Bennybluehat

All great advice, thank you. Although I have never actually been sick, there have been times when I feel quite nauseous. I find the cabin and especially the bathroom are the worst places to be for making me feel that way. Do you think you are better to lie down or keep moving around in this situation?

Thanks for the advice. The port and brandy sounds good and if I drink enough of it I’m sure it would at least take my mind off the sea sickness! I’ve been looking into the ginger option and Holland & Barratt sell a chewy ginger sweet which looks quite good for nausea and motion sickness.

Any ideas for keeping queeziness at bay without taking tablets? Ive heard ginger is good but in what form?

It depends on whether you want lots to do for the children with a smaller cabin or not much to do with a big cabin. How much time will you all spend in your cabin compared to how much entertainment and activities you intend to do. For me it’s a no brainer - it’s Indy every time! Can’t wait to see what they do in the refit.

We are cruising on Azura & have been ‘upgraded’ onto D deck but there is a large void area next to our cabin. The void stretches from midship to aft & we are concerned about what is in it in case it is loud machinery or a staff area where there’s constant noise. Does anyone know what is in this void?

I think Gala's OK, but not the best name. Still, it's way better than the two new Celebrity ships. Celebrity Edge and Celebrity Beyond! Really? As for the size, I love cruising on medium size ships and I like the big ones too. I'm looking forward to my cruise on Symphony of the Seas next year. Which I'm sure will appal the size snobs.

Very jealous, I bet Symphony will be awesome.

I’ve been looking at cruises out of Southampton for next year and I wondered why we will now have explorer of the seas rather than navigator, maybe that answers it. Can’t wait to get back onboard an RCI ship!

I agree with everything you have said. P&O are replacing Adonia with Aurora as an adult only ship and are bringing on line 2 more huge family ships which will have a much larger capacity than Aurora so they are in fact catering more for families than for the retired and elderly. I hope that if / when they pension off Oriana that they will make Oceana adult only so that we still have the choice of 3 adult only ships.

People seem to think that a large ship is for younger passengers and family’s. This seems to be the case for other cruise lines but unless P&O fit these new large ships out with amusements like ice skating rinks, flow riders etc what are they actually doing to encourage the younger market? They can build the largest ship in the world but if they don’t put things onboard to attract younger passengers they will fail their target market and the older passengrs. Where then does this leave P&O?

I fully sympathise with those who have been disappointed on this occason..... but retired and elderly people also have family and commitments to work around and regardless of age or stage of employment, we ALL invest a lot of time, emotion and money into choosing our holidays and are disappointed if these are cancelled for no fault of our own.

 

People who had booked on the adult only Adonia were also disappointed only recently, so I don't see how you can say P&O are catering more and more for the retired and elderly especially as there are 4 other family friendly ships in the fleet plus another two huge ones in the offing for the families and young market compared to now three adult only ones but with the constant threat of one of those disappearing.

Have you seen or heard the entertainment on-board P&O?! If that's not catering towards the elderly amongst us I don't know what is!

Not happy at all. Booked for Scottish school holidays in October 2019 on the first day bookings opened to ensure we had the cabins and cruise we wanted. What are we supposed to do now? No other cruise that is during this time is the same length, price or itinary. 5% compensation off a further cruise is insulting and doesn't cover the price hikes 5 months after booking. No unruly children in our group and never have been just parents with well travelled 15, 18 and 22 year olds with a collective 78 cruises under their belts. In all the times we have cruised we have seen more badly behaved adults than children so are happy to unload them from our family holiday to ships dedicated to their needs...alcohol...bullying staff....sunbed hogging whilst napping in their cabin...pomposity and bragging. They are welcome to an adults only ship. My issue is that P&O took my booking knowing full well it would be cancelled. Very poor. Will see what we think of them now on the 3 cruises we have booked for this year and decide if this will be our last year. Im sure Princess and Celebrity will welcome us back.

I totally agree with you. That's no compensation for being let down in the way you have. It's not easy to plan holidays if you have work & family to book your holiday around but P&O seem to be catering more & more for a retired, elderly passengers who don't have those commitments. You are spot on with the unruly adults aswell, we've seen far more badly behaved adults than we have seen kids. RCI etc will be getting my business in future aswell!

Well the only time we cruised on family friendly was on Azura and it was a nightmare. young Teens pressing every lift button in the evening. Then at the Adult Only pool at the stern, the Kids Club arrived and got in the pool. One little kid vomited in the pool so it was unuseable for 24 hours. Never again.

.......What a terrible generalised comment.;)

You must do the wrong cruises. We have sailed 6 times on Oriana and I have never found her like a care home. There were lots of folk in their fifties, some a lot younger than that and of course some a lot older. We are in our 70s, but like second dining, the shows, staying up late etc. What a terrible generalised comment.

