Selbourne

That’s good to hear. Hopefully P&O have dispensed with the policy now.

I wasn’t actually referring to the pre-boarding health declarations, although I accept that people lied on these pre Covid and will probably do so even more now! I was thinking more about people catching it on board, which is arguably more likely. Either way, the issue is the same though, in that procedures pre Covid were entirely different. If someone came on board with a virus, or caught it on board, and was selfish enough to share a table (as somebody once did with us), then you might have caught it, but you could carry on with your cruise as normal (albeit feeling rough). With Covid on the scene, if you shared a table with someone who the next day reported Covid symptoms and then tested positive, you could be classed as a close contact and be told that you had to be quarantined in your cabin, which would ruin your cruise. As I say, an entirely different approach. I have lost track with what the current approach is though. Do people still have to quarantine if they test positive on board? If so, do they quarantine in their booked cabin or are there still quarantine zones? Does anyone know for certain?

Interesting and this, of course, is where the problems arise. Many who may have Covid symptoms won’t test or report it, but will continue to enjoy their cruise, hopefully being sensible and not dining with other passengers or sitting close to others, just as you would do at home or on any other holiday for that matter. However, if you dine with other passengers who report symptoms, not only is their cruise ruined, but yours is too.

You raise an interesting question. P&O have been (and remain) somewhat ‘cloak and dagger’ about their on board Covid policies. The scenario described by @9265359 certainly was the case, and is undoubtedly why the demand for tables for 2 has risen. We used to enjoy a mix of sharing and tables for 2, but we wouldn’t risk sharing anymore now for fear of this happening to us. The same mystery surrounds the thorny subject of quarantine cabins, where ‘zones’ of cabins were (are?) reserved for those who succumb to the virus and report it. This approach resulted in people having their pre-booked cabins moved (or even their cruise cancelled) a matter of weeks before their cruise. I have no idea whether or not this still happens, whether people now isolate in their own cabin or indeed if it’s now like everywhere else and no isolation is needed at all. I haven’t been convinced that just because people haven’t fallen foul of any of this themselves whilst on a cruise that some, or all, of these rather draconian rules aren’t still in place, or are available as an option should there be a Covid flare up on board. I know that we aren’t the only ones who have been hesitant about making a booking whilst there is still some uncertainty about these issues. Perhaps @molecrochip could shed some light on what the current situation is?

Following the useful discussion on this thread, we decided over lunch that we’d try to book on this cruise, just as a filler holiday to get away from the current gloom & doom and cold weather. Like you, we had reservations about a Saver (we’ve only ever booked one Saver, when we knew exactly which cabin we were getting), so decided to go for a Deluxe Balcony, as there are only four accessible ones and they are together in a great location. Sadly, it was all in vain. All accessible balcony cabins, of all grades, are sold out!

That’s interesting. Just spoken to our TA (the one that most regulars on here use) and their system just shows ‘to be allocated’ when you try to book a balcony cabin on a Saver basis. Whether or not this is unique to accessible cabins I don’t know.

Funnily enough, whilst we rarely sit on our balcony even in the summer, we would never cruise without one, whatever the time of year. For us, having a balcony is about the expansive view out from within the cabin and the ability to pop out when something catches our eye, plus to watch arrivals and departures from ports. In fact, we often sleep with the curtains open, in order that we can see the view as soon as we awake, before getting out of bed. One of the best experiences we had was a Northern Lights cruise, where we had spectacular views from our warm cabin and even a great display of the Northern Lights one night from the comfort of our bed 😂 For all of these reasons, a ‘balcony’ cabin of any type on the Promenade deck just wouldn’t work for us, so would in fact be a deal breaker. As it happens, there don’t appear to be any accessible Conservatory Mini-Suites (which is a relief) but there are two GC grade accessible balcony cabins on the promenade deck and we would not wish to be allocated one of those, which is a risk with a Saver. Unfortunately, on the cruise in question, the premium for a Select fare is ridiculous, especially as Iona is all Freedom Dining, so one of the major advantages of booking a Select fare is negated.

Exactly half the price of dual occupancy, so a nice treat for Solo’s not to have to pay any supplement at all. Could be tempted to try Iona before our August cruise at those prices (with Mrs Selbourne, of course), but my only worry with booking a Saver is that we might get ‘upgraded’ to one of those dreadful Conservatory cabins on the promenade deck and inadvertently become part of the ships entertainment for 2 weeks 😂

I haven’t been to Butlins since I was a kid in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I absolutely loved it then, but it hasn’t appealed as an adult, even when we had young kids of our own. I do, however, know people who do both Butlins and P&O cruises nowadays, and when I asked about the differences, the view was that for an overall experience the P&O cruise wins, but the entertainment is better at Butlins. I don’t think that the Entertainment Managers (or whatever they are called these days) help when it comes to people making these comparisons. In true ‘Red Coat’ style, the pathetic “Are you all having a good time?” questions to the audience absolutely smacks of holiday camps and, if I had the courage, rather than saying “yes” (which, by the way, I never join in with, as I’m not in a nursing home), I would shout out “Hi-di-Hi” 😂

