Selbourne

Thanks. Might try them, as I failed with Freetrade 😂

I’ve now gone through all the itineraries and prices and for the first time have a dilemma. We have self imposed a price cap of what we are now prepared to spend with P&O of £100 pppn for a balcony cabin (Select fare, net of any OBC). This rules out Aurora and we don’t like Arcadia (which I suspect is also firmly above this price). Azura is also ruled out as not operating from Southampton. I don’t see any sense in booking cruises of less than 2 weeks duration this far in advance, especially as P&O are heavily discounting these cruises presently and with the Iona fjords 7 night cruises being repeated for the 4th year running I can see those becoming cheap as chips if you book late. That pretty much leaves Arvia, Britannia and Ventura. There are cruises on all 3 that appeal and fit within our price cap. We usually book at launch for two reasons. One is that launch prices were always the cheapest, which we know is no longer the case. The second reason is that we need an adapted cabin and these sell out quickly. However, it seems that people who booked cruises a few years ago, perhaps with a £50 deposit whilst on board, are cancelling by balance due date, possibly due to the cost of living challenges. I noticed that an interesting Britannia cruise in July this year was being advertised at good prices, so I called a month or so ago and, as expected, there were no accessible balcony cabins available. However, I called again last week, just after balance due date had passed, and we were given a choice of 2, so I booked (comfortably below our price cap). I now need to discuss with Lady Selbourne whether we book a couple of 2025 cruises so that we bag our first choice accessible balcony cabins, or take our chances and hope that we strike lucky closer to sail date, as we have just done with Britannia. Decisions, decisions 😂

Thanks for that. I’ve emailed them and had an auto response saying they will respond within 3 days. Sadly, I have no patience so will try elsewhere! Appreciate the advice though and glad that it worked well for you.

I’ve only just stumbled across this thread. As as always Vamps, it’s both entertaining and informative. It’s useful to know the show times in both the theatre and sky dome, as I want to try to time restaurant reservations around them if possible. We usually find the first night MDR menu to be poor, but it looked excellent on this cruise. I laughed at the bit about being woken at 0645 by the in laws to let you know they are going for breakfast 😂

I’ve tried and failed to use Freetrade. I downloaded the App and went through the whole registration process, only to end up with a screen saying “Almost there - This should only take a few minutes”, which I am still stuck with over half an hour later! If I try to log in, same message. I’ve delete the App and started again - same message. I just cannot progress and there’s no phone number for help. If it’s this hard to just set up an account then I don’t have the confidence that it will be easy to use for transactions or statements, so I think I shall have to try another provider!

Great. I don’t suppose you can recall how much it was to have the paired wines with each course?

The document in the Carnival Annual Report that outlines shareholder benefit suggests that the OBC can be administered by TAs. Has anyone had experience of doing this, as most people seem to mention emailing P&O? We use the specialist cruise TA that many regulars on here use. Thanks for all the great advice. I’m buying the shares this morning as they dropped below £7 yesterday.

Spot on. In my initial post I inadvertently used the term wine flight when I meant pairing. I further confused matters by using both terms in a subsequent post when I gave examples of what wine pairing in a tasting menu usually comprises! The reason that I asked the question in the first place was because the menu shows a suggested wine for each course of the tasting menu. I therefore assumed that you could pay a supplement in order to have a glass of the suggested wine with each course (as you and I have both done in restaurants with tasting menus ashore). So, to clarify, I was talking about paired wines with each course of a tasting menu and not wine flights, such as those served in the GlassHouse, which is an entirely different thing.

That’s interesting. Thanks. How easy is it to get the OBC credited (assuming that you don’t get a share certificate)?

Thanks. Just looked them up. Purchase fees are £20 for a nominee account and £45 for a share certificate. Does it make it more complicated getting the shareholder OBC if you don’t have a share certificate?

Thanks for the helpful replies. I’m going to go for it. Can anyone recommend a good place to buy the shares where there is a low fee, no annual cost and it’s easy to get the OBC added for each cruise? I’d prefer having a share certificate, but it seems that many companies don’t issue them and just keep your shares in a nominee account?

They are quite common in restaurants with tasting menus. There is a wine that is paired with each course (usually a small glass, so that you can get through them all). P&O use the term for 3 different wines in the Glasshouse, but a wine flight in a restaurant is usually more. Often an aperitif and / or sparking wine to start, white(s) with the first courses, moving to red(s) with main, desert wine and sometimes port with cheese. All chosen by the sommelier to pair with each course. When we have had tasting menus in posh restaurants ashore I can never have the wine flight as I’m driving. Obviously on a cruise I wouldn’t have that worry!

