Vampiress88

I must start reading the news as I’m head in the sand not even planning or thinking about power outages. Not entirely sure what we would do but hubby usually has an idea about those sorts of things. im too busy in planning mode for the canaries. also going to Paris for Christmas so I hope they have all the electricity on over there.

Me, hubby and the girls love to dress up. It’s one of the things we do like about p&o actually we have been on two msc cruises now and they have a much more relaxed take on dressing up and to be honest a lot of the time I felt out of place when I was dressed up on their cruises on formal nights, with p&o you kinda of feel out of place if you aren’t dressed up. Hubby is actually gutted there is only 2 formal nights on our two week cruise soon but we want the bigger ships as they have more to offer as a family and we are obviously very price driven as we are in our thirties and probably the demographic that p&o want for the new ships. I do get that some don’t like the younger cruises as generationally we all have different standards such as before how some thought the tight dresses with the low cut top of the “clubbing” dress was appropriate and some did not. I think it’s always going to be an argument of opinions and that’s not going to change. tbf I would probably wear a tight dress if I had the body for it 😂 although what I do like is not sharing a table this is something I really won’t do and on the two msc cruises have gone to the buffet instead of sharing a table of 8.

Exactly. It’s bad sometimes having to learn as you go along. But for me my first she was stubborn and didn’t want to be born. We had to induce and then stuff went medically wrong, they hadn’t put my epidural in correctly, as I was told it could end in a section and I’d be fine if I had one. Nope. Could feel it slice me, they said they had minutes to get her out so to sleep I went. When I came to she wasn’t with me, she wouldn’t feed at all, screaming, this lasted all day. A breastfeeding nurse came to help and she was squeezing her little feet and shoving my breast at her. Looking back it was horrible and I wouldn’t stand for that now but I was 26, first time mum, my family weren’t any help. I was exhausted and luckily she came out perfect but I then had medical issue. I remember getting to the 24 hour mark where they say you need to give her a bottle as you are starving her so then you are made to feel awful for not feeding her and made to feel like the things you should be able to do as a woman you can’t so you are a failure. I was a mess calling hubby at 3am to cry about it. She never took to breastfeeding at all. She always had a bottle and even then she was difficult. We tried loads of different bottles, different milks. She had reflux from the start and not much helped her. Even expressed and she didn’t keep that down. it scared me so much that I had full on panic attack when I found out I was pregnant again (I stupidly thought it would take 5 years like our first did) would have nightmares about being put to sleep again and being that scared. Anyway Georgia was laying sideways all the time so they had to give me a section anyway. We planned this time to have bottles and bought everything. The first time we just assumed I would breastfeed so didn’t buy anything. Hers was lovely calm birth and the second she was out she was rooting. She breastfed exclusively and refused to take a bottle and that was actually more exhausting as no one else could help me. Both my children are academically smart, would say my first is smarter based on school. My second has more illnesses now she is older but first had more when she is a baby. I will tell mine, same as I did with my sister in law when she felt the same, the baby chooses more than you, you can’t force it on them and just do whatever is best for them. So long as they are getting fed, putting on weight and are healthy then breast and bottle makes no difference and there is no shame in either choice. We should all support and not judge regardless of if it’s bottle or breast cos outside looking in then no one knows what’s gone on and the reasons why that choice was made. Having people comment or tutting etc can really have an effect at that time for a woman, more than people realise. so I don’t think “breast is best” I think healthy happy fed baby is best.

unfortunately I do agree that it does seem to be the older folks that tend to be the ones that do the tutting. Whether that’s giving your kids electronics to play on, breastfeeding, even the kids crying on a plane which is annoying really as majority of people older than me have had kids and should really have more sympathy, can’t stop a kid crying sometimes no matter how much you beg them too. The breastfeeding shouldn’t need a campaign to make it more friendly, it should just be as it is and a normal way to feed a baby without being made to feel weird or uncomfortable. They shouldn’t need to spend loads of money, just people should have more compassion towards another and understanding. I don’t think this is something a campaign really teaches though. anyhow- wanted to put the washing out but it said rain and there has been no rain yet so slightly annoyed. getting excited about the next cruise and starting my packing list tonight.

