Neecy1

9 hours ago, waddle said:

Would agree with this from a cruise on Azura

 

Everything rattling and shaking when coming into port - not ideal at 6am some mornings 

Totally agree. Happened to us last year on Azura. Great cabin. But oh the vibration. Like being in a blender!

On our recent Briannia cruise I noticed quite a few people not washing their hands before going into the buffet so I started washing my hands on the way out too. Think DH thought I'd gone mad but I kept thinking of the unwashed folk handling the serving utensils and even saw some passengers picking food up with their fingers! 

20 minutes ago, SteveH2508 said:

Have you sailed on Ambassador?

 

A value for money comparison between P&O and Ambassador leaves P&O trailing IMHO. It obviously depends on what are your 'must haves' on  cruise. Big ships, queues, dodgy food and entertainment then P&O is probably a good fit. More traditional cruising style with good service, good food and sensible pricing (and no silly bells and whistles on the ships), then Ambassador might fit the bill.

I don't think I'd call P&O's food dodgy? Never had anything we couldn't eat. Can be a little samey, especially the green beans, but not dodgy. 

Have a great time Andy and Michelle. Weve not long been back. Loved it as much as the first time

True. Not that particular day though as it was a Saturday. We thought we'd try and get ahead of the shoppers. Not sure what went wrong. Traffic/roadworks everywhere.

5 hours ago, david63 said:

To be honest I have never understood the need to rush to get off the ship at the earliest opportunity rather than in a calm orderly manner.

We self disembarked Iona in 2022. We just wanted to get an early start on our long drive back 'up North'. As it was the journey for some strange reason that day took us almost 8 hours. We disembarked at 7am. Glad we didn't leave it any later.

8 hours ago, Presto2 said:

Surely they are doing the cabins up a bit in terms of soft furnishings? The casino is the least of the issues 

Have to agree. We were on the last cruise and the cabins did definitely need a bit of tlc. We thought everywhere else looked pretty good but we didn't go looking tbh.

On 4/8/2024 at 10:34 PM, terrierjohn said:

I believe that even Princess have now succumbed to water slides, and their new Sun Princess has them.

I imagine that any new monster P&O order will likely have water slides and a much fancier water park for the kids.

There was a cruise ship in port on our recent Brittania TA. Can't remember which ship but it had a water slide on the side. Looked horrible. I can appreciate ships having them on the top deck for kids but this looked so awful on the side of the ship.

2 hours ago, GSPG said:

Thanks.

Hope you had a good holiday.
Must feel ‘a bit weird’ berthing up at Southampton today, only to be allowed off tomorrow when it moves to it’s usual berth?

Looking at your sail history, appears you last docked on the 26th March what with not being able to dock at Ponta Delgado. How has everyone got on being at sea for 8-9 days?

It's a bit disappointing not being allowed off but what can you do. Weve got an early coach tomorrow morning so couldn't go home anyway but I can imagine if Andy was in this situation he would've liked to have disemarked and gone home?

There's been a few moaners. We're fine. DH was in the merchant navy so loves sea days as do I. More relaxing. But each to their own. One lady complained to DH there were too many sea days but its a TA and we've only missed one port. We've had a great time. Apart from first nite. No air con in cabin. Had to spend the nite in an inside cabin and DH is claustrophobic. Wasn't great but after a long flight we were exhausted. No apologies from p&o tho. 

On 4/1/2024 at 12:51 PM, GSPG said:

Is this it’s last cruise before it’s refurb?

Anyone know where it is heading for this, and exactly what they are going to do?

 

I’m interested as I’m on the Baltic cruise next month.

We've just docked at Mayflower. Moving to Ocean terminal at 9pm. Disembark tomorrow. Shes heading for Rotterdam for refurb. Not sure what's being done tho.

31 minutes ago, Neecy1 said:

Agree. We're on-board right now and it's rubbish. I have short hair and there's no nozzle. Definitely bring your own

Ps dont want to hijack this post but we were supposed to dock in Ponta Delgarda today but couldn't due to high winds. Heading back to Soton now 

18 hours ago, smokey01 said:

We are on Iona 5th October and Gary Barlow is playing the night we overnight in Lisbon. 
 

