tom_uk

We really enjoyed our Limelight Club experience with Jaki Graham & the food was also excellent in there!

Thanks for that. I was just about to start another thread on the subject "Has anyone seen Jaki Graham in the Limelight Club?" - and here's an answer already.

I do have a question, however. I can see on Cruise personalised that there are 4 Limelight Club menus, and I can also see on Cruise Personaliser how to book the Limelight Club 'by act', as it were. Is there a way of finding out which menu will apply to which day?

Tom, I have done 3 of these ad the second formal is always the evening of the last port. Bergen or Stavanger. They can't do it the last night as people have already put their cases out.

Thanks, daiB, and everyone else.

Reason for asking? - we want to book a meal in Sindhi and prefer to not go on a formal night.

Thanks for the replies above.

Here's an interesting point: on N615, the port of call on the 6th day is Bergen, and at the moment the itinerary suggests that the port times are "arrive morning, depart early evening". Is it likely that they'll still have the second formal on the 6th evening? Or to put the question in a different way, has anyone done a 7-night fjords cruise when the second formal night wasn't on the 6th evening?

Usually the formal nights on cruises are on sea-days. On a 7-night Fjords cruise there are two sea days - the first and last full days. I expect that the first formal night is on the first sea day (which will be the 2nd night on board) but what about the second formal night? That is the last full day, and would be the 7th night of the cruise. I've never known a formal on the last night of a cruise. Is it likely to be the day before, i.e. the 6th night? Or do they move it earlier in the week?

absolutely spot on. I have said this before. It's not that difficult to get to the port about an hour b efore you need to.

As long as there no major hold-ups. Someone further up the thread mentioned being held up on the M42 for four hours, while on their way to S'ton. It doesn't happen often, but it's only got to happen to you once, and you become very cautious about journey times. Result? - on all the times the journey is OK (which is most times), you arrive very early, or (like us) travel the day before if possible.

Where are you staying Tom? We are also departing the same day, but on a different ship. And like you , we are coming up the day before. Most hotels seem to have a midday checkout and i know some of them you can extend that for an hour or two at no charge. And if you cant you can nearly always leave your luggage whilst you go out.

There is also the "cruise lounge" at the Grand harbour hotel - for a fee you cAn pre book this and i understand it is very comfortable - you dont have to be staying at the hotel to book it.

We are planning on making a visit to the Sea city Museum, which i understand is well worth a visit, opens at 10 and is in the City. There is an exhibition called "port out Starboard home - the age of the ocean liner" (from End of March) which looks facinating!

Im sure there will be other things on as it is a bank holiday weekend.

We're booked into the Novotel for the Saturday night. Our parking is with CPS - we're on a Select booking so we chose the free parking as our freebie.

A few other people have said that they drop off luggage early, then go away and return nearer their embarkation time. Can I ask for some clarification about that, please? Is there parking while they're doing that? - we'll be leaving from the Ocean terminal.

Off topic, but I wanted to leave a Thank you for Tom. I used your wonderful aft balconies guide to book another Azura cruise this week, it is a great resource :)

Thank you! Good to know it's useful.

Thanks to those who have posted about the new arrangements.

In our case, our next cruise starts on Spring BH Sunday - B615. That being a BH we've decided to drive down to Southampton the day before as the traffic could be very bad on the Sunday (we live in Sheffield). That's OK, we'll be in S'ton overnight; but we will have to check out of our hotel at 11am (I think). While I understand the reasons for the policy I'm hoping we won't be faced with a wait until 3:30, say, before we can actually board.

Let's say that was the case - we had a boarding time of 3:30. What would others do in that situation, between 11 o'clock and 3:30pm?

There have been a few comments to the effect (and I paraphrase) "you need to be in a suite to get a bigger balcony". This isn't necessarily the case. First, there are 40-odd suites along the port & starboard sides of B deck which have the same size balconies as all the regular balcony cabins, on that deck and others. The only cabins (of any grade) that might have bigger balconies are those facing aft or forward; and even then, it varies deck by deck. Aft balconies on F deck are huge, those on the deck above are quite a lot smaller, and those on the deck above that (D deck) are smaller still.

After the upset with Princess cruisers, I actually wondered why Celebrity cruisers didn't go crazy about their new ships since there are only two elevator banks and stairs. Yes, one is fairly mid-ship, but there is no aft elevator or stairs. I sailed on the Equinox and thought is was ill planned. I'm much happier with the Regal/Royal with 3 elevator banks. It's true that the mid-ship elevators on the Solstice class ships have more cars and that helps moving people.

I think they did at the time, but perhaps they've got used to it. We still think of the Solstice class as recent, but in fact Celebrity Solstice went into service almost seven years ago - in early 2009.

I'll come back with one further comment. Britannia is not a unique ship, of course - she's a (very near) sister of the Princess Cruises ships Royal Princess and Regal Princess, and the balconies on those ships are the same as on Britannia. Princess passengers, who of course have years of experience of cruising on sister-ships to Ventura & Azura, seem to have got over the balcony issue on these latest ships and you don't hear so many complaints about it. This summer will be Royal Princess' third in service, in fact.

