bbtablet

Great news!

I hope Ventura will be able to get into Madeira - we lost Visby on a flat-looking sea last year due to adverse currents, swell and a lack of tugs - sailed in and immediately turned round and sailed out without docking.

Not sure what you are trying to prove - we have done about 440 nights now. We have only had a suite once, all the rest were higher-end balcony cabins. No Priority Boarding until this time. You don't appear to have taken into account our on-board spending, purchases of artwork, and jewellery, or the P&O tours which we buy at every port on every cruise. You also do not know about the cruises we have paid for for other people. I did not realise I was going to be challenged on here as well as at check-in! Otherwise I would have said "at today's prices" and "I know the artwork and jewellery are not being sold directly by P&O", but hey - ho!

Yes, Selbourne, we had a great time with fantastic upper-70s calm sunny weather all the way until before the last port (Gibraltar) when we hit our own particular storm - a constant force 10 - and kept with it for nearly 5 days at sea (Gibraltar lost). Room Service was fun. Our personal statistics were: Chances of: 1) nothing arriving at all - 25% 2) at least one ordered item missing - 40% 3) missing cutlery - 10% 4) order not even collected, even though put out on door handle in good time - 15% 5) chased missing items promised but never arrived - 15% They were all delivered with a smile and all got a tip of course, in any case - it was a source of amusement rather than anything else. p.s. Strawberry smoothie to die for! Not such fun was a non-flushing toilet for a 24 hour period early on, despite best efforts of crew - but then more fun with free automatic continuous sequences of bonus flushes, sometimes as many as 6 on the trot (if you pardon the expression) when no-one was even in the bathroom. We all got coughs along our corridor and we used to cough each other to sleep every night.

On the same cruise. Is it me, or do they not know how to cook boiled potatoes; green beans; brussel sprouts; broccoli; peas; carrot; celeriac; turnip; parsnip; etc? It would appear they are all just prepared (or defrosted) and then dipped in warm water and served - no cooking involved. The boiled potatoes would easily have outlasted a 20/20 cricket match ball.

THE SEQUEL. Readers of this thread may be interested to hear what actually happened on embarkation day – cruise R309, October 3rd 2023. If you have not read this thread before, I suggest you start at the very beginning – the plot thickens! We duly arrived outside the check-in building at 12.30pm – the Priority Boarding time given to my wife (mine was 2.45pm) – and in accordance with the email received from P&O Customer Services the previous Thursday – see earlier posting #15 on this thread. The first P&O representative we met with outside the check-in building looked at the two Boarding Passes and said “You can’t come in.” I told him he was wrong. “Well, that’s what we’ve been told.” I pointed out that I had received an email definitively stating P&O policy on the situation, but all he would say is “Well, that’s not what we have been told.” I asked him to fetch his supervisor and off he went – we did not see him again. We stood to one side while waiting for his supervisor so that other passengers could pass through to the next two P&O “checkers” – two ladies. After a minute or so, with a lull in arrivals, they noticed us holding back and beckoned us forward to show them our two passes. They seemed to be delighted that they had caught us! – “They are for different times so you can’t go in” in unison. I told them that we had received an email from Customer Services saying that we could both go in at 12.30. “Well, they are wrong.” “How can they say one thing and you say another? – don’t you communicate with each other?” “Yes, we are always telling them that they are wrong, but they don’t do anything about it.” “But I received this definitive statement of policy from them only last Thursday.” Then this!: “P&O change the rules every day.” One of the ladies, perhaps wisely, then moved away to deal with other arriving passengers, leaving the remaining one to continue: “Where is this email then?” “It is on my computer at home and also on my phone which I packed in my case that has just gone through the luggage pod entrance” (I don’t use my smart-phone much so had seen no need to carry it with me at boarding). “Why didn’t you print the email off?” “As it was a definitive statement of policy, not a “turn up at 12.30 and see if you can wing it!” communication, it did not occur to me that its content would be challenged.” (Redabby – I did not see your post in time as we went down to Southampton via an overnight stay) She then called me a liar: “You would be surprised how many people try to quote so-called communications from Customer Services just to get past us.” Then: “In any case, even if you had such an email, they are wrong so you still can’t go through.” At this point I told her I wasn’t listening to her anymore and my wife and I started edging forwards towards the entrance. She barred our way again and got right in my face. I decided to engage full beam and played my ace: “Tell me what you want me to do then” – no reply, just silence. I asked her again “Tell me what you want me to do then” – again, no reply, just a staring silence. I think she must have finally become aware of how far away from her training she was getting. The only answer she could give that fitted her stance was that my wife, late 70’s, delightfully shy, recent replacement knee, severe shingles-induced sciatica, should make her way alone through check-in, then passport control, security, boarding, muster station, then find our room (phobia of lifts), and then attend the Priority booking buffet, still alone, whilst I, 80 next month, dodgy knees and hip, should stand outside the building (there is no seating), case gone, car gone, phone gone, wife gone, for the next two and a quarter hours. This silent, staring impasse was suddenly broken by the appearance of another P&O lady (the sent-for supervisor perhaps?) who, without comment, immediately ushered us through the doors and into the check-in building – we were on our way at last! Our Boarding Passes were inspected a further 6 times during the process, all without any comment regarding the difference in times. My wife was left shaky by the confrontation, whilst my main emotion was one of bemused astonishment that, after doing everything right by the book in asking Customer Services for advice, spending over £100,000 as customers of P&O over the years, and my wife being, at least in theory, a particularly valued priority customer, we could be treated this way. Any thoughts?