You obviously weren’t on the same cruise we were. I have much respect for elderly people and enjoy their company, that wasn’t the issue. The problem was all the entertainment was aimed at the over 60s and there literally was nothing put on for younger passengers. It was a Northern lights cruise and you had to be relatively fit to do the excursions as well as be mobile enough to move around on ice and snow which wasn’t the case for many passengers, so you are wrong making the comment that we were on the wrong cruise as we were in the minority that could do actually do dog sledding, snowmobiling etc. We even spoke to a couple in their 80s who said they had no intention of leaving the ship, they only cruise on Oriana because their every need is cared for whilst onboard. It was actually quite depressing with no young blood around.

I’ve sailed on Aurora twice and if it is going to be adults only it looks like I won’t sail on her again. Such a shame, I liked the ship but after sailing on Oriana I can not do another adults only cruise. I don’t want rowdy children running around but I also don’t want to sail on what was almost a care home at sea. Aurora had a good mix of ages onboard and suited everyone who didn’t like the massive ships.

Does anyone know when RCI cruises sailing from Southampton in 2019 will be announced? Thanks for replies in advance.

I like the buffet on Azura; the food is good and plentiful but finding a seat can be a pain. You should be OK for late night buffets but breakfast and lunch can turn into bunfights as everybody scrambles for a seat.

I’m glad to hear the food is good. On recent P&O cruises the food in the buffet has been acceptable but nothing to write home about. You are right about the bun fights at busy times so we tend to get in early and avoid the chaos!

I have cruised on the smaller ships and the massive ones. As a 40 something,at this time in my life, i prefer the larger ships for one reason and it actually has nothing to do with the size. It is the amount of things to see and do whilst on-board. I totally get why the small ships are popular and I do like them especially as they can get into the smaller ports. As I get older I think I probably will like them best but on a long cruise I find I need more to keep me occupied which the big ships always win hands down. If P&O don't address this with the new ships they might as well not bother. Saying that I don't understand why they can't have both size ships to suite different needs and likes.

Thank you for the replies. We like to go to the buffet after we have been to the theatre for a drink and snack so it’s good to know we will be able to do that on Azura.:D

We are soon cruising on Azura which we have never been on before. On previous cruises we tend to use the buffet quite a lot and we are wondering what the buffet is like on Azura and whether it is open 24hrs unlike the the ones on Aurora and Oriana which we have previously cruised on.

For all those who were kind enough to help us by contributing to this thread, many thanks; we are now back from our QM2 voyage and had a fantastic day in NYC.

 

Cunard did lay on a transfer bus it cost $49 each and left Redhook at 0730 - it dropped us in East 34th street just near Macys at around 0810. The rest of the day we walked it. We made our way up 7th avenue through times square then across to 6th avenue via a nice Starbucks then up to 59th st where we met our horse drawn carriage and had a fantastic tour around Central Park. Then back down 5th Avenue via a lunch stop, the beautiful St Patricks cathedral and countless shops back to Macys which had a sale on and where we got some very nice household stuff, clothing and shoes. Look at the watch 1400hrs time for the bus back to the ship. Sore feet but a lovely day.

Thank you for the very up to date information! I think we need to do a bit of planning, decide what we want to see the most and plan a route to fit into that timescale. I know I will have to stick to my route because as previousley mentioned I think I could get side tracked by other amazing places if I’m not careful! Just a quick question, how did you find immigration, was it relatively quick and efficient for you as I have heard it can be a bit of a nightmare and with all the horrendous terror attacks in the world at the moment I can imagine it could take even longer in the future?

Thank you for all your information. I do like the sound of the shuttle bus, it would mean that, although our time in Manhattan was brief, we would be able to see up close some of the places that are on top of our list to see. I’m glad it’s quite easy to navigate with a bit of homework and we can both cover a lot of ground as we are used to sprinting around in our every day lives! All we need is a hearty breakfast on the ship & we’ll be set up for the day!

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I get what you are saying about the short time we will have in NY so an organised tour probably is the way to go. I did read somewhere that Cunard provides a shuttle service that you pay for that will drop & pick you up outside Maceys. Does anyone have any knowledge of this such as how often they run & what time is the final bus back to the ship?

Thank you for your fast reply. That is very true I never looked at it like that. Yes that is the trip we have booked and it’s a nice surprise to have the National Symphany Orchestra onboard as it’s something we were not aware of when we booked. I take it you have done this journey previously? We haven’t visited New York before so is there any advice about the ship or destination you could give us?

We have booked our first voyage on the QM2, the round trip transatlantic for next year which we are very much looking forward to. We have cruised on various cruise ships but never on a liner or Cunard before. Whilst browsing through the other itineries for next year I noticed the westbound only trip for the same date shows guest speaker Anthony Inglis and The National Symphany Orcestra onboard but nothing is mentioned about this on the round trip. Is there an explanation why this would be?

They don't show BT sports.

 

They show sport24 which is available on your cabin tv as well as the sports bar

 

http://www.sport24-tv.com

 

Brian

Thanks for that, I have clicked on the link and the event we are wanting to watch is actually listed on there and it falls on a sea day so fingers crossed they will be showing it!

We are cruising on Aurora soon and while we are onboard there is a particular sporting event we would like to see which will be shown live on the BT sports channel. Does anyone know if the sport they show in the sports bars on P and O is predetermined or is there a chance they will show certain events on request presuming they do show BT sports?