Out of interest, was that a cruise offering special discounts for Blue Light Card holders, as opposed to the normal Blue Light Card discount? The reason I ask is that I asked the TA to apply Blue Light Discount to one of our daughters cabins and the discount was less than the shareholder OBC would be (not that she would have qualified for shareholder OBC as I realise that this will only be applied to my cabin)

I don’t have any Carnival U.K. shares, but as we are now commencing cruising in the post-Covid era and the share price is still low (£7 per share versus around £30-40 per share when we last cruised Pre Covid) I am thinking that it may be worthwhile. As I understand it, you need 100 shares, so an outlay of around £700? We have 3 cruises booked with P&O this year (2 x 14 night and 1 x 7 night) and a 14 night cruise with Cunard in Spring 2024 so, if I understand the shareholder benefit correctly, we would get most of our investment back via OBC within just 12 months? Do you have to have had the shares for a minimum period (3 months?) before you can apply for the OBC benefit? I’m wondering if I’m too late for our July cruise? Are there any other qualifying conditions that mean that, if I buy now, may prevent me from getting OBC? My biggest question / concern is over bookings that have received discounts, as this seems to be a disqualifying factor? All our bookings are via a big cruise specialist TA that many of us use, and all have a discount (albeit not a huge one). Having done a bit of Googling, it would appear that some Carnival brands have started refusing shareholder OBC unless the booking was made at the full advertised rate. Does this ring any bells with anyone? I don’t want to buy the shares and then find that we can only get the OBC by booking direct at full price. Thanks.

Thanks. That’s a thumbs up from two of you, so I think we will give it a go. Shame that they don’t have a wine flight with it, as the lovely thing about being on a cruise is not having to drive afterwards!

That’s great. Thank you. For someone who says that they aren’t good at reviews, that’s a brilliantly written summary. You should do more! I’m pleased to hear that you can see the views going down the fjords, as I have a recollection from our previous Epicurean visits (on Britannia) that there were net curtains over the windows, and we wouldn’t want to miss the views. Thanks again. Edit - Sorry, forgot to ask. Is it at one set time, or can you choose a time?

I absolutely get why kids club staff might do something like this during school holidays on family ships as a sort of treasure hunt for young kids, and I’d have no issue with that whatsoever. However, I still don’t get what gives a passenger the right to think that they can unilaterally decide to litter the ship with this tat and think that it’s acceptable. I can see this featuring on one of the many cruise programmes on TV, as they seem to like to highlight things that make cruise passengers look eccentric or odd. When I was working, many colleagues were staggered that we liked cruising, such is the reputation that it gets from things such as this!

That always frustrates me on Aurora. Having to wait outside the cabin for ages for the door to close and, when entering, being on show to all passers by for what feels like an eternity!

When we did it (some years ago) the drop off point was just outside Vatican City. Might have changed since.

We haven’t cruised since Nov 2019 Dai and therefore not yet been on Iona or Arvia, which are targeted at a different market, or for that matter any P&O ships in the post-Covid era, so obviously I can only go on the experiences of others at the moment. However, with 3 different P&O ships now booked for the next 6 months I will indeed be able to revert to my personal experiences and will report back as I find it - good and bad. There’s absolutely no way that we would have booked an August cruise on Iona, but the partner of one of our daughters is a teacher, and as we were keen to do a family holiday we had no choice. I guess if we survive that in one piece we will be very happy to fill our boots with cheap off season cruises on Iona and Arvia, as we like the sound of all the dining options!

That’s good to hear, but of course it’s no longer the school holidays. That seems to make a vast difference.

Did anyone answer Jean? I’m still at a complete loss as to what the point is!

Oh dear. Just when I was starting to believe that things were pretty much sorted now on Iona 😞. We are on her in August, which will be busier again than an Easter school holiday cruise 😱. ‘Woeful’ MDR service is not what we pay for and I absolutely detest the smell or fumes of cigarettes or vapes, so anybody doing that on their balcony would get a mouthful from me, followed by a call to reception (if they ever answer the phone). We have had one previous cruise where some appalling parents allowed their young children to run around in front of performers in the show lounge which, as well as being disrespectful to other passengers (as it spoiled the performance), must have been incredibly distracting for the performers. That was bad enough, but the same sort of experience in the theatre is shocking. What is it with so many parents these day? Our kids were pretty good when they were young, but if ever one started kicking off or crying in a restaurant or show one of us took them outside until they calmed down so as not to annoy other people. We would also never let them get down from a table in a restaurant, annoying other guests or getting in the way of serving staff, yet this seems to be common practice for many these days.

I understand that lots of people enjoy craft activities, which I guess that this falls under, but I still don’t understand why they feel the need to place them around the ship, and make an entire multi million pounds cruise ship look like a kids play area. I am obviously missing something (not for the first time)!

That’s great to hear, as Britannia is the first ship we are on and Epicurean on Britannia has always been our favourite P&O restaurant.