I don’t think I actually agree with that anymore, and I don’t feel like it should be pushed as better either because really what milk you feed them doesn’t seem to have an impact on intelligence or sickness in my opinion based on my kids and it instead kinda makes you feel like you are doing something wrong if you choose to bottle feed.

All fun and games then. well you don’t keep the kids off for it any more and it’s normal sick policy at work (which screws you over anyway) so it’s more or less get on with it now then.

well why are they telling us to buy holiday extras insurance if it doesn’t cover everything we need. I would class that as missell.

Another question. Say I was fine but then a week into my cruise I felt poorly- can the staff actually make you go to medical and covid test you then quarantine you or really is it a case of “ah it’s probably a cold think nothing of it” and carry on my day.

im confused. What is an okay policy that’s not? Holiday extras?

Yeah my kids aren’t normal. They love stuff like that- even more so if it terrifies me

Anyone done this? Is it good? Also has anyone done this without going through p&o. I’ve looked at it and it seems to be €100ish for the cable car up and two toboggans down but it doesn’t say where to pay for the toboggans or is it turn up and hand them the cash? It’s £166 through p&o which is just a bit too pricey, it does include wine tasting etc but only hubby drinks- me and the kids don’t so that’s not really something we want to do.

I’ve got my second booster on Friday. Don’t particularly want it as I’ve been poorly after the other ones but hey ho. Things you have to do to be insured for these holidays. Both kids are now fully vaccinated. Not sure where to get the flu one I need from though - will have to google. Countdown for next holiday 23 days eek 😬 So so poorly these last few days, nearly went to a&e at 1am this morning but managed to ride it out. I’m now quite drugged up but can still feel the pain, luckily have 5 more days off work. Hope everyone is having a good day look forward to reading about the azura and Britannia holidays you guys are going on this next week.

Agree. Ship was best I’ve been on so far but I’ve only been on three 😂

We have a gourmia from Costco. Love it. Also have and actifry too. But we only use the actifry for chips

It’s not on p&o but asking questions like this on that board doesn’t usually end up fruitful. they want quite a lot for the ships excursions which I don’t really want to pay as it’s supposed to be a budget cruise. I think I just worry doing this with young kids and getting stranded.

We did it without a drinks package as although people tell me it’s good value it has never been for our family. My hubby drinks, I don’t. Plus we have two young kids. I’ve never on either p&o who I usually go with or Msc buy the drinks package. They wanted just over £600 for the week for a drinks package. We spent just over half that. The beer mainly Guinness and Heineken ranged from £6-£7 per 40cl or bottle 33cl. Hubby did find a 1lt, 100cl for £10 in the pub masters of the sea so we mostly drank in there as he was begrudged to pay more elsewhere. There was also cocktails he wanted to try. These were £8-£14. The sofa drinks were all £3. Coffee and hot chocolate was £4.10-£5.40. We also spent money on meals out too just in case you need to add that to your budget. Butchers cut was £78 for two salads, two steak and two desserts. Hola tacos and cantina was £54 for two all you can eat Masters of the sea was £4 each for burgers ,hot dog and fish and chips. Ice creams were from £3-£6 Crepes were £6.50. So we were on Virtuosa in August. We spent £575 in total over 7 nights on a fjords cruise. Only £330 of that was on drinks. We had 19 alcoholic drinks, so only two or three per day but some of these were that massive 1lt of Guinness. Plus 40 soft drinks of coke or coffee/hot chocolate etc

From the Rotterdam and Zeebrugge ports It’s £172 to Amsterdam with the boat and £135 to Bruges for all 4 of us. Hoping you guys know a better and cheaper way. Not too complex though as my little brain can’t take that 😂

So in April 21 and Nov 21 we booked for iona. Picked what I thought would be a great cabin 15717 using this online deck plan. https://www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/pdfs/ships/2020-Iona-deck-plans.pdf I then found out that this cabin was shaded. i sent an email to p&o basically the reply I got was that they could see that the plans didn’t show shaded, that they have now updated it (which is good) but that all details are subject to change. I’ve had to pay extra £72 on both cruises so I can have a balcony that’s not shaded. Feel a bit missold. https://www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/pdfs/ships/2022-Iona-deck-plans.pdf

Which cruise is Gary Barlow on?