You are welcome. We really like Britannia. The only negative for us is the lack of a promenade deck, so an inside cabin wouldn’t be good on her on a scenic cruise. We also had several problems with an aft suite, but have had a few cruises in forward facing suites in Britannia that we really enjoyed (you get your own private Crows Nest, with seating, in the massive bedroom). With it being your honeymoon you could also use Epicurean for a special meal (our favourite restaurant at sea). Sounds like a good compromise to me.

We are fairly unique amongst the long standing P&O customers on this forum, in that we don’t like Arcadia. We had a very nice (but dated) corner aft suite and we enjoyed having breakfast in Sindhu (a suite passengers benefit) but that’s about all. We found that the main dining room was poorly run and it’s the only P&O ship we’ve been on where they were handing out pagers at lunch, even though the restaurant was near empty. That could well have been unique to our cruise, but we’ve never had that on any other P&O ship. Dinner, yes, but never lunchtime. The restaurant has a circular ‘motorway gangway’ that if you are seated alongside is like being on the hard shoulder of the M25 (OK, a bit of an exageration, but you get my drift 😂). We like a quiet drink in a bar before dinner and found that any bars nearby were used for a quiz with the host using a booming microphone that destroyed conversation anywhere nearby. We also didn’t like the design of the theatre. When we dined in the top select dining restaurant (Ocean Grill?) there was a live band with a poor quality singer in there which really spoiled the experience (although the lead singer was so bad it was a source of amusement to our daughters). Most others rave about the ship, but we won’t go on her again. I note that the cruise is for your honeymoon. I don’t know what age you are, but the age profile of passengers is massively different on the adult only ships. The average passenger age on Aurora and Arcadia is around 75. I’m not exaggerating to make a point BTW. That’s factual info. Conversely on Britannia on our last cruise on her it was 45. A 30 year difference. Iona will probably be younger again as P&O are targeting the ‘new to cruising’ market. Although my wife and I are ‘only’ in our 50s, we really like cruising with the older folk as it makes for a less noisy / rowdy environment. Our daughters (both in their 20s) came with us on Arcadia and described it as a floating old peoples home 😂 . We haven’t been on Iona but are doing so next August. I must confess I’m not particularly looking forward to it, but one of our daughters partners is a teacher so we are stuck with school holidays when they come with us and our daughters love the newer / bigger ships which are far more geared up to their age group. Hope that helps.

My wife can’t fly either, due to her disability, so we have the same limitations. Thankfully we found a perfect itinerary for us with Cunard this time.

Thanks. When discussing the changes that we have witnessed on P&O over the past 10 years or so (declining quality of experience, but offset by lower prices), I have often said that we would happily pay more for a better experience. That’s why I’ve titled this thread as ‘putting our money where our mouth is’. As you say, Cunard is a definite step up in price from P&O, but several people that we know (who use both lines) have assured us that it’s also a step up in quality (and you feel the same). We are definitely at a stage in life where we prioritise quality over quantity. We don’t want to do as many cruises as we used to. One advantage of the past few years has been that we have discovered that there are other holidays that we can do that we enjoy as much as, or even more than, cruises. You are quite right that cabin sizes in Britannia Club are the same size as standard Britannia cabins. The main advantage for us is the enhanced dining experience, although the cabins are in the best locations after the grill classes. One advantage of having to have an accessible cabin is that we get a balcony cabin that is 50% bigger at no extra cost. That’s why we stopped using Suites when my wife’s condition deteriorated to the point that we couldn’t cruise without an accessible cabin, as the main advantage of a suite (the extra space) was negated.

Having not cruised with Cunard before, my comment was in comparison to P&O. The price that we are paying for a Britannia Club cabin on Cunard is the same as we have paid for a Suite with P&O. However, the suite benefits on P&O are very poor. We already get priority boarding with them due to our loyalty tier and the only enhanced dining experience is at breakfast. Other than the larger cabin, none of the other P&O suite ‘benefits’ are worth anything to us, and as we have to have an accessible cabin, even our BC one on Queen Anne will be a decent size. Your point about inflation is well made though. As my wife keeps telling me, “everything is getting a lot more expensive”!

Whilst we haven’t cruised with Cunard before, we did a ships tour and lunch on QM2. We were quite surprised at how close the tables were to each other in the grill’s restaurants.

