Selbourne

It’s not a box. You order up to three things and they each come in a separate little metal lidded pot, stacked on top one another. Yes it’s chargeable but very reasonable - and a nice change to the normal lunches.

Glad it’s not just us then! We are on Ventura next week and in Club dining for the first time since Freedom was introduced, so I’m hoping that we can have a bottle of each on the go. We’ve got a chunk of OBC to work through 😂

We haven’t been on Aurora since a few months before Covid, but feedback from then would be as follows; Epicurean - as stated, there isn’t one. This is the biggest negative about Aurora IMHO. We love the ship, but always wish that there was a fine dining restaurant on board. Beach House - we like the Beach House on Aurora as it’s not as big and noisy as on some of the newer ships. The steaks on lava rock are just superb and the hanging kebabs are excellent too. The starters aren’t brilliant (I like the Nachos with chorizo though) and the puds are poor, but the mains are so big that it’s not a big issue. Sindhu - The food is OK but we don’t like the location on Aurora, as it’s around the atrium in an area that is used as an overspill for the coffee shop during the day. They used to do ‘Tiffin’ lunches on sea days, which were excellent, but whether or not they’ve stopped since Covid I don’t know (perhaps those who’ve just disembarked can advise?) Glasshouse - This is a bit of a hidden gem on Aurora, as it’s in a dedicated area off a very quiet corridor with next to no passing traffic, so it’s far nicer than the Glasshouses that surround the atriums on other ships. We love it for lunch (when it’s usually very quiet) but it’s very popular for dinner.

Yes, we noticed on Britannia and Iona this summer that it was no more expensive to buy wine by the glass (when available) but it’s far more about convenience for us. I like to have a bottle of white and a bottle of red on the go, as I will often have white with a starter and sometimes switch to red for a main course. My wife drinks very little alcohol nowadays due to her condition, and a very small glass is often adequate for her. She will rarely order by the glass as she doesn’t always want that much. Whilst in the main the drinks waiters brought the glasses of wine fairly quickly, I only ever ordered a wine for the main course, as it sometimes didn’t arrive until I was already eating the starter (or had even finished it). I can’t help but wonder if the abolition of wine waiters in the MDRs is a cost cutting measure that may have backfired, as we certainly spend less on wine now than we used to!

Thanks Jean. We are on second sitting on Ventura next week, so I’ll be interested to see if they allow unfinished bottles of wine to be kept for the next visit. We also noticed the previously ‘always available’ items being used to pad out the menu (as opposed to just being stated at the bottom, as they used to be) but, thankfully, I like roasts on cruise ships so I always found something that I was happy with! We don’t miss the evening turndown either!

Pleased to hear that you had an enjoyable cruise Jean, in spite of the mediocre food, and welcome back. As we are now booked to go on Aurora in January, can I ask you a few questions please? Dining - You were obviously in Club dining. Is the MyHoliday app being used to book the MDR for breakfast, lunch and (if on Freedom dining) dinner, or is the app not used for the MDRs at all, and it’s just a case of turning up and entering immediately or getting a pager (I.e. the ‘old’ way)? Wine - Have they reverted to holding unfinished bottles of wine in the MDR for your next visit? Guest Speakers - did you have a few different speakers, or just one throughout? Were they any good? Apart from the food not being as good, any other noticeable differences to the pre-Covid Aurora? Many thanks

Yes, I thought as much. We were booked on an Iceland cruise that was cancelled due to Covid and I had it in my head that we were berthing at 2 or 3 places, but every Iceland cruise that I’ve looked at since (P&O, Cunard and Saga) seem to be mostly tender ports. My wife is happy for me to go ashore and leave her on the ship, but when most of the ports are tender or possible tender I think that’s unfair on her. Thankfully there are only two definite tender ports on our 65 nighter and I’ve booked a tour for myself for one of those (Belize) as it’s a river cruise where you might see Alligators etc. I’ve also booked a tour in Colon, Panama (railroad to Panama City and visit to the Panama Canal centre) as that’s a yellow fever hotspot, and if my wife ends up with an exemption certificate it might be sensible for her to remain on board that day, which she’s happy to do. We do a partial transit of the Panama Canal the day after, so she will at least see some of it.