How’s your cruise going? that abracadabra show we thought was poor. It didn’t make any sense storywise, liked the contortionists but that was about it and the witch almost had the top half of her on display, although I’m not that bothered about that as it suited her 😂

My youngest keeps saying she will live with us forever 😂

i would say more than 80% of the people on the cruise I was on were British. Didn’t do announcements in any other language or anything. It was just screaming English kids this time.

Definitely don’t let it, it’s not put us off. Hubby has just booked another for 2023! it’s more about changing your expectations. It’s not like p&o also I’ve just seen there were 1700 kids on board so I assume it could not have been run as well as it could if sailing in the term time like I do with p&o and with the price I just got compared to what p&o were offering me i am willing to compromise. I will just change what I do. To returning customers I’ve gotten 10% off and £80 obc. I know now what I am getting into. I won’t take lots of dresses to dress up, I won’t bother with the mdr and I will stick to the things that they are good at like the pizza etc. it’s a different ship so I hope the smell goes but the cabins should still be good. I will add my cash on the second day not the first. I will also register the kids on the first morning instead. Plus this time they are in the same class in ‘23 so should be better for them. I know how much money I need for my drinks prices. I’ll only go back to hola. I also know that I am probably not going to go to much entertainment. But I have 12 nights in the canaries for £2500 with £80obc. It’s mostly in school holidays. With a balcony cabin. P&o wanted the same price for 7 nights in the fjords.

It sounds completely different in YC. Agree about the lifts. Didn’t know there were 1700 kids on but I believe it. Was busiest ship we have ever been on. the rocky road and piedmont hot chocolate are lovely. The strawberry supreme crepe is amazing.