Yes I’ve seen the Queen Anne deck plans. Looks fine to us. My understanding is that they have had to enhance the BC experience, as one of the main attractions was the freedom to dine whenever you wish, which has now been introduced to Britannia (albeit without a ‘designated table throughout the cruise’ and the possible need to wait / get a pager for a table for 2) . On some cruises, the Club premium seemed excessive, but on the cruise we have booked it was ‘just’ £1,000 more than the Britannia cabin that would have been our second choice, and over 14 nights that was more than acceptable.

Thanks Andrew. Close friends of ours who have identical tastes have been on both lines, multiple times, during and since the pandemic. Their view is that they prefer the cruise experience even standard ‘Britannia’ class on Cunard to being in a Suite with P&O. Interestingly, P&O don’t have an equivalent of Britannia Club (that we have booked) and we very much like the sound of our own table for 2 in a smaller MDR that is for our exclusive use for the entire cruise (breakfast, lunch and dinner) at whatever time we like, with no need to book or get pagers. You also get the full MDR menu plus some additional a’la carte choices at dinner, with touches such as dishes flambéed at the table, and that’s every day of the cruise. We shall have to see what we make of it, but on our last 3 or 4 P&O cruises we felt that the MDR food had deteriorated (with the exception of Gala nights) and that was before the latest cutbacks.

Thanks. We are A1 but it’s Queen Anne which will probably be different? I’m told that on QM2 Britannia Club is just a section of the main Britannia restaurant, whereas on Queen Anne (and possibly the other ships?) it’s a separate restaurant.

We are likely to book a Saga cruise as well. Their currently advertised itineraries didn’t appeal as much, so we will keep an eye on future releases.

We have had aft suites on Britannia, Ventura and Arcadia. We were going to book one on Iona, but we don’t like the fact that they are set back with an outside bar (source of noise) and huge canopy underneath, and the sole aft accessible suite is quite low down. So we booked a mid ships Deluxe balcony cabin (on the ‘hump’) instead with nothing underneath us. As stated, I’m fully aware that we could have had a suite on P&O for the same price, but the whole point is that we want to experience other cruise lines as we have fallen slightly out of love with P&O. Maybe our Iona and Ventura cruises next year may restore some confidence? We shall see.

Having done pretty much all ex-UK itineraries, the one outstanding was actually British Isles! The Queen Anne itinerary ticks every box for us. We didn’t want to do Guernsey, Dublin or France (most P&O ones do at least 2 of those) and we definitely wanted to do Belfast, Liverpool and the Scottish Isles. Also, only one stop (Edinburgh) is a tender port, which is great as my wife is a full time wheelchair user and is stuck on the ship at those.

Yes, we wanted an accessible Britannia Club balcony cabin. There are only two of them and we had managed our expectations, assuming that they would both go on release days to high loyalty tier customers. I was therefore extremely surprised, as a first timer with Cunard, to receive a call within 90 minutes to say that we were all booked and had secured our first choice cabin!

Interesting. With the cost of living crisis, it has been speculated that cruises will be harder to sell (being the ultimate discretionary purchase), but the launch prices seemed steep to us! Maybe they will reduce closer to sailing, but we need an accessible balcony cabin and there are only two of those in Britannia Club, so we couldn’t risk waiting. P.S. We love Ventnor. Lunch in the Spyglass Inn followed by a walk along the wheelchair friendly promenade to Bonchurch. The planetary facts on the ‘Space Walk’ never cease to amaze me, even though I’ve read them all countless times!

We are very keen to try Saga and, having now secured a cruise with Cunard, they are likely to be our next booking. Itinerary is always the number one deciding factor for us and is one of the several reasons that we haven’t booked P&O for a while. We can only cruise ex U.K. and have done almost all the P&O itineraries, some several times. Consequently, nothing has appealed in the last few releases. We have always wanted to do a round U.K. cruise, but I don’t like Dublin, we’ve been to Guernsey countless times and France isn’t in the U.K. so most of the P&O ones haven’t appealed! The Queen Anne cruise does Edinburgh, Invergorden (for Inverness), Kirkwall (Orkneys), two days cruising the West Coast Scottish Isles, Greenock (for Glasgow), Belfast, Liverpool and Cobh (for Cork), so goes to everywhere that we want to go to and nowhere that we don’t! It’s also at the time of year with the longest daylight hours. With my wife being a wheelchair user, the fact that only one port is a tender port is great for us (and that’s Edinburgh, where we spent a few days just a few years ago). We weren’t worried which Cunard ship it was, but it will be nice to try a brand new one, as long as her launch isn’t delayed any further!

I do hope that those who are high loyalty tiers with Cunard managed to get their bookings secured as soon as bookings opened today, as the supposed 24 hour exclusivity period lasted a maximum of an hour! We are first timers on Cunard and had our first choice cabin confirmed and deposit paid within 90 minutes of bookings opening today, even though we shouldn’t have been able to book until 24 hours later. Whether this was universal or just selected TA’s I don’t know, but our TA was geared up for this as they say it happened last time as well.