Every time I log into "My Account" it only recognises me (as the lead passenger). I cannot find out how we access my wife's cruise history (as the additional passenger). Any clues please?

My thanks to all who have given information in response - much appreciated!

Thanks, Carla - do we just turn up at the MDR and show out Boarding Pass? Is there not an invitation issued - how are we to know about it if not?

Thanks for all the replies. I have now received a reply email from P&O: "When two guests are travelling within the same cabin – they will allow the lower tier guest to check in together with the Caribbean/Baltic/Ligurian member at the earlier time, in line with their Peninsular Club benefit." The only other thing we are now not sure about is that some on here have referred to a special welcome on-board lunch-time meal for these Priority Boarding guests (some say in the buffet - others say in the MDR) but we don't know how to access it and have no information. We shall be boarding Aurora. Any clues?

Are you saying that the era of green beans with almost every offering has come to an end? Shock! Horror!

My wife has been on more P&O cruises than I because she has been on a couple of extra ones with friends. This has meant she has just gone through the barrier into Caribbean Tier, whereas I am still a mere Mediterranean Tier member. The consequence of this is that for our forthcoming cruise check-in, she has been given 12.30pm, but apparently I must stand outside, probably in the Southampton rain, until a quarter to three! Has anyone experience of this situation and, if so, how was it resolved?

I was referring to majortom 10's post 21.

Did you mean to say "you do get noise from loose items"?

When in a fjord, don't make the mistake of only sitting on your 180 degrees balcony without also occasionally going "up top" to see the full 360 degrees panarama of the scenery. Totally immersive!

I have Firefox as my browser. At the top of the page, where the website address of the page I am looking at is, there is a 5 pointed star at the extreme right which, when I click on it, turns blue and opens an "edit bookmark" box. I click under "location" and click on "bookmarks tool" and then "save" and it is done. When I want to revisit the page I click on the double right-facing arrows at the extreme top right of any page, and the list of saved (bookmarked) pages drops down. I scroll down to the one I want and it brings up the page I had bookmarked. Also, just Google "how to bookmark a page in Firefox/Chrome etc" and it should tell you how to do it.

Club dining on Ventura last year was always 6.30 for the first sitting.

I think you will find that at the moment the coronation chicken is mostly coronation.

You mean they are murdering passengers now and then claiming it was for operational reasons?!

Make sure that the EPIC on the London Stock Exchange is CCL when buying the shares - then you can't get the wrong company by mistake.

My insurer's "Cruise cover" will only pay out for ports missed after the ship has set off on the cruise, not for itinerary changes before sailing.

When did P&O decide to cancel the Rhodes stop, for what reason, and why haven't they told the passengers about it? Messina substituted. We mainly booked this for the chance to see Rhodes.

Regarding scissors, my wife packed a pair of 6" scissors without thinking and we were stopped at check-in. After copious measuring we were allowed to keep them but perhaps they bent the rule for us. To be safe, confine scissors to nail scissors at a max lemgth of 4".

You'd have had difficulty in paying the phantom £100 by January 2nd 2023 in any case, given that you only received the invoice last weekend!

When you say that you get sea-sick, what size ship/boat has that been on? There is simply no comparison with, say, a cross-channel ferry. Most people are simply unaware that the cruise ship is under way for most of the time. I think you may be pleasantly surprised!