In all honesty, if we were able to fly we would probably prefer that! As that’s not an option for us we had looked at the 24 and 35 nighters, but we are fairly unique in not enjoying long runs of sea days and they occupy a fairly high percentage of the days on those cruises. As whatever duration you choose you cannot avoid the long shlep there and back, and we will almost certainly only go there once, we decided to take the plunge, the two advantages being that we will see a lot more places and the out and back runs are much further apart!

The (early) Saver fare for the 2026 cruise is currently £22,558 for 2 persons in a balcony cabin (£301 per night) versus the (late) saver fare that we paid for the 2024 cruise of £9,998 (£154 per night). The saver standard balcony cabins have now sold out (so that price lasted less than a week), but you can still get a Deluxe balcony cabin on a late saver for £15,998 (£246 per night). On a Select basis, the 2026 cruise is £24,478 on an introductory 10% discount offer, less £690 OBC = £23,788 (£317 per night) for a standard balcony cabin. The 2024 cruise is £20,558 less £1,190 OBC = £19.368 (£298 per night). Not sure I’d be rushing to book 2 years out unless it was a special occasion, I wanted a very specific cabin and I was prepared to pay the Select price.

I’m pleased that you’ve had confirmation that this would be possible and just wanted to say what a lovely gesture this is for your staff. I’d hazard an educated guess that you must be a very good boss to work for 👍

That must be the reason John. It was down as a confirmed tender port. Thankfully, out of 28 ports we have just 2 confirmed tender ports and 4 possibles, where fingers crossed we might get to berth in a few of them. That was another reason why this particular itinerary appealed. We were keen to go to Iceland at some stage but, other than Reykjavik, most other ports seem to be tenders.

We are probably going to be the only people on the cruise who are relived that they did. As well as being a tender port (which means my wife wouldn’t have been able to get off), St Lucia is the only island in the Caribbean that we’ve previously been to. We spent an enjoyable week there around 30 years ago!

That’s fine. Sad though I am, I like watching the pre departure comings and goings (including late arrivals 😂) and the stevedores doing their bit, as well as looking back on where we’ve been as we leave. All part of the adventure of cruising for me.

Our trip is purely focussed on the Caribbean, so as well as plenty of the islands we do Central America and a tiny bit of the top of South America, but not South America proper - I think that’s the following year (and may have been last year as well). Of the 28 ports we’ve only been to Miami and Key West before (but neither by sea) so everywhere else is new. Funnily enough we tend to eat at around 6.30pm at home, but the reason that we don’t like first sitting on a cruise is because we like to watch all the sail-aways from our balcony, then get ready for dinner (which takes my wife a while) and then have a pre-dinner drink. That’s why we tend to go for dinner at around 8.30pm, so either second sitting or freedom would work for us. Hopefully we will either be lucky and be allocated one of the two, or they will look kindly upon us!

This was our thinking as well Clodia. We are younger, but my wife’s condition is such that we are unlikely to be able to do this in a few years time. We were just so lucky to get a cancelled accessible balcony cabin, as we couldn’t have gone without it. Booking a late saver we are having to take pot luck with dining, which isn’t ideal, but a small price to pay for the saving. We can live with second sitting or freedom and will consider sharing, as it would probably enhance the experience on a cruise like that. We wouldn’t like first sitting, but I’m hoping that as that’s usually the most popular choice they might allow us to change if we are allocated it. I suspect that there will be others who are allocated freedom or second sitting and would prefer first sitting. Well that’s my theory anyway 😂

We had a new Combi boiler installed at the end of last year, and when I switched it to ‘hot water only’ for the warmer months this year I noticed that it had a default frost protection setting. I think ours is 7 degrees. I’m thinking that I might leave the heating on 10 degrees at night (as we do when in the house, as I don’t like the heating coming whilst we are sleeping) and maybe 12 degrees during the daytime. Hopefully that should be enough to keep potential problems at bay!