We are a family of 4. So far we have sailed on Britannia and Azura for P&O. Both inside and balcony. With MSC it is the Virtuosa with balcony. The ships. For us the Virtuosa by far is the best ship. It is probably due to the fact that it’s more geared to our young children. They loved the water park and the slides. We also liked the layout better with the long gallery in the middle and easier to navigate with stairs, plus either they have more lifts or they are bigger or both as it wasn’t always as difficult to get one one as it is with P&O. But, they prefer the pools on P&O. They weren’t impressed with the pools being really salty. That put them off spending so much time in there and it put me off as it was ruining their hair, I was fed up of washing it. It had a “English type pub” bit like brodies so we always ended up in their these were on par, decor and feel was slightly better on the msc. The coffee shop was a chocolate shop, lovely with crepes and ice cream was much better, but you paid all extra for this. The pool towels had to be signed in and out which I found weird and difficult. I had to keep taking them to the room so that if we went to the water park we could take them with us. Then when they were socking wet I had to go back to the desk to change them. It’s easier on P&O to just grab some from the trolleys. We also had no idea how to get these towels as the daily planner had said they would be waiting in our rooms. Which they were not. But on azura there was a really bad smell of sewage when on the main deck near the pool. This was sorted after a few days. We encountered the same issue on Virtuosa at the back of the ship near the pool, bar and water park. These were both very off putting. The room We have had both an inside cabin and balcony on P&O. We did not like the layout of the Britannia balcony with the two pullmans. It was difficult to get round. As they are above you then you bang into it a lot and it felt cramped. Same with the bathroom. The room on MSC was a balcony. It was laid out beautifully. The bed was nice, all I was missing was pillows that I like. It was the most comfortable bed we have been on in a cruise. There was plenty of space that we didn’t feel cramped. Plenty of drawers and wardrobe space and the bathroom was good too. I wouldn’t say that either P&O or MSC are brilliant at cleaning. Both we found things under the beds. The food. Now when I went on Britannia I moaned about the food quite a lot as I thought the food should have been better and I was wishing for that food this week. P&O is probably fair to good. I would class MSC as mediocre. The pizza was lovely. Everything not so much. Only the simple stuff they could get right and we found we were definitely missing things especially puddings (there was a banoffee pie one on P&O and I definitely had more than one of those). We mainly tried the buffet. We did go to the outside grill a few times. We also found that a lot of the times the food was cold or had been sat under the hot light waiting for opening times. We did pay for sindhu, glass house and beach house on P&O and it was only the beach house we found both good value and good food. The rest for us wasn’t worth paying for. On Virtuosa we did pay for butchers cut and hola tacos and cantina. Butchers cut was very expensive and I’ve had better cuts of steak from Aldi. The hola Mexican wasn’t rated good on other vlogs but we loved it. The nachos were the best I’ve had in years and the puddings were excellent too. So paid for meals I would say it’s a toss up really between the two lines. For the free food then P&O would win for us. We did also try MDR with both lines, P&O wasn’t really to my taste but there was nothing wrong with it, just nothing special etc. With Virtuosa we were left really annoyed. First night we were sat at a table for 8, I declined it and asked for it to be changed. Was told it would be done. It was never done. Went for lunch and we managed the starter and the kids mains in an hour. When it got to that time and the started plates hadn’t even been cleared I got fed up of waiting and left to go to the buffet instead. I think they were understaffed on the whole ship to be honest. With the bar staff I found lots more on P&O and they were a lot more aware of the guests, like coming to ask for drinks orders, paying attention to who’s just sat down. MSC had very little staff having us sometimes feel really sorry for them rushing about, like there was only one person serving drinks in the coffee shop on a sea day, if I was her I would have probably cried it was so overwhelming. Embarkation and disembarkation When we first arrived it was all a different way round but it took about the same time for both lines. Same with leaving the ship in Southampton. The muster drill was annoying though. With P&O you scanned in at your station when you got on the ship then when in your room watched the safety video. With MSCat 3pm it came on over the tannoy to watch the video then call a number to say this was done. So we did this. Buffet ended at 3.30 so luckily caught the last 15mins of it otherwise we would have been very hungry but then the tannoy went off saying our deck needed to go to the muster station at the casino. So we quick hopped it down there. It was chaos. Queue to scanned your card then had to queue again to get out. We did not have a smooth start at all with MSC. We did have an issue in Nordfjordeid. It was a floating walkway so we were called off one deck at a time. We only had the afternoon there from 3pm-8pm.So we waited nearly two hours to get called to be off the ship, we got off at 5pm then unfortunately had to wait one hour to get back on. We started to queue at 6pm. Not fun with little kids. We also missed a show and dinning reservation. We might have gotten cross and sent MSC a picture of how bad the line was. They realised how bad this was and gave everyone, even people who didn’t get off, £50 obc. The app and the website Never thought I would