth side meeting in San Francisco, of a large group of waiting staff from the Arcadia during their afternoon free-time.

The main issue was the tipping practice for those in the newly introduced Freedom Dining concept. Regular cruisers will recall that at that time, small wooden collection boxes were placed at the entrances to the Buffet facility to 'tip' staff operating there, but no system existed for those servicing the Freedom facility. These staff members were thus at a financial disadvantage both to their fellows in Buffet and even more so to those in Club Dining, as those 'guests' in Freedom had no regular waiters to whom to give tips and so it was easy for some 'guests' not tip. An unintended outcome of introducing Freedom Dining?

The solution adopted by PO was to introduce AG. A proportion of the monies so collected by PO was to be used to provide an increase in the basic rates of pay of both waiting and cabin staff, the remainder being given to individuals on the basis of their performance as recorded by 'guests' questionnaires' responses. I do not know the percentage split between basic rate and performance reward.

However, on our recent cruises (some three a year) I have got the impression that there is a growing number opting out of AG. What proportion are skinflints or cash payers is difficult to judge. But the more there are of both, the higher the rate of AG will become, no doubt resulting in more opting out of AG and so on.

ROLL ON INCLUSIVE AG IN THE CRUISE FARE.

50 cruises 17 ships 3 liners 145 ports

Read the information about Military Benefit by checking ask.pocruises.co.uk. There are exclusions, read carefully.

For MB one must be a member of Defence Discout registering and buying a discount card, then quote the card number to your agent or PO if you booked direct.

At this time of year allow 10 working days. Call accounts, not sales and give PO booking ref. and ask for your Booking Confirmation form and how much OBC does it state.

Re #3: No where in the Carnival Corp &Plc shareholder benefit document does it state that the benefit is not combinable with other OBC. Check Carnival Corp shareholder benefit via Google. Double check again via Google, ask.pocruises shareholder benefit.

If there is any difficulty with the allocation of this benefit then we must take the matter up with the Company Secretary or equivalent. This I suggest is not a marketing or sales gimmick but part of a shareholder's contract with a quoted company.

Re: #1 We have used the train from SOT to Soton. There is a two-hourly direct service via Brum and Oxford commencing at 6:08. Just got a quote of £206 return for two. Look at The man in seat 61 site.

Re: #26

Partnership does not refer to Shareholders, which is a statutory term.

I have searched ask.pocruises.com with the following that I quote:

Military Benefit not combinable with Early Savers, Savers, Onboard Bookings, or Thank You for cruising offers, or Partnership Benefits. booked on a P&O Select Fare only.

Shareholder Benefit will not be granted if your booking is booked through a Friends and Family offer, TIS(Travel Industry Services) or a complementary booking. All other fare types are currently combinable with shareholder benefits.

49 cruises 17 ships 3 liners 5 cruise lines 143 ports

We were very fortunate to cruise RB twice on Adonia, being a smaller ship its itinerary included ports of call that often resort ships ignore or cannot reach, Belfast, Fort William, Killybegs(NI), Kirkwall, Lerwick, Liverpool, Londonderry, Portree, Scabster, Scilly Isles, Tobermory. An excellent change from Bergen, Gibraltar, Lisbon, Vigo etc. R. I. P. ADONIA

49 cruises 17 ships 3 liners 143 ports

Following on from Eglesbrech's post #57, with the establishment of the local authority Workhouse system in the early Victorian period, for housing the destitute/homeless, there were several generations of children raised in them. These children had to guard against their meagre rations being stolen, hence they 'guarded' their plates, We know that habits/manners gained in childhood are difficult to alter latter in life. Thus many Victorian parents 'encouraged' their children to sit up straight and not to lean on the table, lest in latter life they were assumed to be ex-Workhouse, which in turn would reflect upon their parents as having been at some time destitute. The Workhouse system ended in the 1930's(?) but many parents/grandparents continued with this aspect of their children's training and indeed continue to do so to the present day.

There is not a straight choice between large resort ships and small boutique ones, as is evident by the new builds of HAL, Saga, and Viking. There will always be a range of offers available, from the Grill Class to that of the singlet, tatto, elbows on table one.

49 cruises 17 ships 3 liners 143 ports