Sapphire4: To be fair, the images I posted are a bit unfair. The C deck balconies on Azura & Ventura are the biggest balconies (for ordinary balcony cabins); the balconies for the same cabins on the Lido, Riviera, A & B decks are half the size of the one illustrated. That said, the balconies on the other decks are still bigger than the balconies for non-suite cabins on Britannia.

Standard balcony on Britannia:

C-deck balcony on Azura or Ventura:

Would you book Cookery Club ASAP for a sea day on the fjords?

We're on a Fjords cruise, and we're having a heretical thought - we might do the cookery club on a port day (if it's available). There are only two sea days on the cruise so we expect the cookery club will be very busy on those days.

That said, we haven't decided yet.

We're on Britannia in a few months and our thoughts are turning to booking things - excursions, meals and other things. High on the list of things we're wondering about are the Cookery Club and the Limelight Club.

I did a Britannia visit last April so I understand how these two venues/attractions work. What I'm wondering is what passengers who have used them, thought about them. I read a couple of very positive reviews of the Limelight Club from the maiden voyage but I wonder if that was a typical experience. I don't recall reading much about the Cookery Club.

So, Cookery Club & Limelight Club veterans - how were they for you?

Just had an email from my TA advising me of an itinerary change on this cruise on Britannia to the fjords. Olden is out; Andalnes is in; and Flamm has been moved by a day.

I don't know the fjords at all - this will be our first cruise to that area - but my assumption is that this change is "six of one, half a dozen of the other". Would that be right?

Thanks for the replies - it sounds as if these deck shows are indeed happening, although perhaps only occasionally.

CCFC, you wouldn't be able to post that video somewhere, would you?

When I visited Britannia last spring I received a press pack about the ship. In the Entertainment section there was a page for On Deck Shows - "Brand new for P&O is a spectacular new deck show, an explosion of light, colour and sound...". Then it went on to say (and this is the bit that fascinated me) "Dancers will appear a spontaneous intervals during the evening with set-pieces that will surround the audience gathered on deck, to provide an altogether interactive entertainment experience".

However, I haven't really heard any mention of these from Britannia passengers. Does anyone who's been on Britannia remember anything like this? If so, how was it?

Tom_UK - of course you can add those photos. I've used your page for research a few times so glad that my pictures may help others :)

Many thanks, Herbie100 - I've added them. They're at 'Update 4', near the bottom of the actual post (i.e. before the comments).

Herbie100: Can I add those pictures of yours to my blog page, please? It's the one referenced by MsticalMother above. Here's the link to the page. Those two images would add some useful information, esp. as to how the vertical stanchions affect the aft balconies.

Of course I'd mention that they were your images, not mine.

We did an excursion to the Cinque Terre last September. Here's a link to a blog post I did about the day. It was great fun, and very beautiful; but be prepared for some Italian chaos.

Can I come back to this? The issue of an open promenade deck is one that's quite important to me. Also, to be honest I've never cruised with HAL, but I have done several cruises on P&O's Arcadia, which is a Vista-class ship and was originally intended to be a fifth HAL Vista along with Osterdam, Westerdam, Noordam, and Zuiderdam.

The issue with accessible promenade decks is tied up with the SOLAS regulations. The latest set - 2010 - set new requirements for the maximum time allowed for embarking lifeboats in an emergency. These are 80 minutes from the time the emergency signal is sounded, and no more than 30 minutes from the time all passengers are assembled. I gather that the business of lowering the boats down to deck level (the traditional layout) was time-consuming and would affect the ship's ability to meet these new requirements, so the practice these days is increasingly to store the lifeboats at deck level on the Promenade deck, from where passengers can walk straight into them in an emergency. The Celebrity Solstice class ships are a good example of this, as are the Royal Princess class ships. In the case of the Solstice class you can at least walk along the deck behind the lifeboats, but the deck is quite narrow and of course the view out to sea is obstructed. In the case of the Royal Princess class, access along the promenade is normally prevented - there are barriers.

In the case of each of these classes there are some areas along the promenade where there are no lifeboats, where passengers can gather, and from where there are open views.

I've seen the page on the Koningsdam site about the wrap-round promenade. My guess is that they will leave access behind the boats, similar to the Solstice class; but it won't be a Promenade deck in the traditional sense.

Biometric passports have the symbol on the front cover low down it's a god dot with two gold halves above and below it creating a rectangle.

Gosh, so there is - I'd never noticed this before, despite it being in front of my eyes many times. I've just compared my current passport with an old one which doesn't have this symbol.

.....

The folk I think who get a raw deal are those who book really early at brochure price with little OBC.

BTW we also have shareholder discount and that is also taken int account before we receive our loyalty bonus.

....

Tell me about it! - but in recent years that's what we have had to do, as my wife's holiday arrangements are very inflexible. She works on projects which last from 9 to 12 months. As long as her holidays are known when she starts a new project there's no problem, the project manager can factor it into the resource plan if it's known from day 1; but there's no way she can book a holiday once a project has started and resources have been committed. So we book when the brochure is published.

On our most recent cruise, the only OBC we had was the shareholder's OBC. We also got the free car parking and a 5% early booking discount, but very little OBC.

Looks as if Oriana and Aurora got away very promptly. Aurora now showing 40 to 50 miles SW of Ushant, Oriana approaching the entrance to the NordSee canal, and Oceana safely tucked up in Zeebrugge.

I hope everyone on board all of them had a good night.