I know from previous cruises it cost £10 each for the raffle and if successful both of us will get tickets, but that we cannot select which show i.e. 8pm or 10pm.

But if successful how chaotic is the theatre: do people queue hours before?
 

If once seated can you go out and get back in again? I do suffer from restless legs so if I have to sit for ages beforehand to get a decent seat it is a bit of an issue. Can I leave my mother seated while I have a walk around until nearer showtime?

 

how long is the show? 

We saw Gary in November 2022. He was excellent. We queued for about half an hour but I wanted a good seat. The show was about an hour long. It was fab. Even my husband enjoyed it! 

5 minutes ago, alpha whiskey said:

One tip from me for Britannia....if you have long/thick hair bring your own hairdryer. 

The one provided (at least in our cabin) was extremely sloooow. 

 

Agree. We're on-board right now and it's rubbish. I have short hair and there's no nozzle. Definitely bring your own

Loved it. You should write a book.

35 minutes ago, posford said:

Kindle is only an app.

you can upload kindle books on any device as long as you have the app.

Yes I know. I have kindle books on my phone. What I'm saying is I can't download the Borrowbox app on my kindle paperwhite. It's not a tablet like the kindle fire. It's just an ereader.

2 hours ago, Ohana27 said:

Hi Selbourne, really enjoying your blog.  With regards to your wife’s kindle, at some point download the BorrowBox app.  This links with your local library, which you can usually join online.   You can then have a virtual library account, all the new releases and all free.  I realise you may not be able to do this on your cruise, but maybe when you get home.   Our library also has access to PressReader app which is newspapers and magazines.  Both have saved a fortune for me and added to the cruise fund.

I'm pretty sure this isn't possible. You can only purchase books from Amazon on Kindles. You can't download apps Unless things have changed. I have an oldish paperwhite.

This is helpful as we are on the Brittania TA in March. We would like to try Oistins on the Friday evening as never been and wondered re timings.

22 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks guys. My wife doesn’t read classics. She like all the current crime authors. Will take a look though. 

We have Amazon prime so there's a lot on there for free. Also there are daily book deals. Ive just downloaded a top crime thriller for 99p. The deals are usually on the home page

True. Just think it's so much easier. And cleaner than a book that's been handled my god knows how many people. But I know some people prefer the feel of a book. I did once. I could never walk past a Waterstones... 

To be honest I can never understand why people don't just take a kindle or other e-reader? 

I've just bought a Ninja vacuum with £200 off for blc

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Very interesting and I’m glad that I recorded ours as well, because there would be some who think that I’m exaggerating. The video clip is of course not as loud as it is in the flesh. Like you, we’ve done a lot of cruises and the movement and a degree of noise is all part of the experience, but when it prevents sleep it’s another matter. We also have a regular mechanical motor noise every few minutes, but that in itself doesn’t wake us. We are by the forward lifts on deck 9. Hopefully it will be OK where you are. We’ve had Superior Deluxe cabins before and not had these noise issues. We usually suffer from noisy neighbours, but thankfully those around us are as considerate as we are, so we wouldn’t want to move and replace one problem with another 😂 

We had an aft superior deluxe cabin on E deck on Azura in June. Lovely cabin but we'd never go for aft again. The noise from the thrusters was horrendous when docking and woke us each time. The vibration was terrible too. We had to laugh but never again. Is this the same on every ship. Weve only ever stayed mid ship before.

Our CP is still showing a TUI flight for MAN on 22 March although the list above says different. Also I think there's 2 flights that day? As I said earlier P&O took ages this week to book us on PE for that date so you would hope this means we are on a TUI flight with PE. Jean I couldn't give a fig about entertainment, its more about comfort.

And DH in excess of 6 foot so gets uncomfortable on long haul. 

Weve just upgraded to PE this week for Brittania repositioning TA next March. Took ages to do. In the end the nice chap at p&o had to ring us back much later when he had liaised with the flights team. Not sure if connected to this? I hope we're still on the dreamliner and not an old plane. I'm not a great flier.