think that P&O was better for this, but the website was far easier. Uploading credit cards, making the final payment and downloading the tickets. For MSC I had to call them or do this when we got there instead. Because I could not upload a credit card then I wanted to use cash. We went to a machine to top up and it ate my first £20 then broke. This resulted in me having an hour wait at the reception to explain the problem and upload money. It was then written on the daily planner we got at 6pm that it was already pre authorised to £250 and I could have put the cash on the next day instead. The app for MSC is ok. It has a chat function which is great but often doesn’t work. It uploads the menus for the MDR which I loved not having to go to find. But all the menus for the bars are using QR codes when you are there, with P&O it’s already on there to look at. Also you can book a table at a specialty restaurant on P&O. With MSC then you have to do it in person near the atrium. We had issues with this as we waited around 45 mins to book. Then an hour later when it loaded to the app the woman had gotten the wrong day, we wanted hola for Scarlett’s birthday so that was another trip down and another 30mins wait for me to correct this. So this is on par. Both have pros and cons. I think I prefer the P&O one because of the amount of time I wasted. The kids club. On P&O they were in cohorts last time. Not brilliant but the kids are in the same 5-8 group so they wanted to go every chance they could. Registration was easy. It was done online. Bands were in the room. Along with the times they could go. On MSC it was disorganised. We went up to register them again, after I had done it online twice, we got there with 10mins to spare before they closed but they had ran out of forms and weren’t going to print anymore till later so closing early. Told to come back at 9pm. So we came back at 9pm. We filled out the forms and handed them in. Was told we could just fetch the kids in the morning to play. The kids were in separate groups. Georgia 3yr-6yr and Scarlett 7yr-11yrs. On the kids planner we then got through the door late at night it says they needed wrist bands to scan in at the club and these were in the room, they were not, so it said to speak to reception. We get down to reception after queuing again to be told to go to kids club but they aren’t open till 9am. This was at 8am. We go back up, luckily they have uploaded the forms to the computer and they sort the bands out for the kids. The kids did not like the clubs. They said it was boring and unfortunately for us that meant not very many date nights. They went only 4 times despite having no time restrictions to go in. Most weren’t even for more than an hour. Daily planner, entertainment and dress wear With P&O especially on Britannia I thought the entertainment was rather good. We went to a few shows, we had family discos, magician for the kids (even though we didn’t rate him) and a good rock tribute band too. Even though we are only 34 we quite like to dress up, we don’t get chance to do so in the everyday life so it’s always nice to do that and everyone makes a good effort to at least dress smart if not quite elegant. The girls always wear dresses at night. We only had one that we On MSC there was a different show every night, we went to two of them and left early as we didn’t rate them at all, didn’t seem much for the children to do unless they were in the kids club and the music at night was duos or single singers as there wasn’t really a big venue for a good band etc. We did try to dress up but we felt out of place as everyone else was so dressed down. Lots of people were touching food with their hands and not the utensils, so many walking around bare foot even in the atrium. So many kids with iPads at dinner tables etc. I don’t know if it is generational or not but I just didn’t feel that a lot of people made any effort and some lacked manners too. We seems to be back at the cabin rather early on MSC rather than staying out as there wasn’t that much to do at night we didn’t think. The prices. It’s hard to compare the prices as we went with MSC in school holiday and P&O has always been during term time but they are about on par per week for what we would expect. The drinks however, on P&O were cheaper. We ranged from £4.50 to £6.95 for lots of different beers and cocktails with the soft drinks being £2.25-£3.15. Tea and coffee was around £2.50ish. The food on P&O were cheaper. Sindhu was about £45 for two starts, two mains and two desserts. Glass house was about £25 one starter, two mains and one dessert. Beach house was £19-£25 for flat fee plus starter and main upgrades. Ice creams were £2.50-£3.50ish. With MSC it wasn’t cheap. The beer mainly Guinness and Heineken ranged from £6-£7 per 40cl or bottle 33cl. Hubby did find a 1lt, 100cl for £10 in the pub masters of the sea so we mostly drank in there as he was begrudged to pay more elsewhere. There was also cocktails he wanted to try. These were £8-£14. The sofa drinks were all £3. Coffee and hot chocolate was £4.10-£5.40. Butchers cut was £78 for two salads, two steak and two desserts. Hola tacos and cantina was £54 for two all you can eat then two kids nachos, two quesadillas,1 taco and 1 dessert. Masters of the sea was £12 for two burgers and one fish and chips. Ice creams were from £3-£6 Crepes were £6.50. Unfortunately p*** up in a brewery is the saying that tends to spring to mind for me. We are with MSC again in October holidays this time on the older ship Preziosa so I’m not sure if I will like the ship as much. So apart from the ship, cabin, water slides and the crepes then everything else was better on P&O. But all in all if the deal was right then we would go again, we would just change our expectations. We are always so grateful that we have chance to go and do these kinds of things. I may moan a lot but we still had a wonderful time. Also excited to see how iona will differ and maybe arvia if we book.