Thank you. Much appreciated. Like many people, we had some reservations having read all the comments about the post Covid cruise experience, but our two P&O cruises so far this year have reassured us that we can still enjoy it. Most of the widely reported cutbacks didn’t affect us, and those that did we mostly found workarounds for. We are reverting to fixed dining on Ventura next week, for the first time since Freedom was introduced, following some of the challenges that we had with Freedom on Britannia. Hope we don’t regret it, as we subsequently had no issues with Freedom dining on Iona! Good that we have a choice though. As you often say, we won’t go hungry 😂 I will endeavour to do a ‘Live from’, especially as it will give me something to do on sea days, which I sometimes struggle with. I’m too mean to pay P&Os internet prices for the whole cruise, but I’m planning on following the excellent tip of buying the odd 24 hours pm to pm to give some coverage over 2 sea days.

That is a pre-heat setting that Combi boilers have. I turn that feature off as I’m tight fisted 😂

That’s my worry. If the boiler shuts down and the heating goes off, we potentially have an even greater risk of a problems! Besides, our daughters will be checking on the house regularly and will need water for the loo etc. I guess that nothing is without a degree of risk and that’s why we have insurance.

I’m definitely going to keep the heating on low, not just to prevent the risk of pipes freezing but also to minimise damp. I had wondered about turning the water off, but presumed that you might need it left on for the Combi boiler? Also (and this might be a daft idea) but I had also thought of asking our daughters to run the hot taps for a bit each time they visit to put some warmth through the pipes? I suppose there’s a danger that could bring about a problem? It is a worry because, even though we are insured, the damage could be horrendous.

This is a big concern for me as, unfortunately, I’m already carrying excess baggage before even getting on the ship 😂 Oddly, on our last two cruises I didn’t put any more weight on, but they were only 14 and 7 night cruises. I think that this was because we did a lot of walking and also portion sizes on the ships are a lot smaller than I serve at home (which wasn’t a problem as we were having 3 meals a day). My problem is will power, or lack of it. My wife eats to live, whereas I live to eat 😂. I am going to have to be very careful on this cruise. I don’t do gyms, but thankfully Aurora has an excellent covered promenade deck. I’m going to try to do a lot of laps each day, hopefully before breakfast (if I’m up in time) and during the day. Without being obsessed about it, I’m going to have to go for more healthy choices when dining. I don’t drink that much and can easily cope with just water at lunch and dinner, but we do like a pre-dinner drink. Any other tips to stop long cruise weight gain would be appreciated!

Whilst I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, I do enjoy the art talks (until the point that they turn into sales pitches). We attended them on both Britannia and Iona and enjoyed them. I’ve sometimes even wondered about the passenger choir to help ease the monotony of sea days, but they seem to often clash with lunch, which would be a no-no 😂

We generally feel the same, but on a cruise of this length we will steal ourselves to try more things, especially on the outward and return trans-Atlantic crossings. We are really hoping that we aren’t disappointed in this area, as guest lecturers are usually the highlight of sea days for us, but P&O seem to have cut back on them and on our two week Britannia cruise in July the principal speakers talks were all very similar and none appealed. Same here. There will still be far more choice than at home. I may even steal myself to try one or two vegetarian choices to mix it up a little 😂

Hmmm. Maybe, although any trip to the laundry will be a maiden visit 😂 I might just use some of the refund we are getting to pay for the ships laundry service!

Thankfully neither of us are fussy eaters, so the inevitable menu repeats shouldn’t be particularly problematic. I guess that on longer cruises it may be possible to get into speciality restaurants without having pre-booked? Certainly the trans-Atlantic crossings are going to be the low point, but sadly as we cannot fly it’s an inevitable inconvenience if we are to ever go there. We really struggled with 6 sea days in a row each way when we did our USA & Canada 24 nighter (particularly the return) and said that we wouldn’t do it again, but it was North Atlantic and cold with force 10 and 11 seas for most of the outward and return crossings (tail end of several big storm systems). Fingers crossed that this time will be a little more tolerable, firstly because the longest unbroken run of sea days is 5 both ways (outward via Madeira and Bermuda - somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, and return via the Azores) and secondly because the weather will hopefully be kinder, certainly for part of it.