bee-ess

Can anyone who has been on Britannia recently tell me if Formal Dress is being followed or not..

We have read reports on FB that implies that it is not being followed by many, although nothing referred to Britannia specifically. We don't want to take the formal clothes if it is not being followed.

Also we go in September and have 2nd sitting dining booked on our confirmation but not sure if fixed dining is in use.

Who pays the €8, us or P&O ?

24 minutes ago, Cruisemeister2002 said:

No, sorry about that. Didn't realise Arcadia came into service, although not with P&O in 2000 as did Aurora. Arcadia started sailing under the P&O flag in 2005. Of course Oriana although sister ship to Aurora and Oceana came into service in 1996. As was said by a fellow passenger Sea Princess/Victoria left service in 2002 as this was it's last season and I believe started service as the Kungsholm original for the Atlantic. Bought by P&O as Sea Princess. The name was then taken up by a Princess cruises ship and she became the Victoria and in or around 2002 was sold and became the Mona Lisa. There's a bit more history from there on. Don't know whether it's us, but Victoria are first cruise and her last season, we then sailed on Artemis which was her last season and we went on Oriana in 2016 her 20 year Anniversary and then in 2019 she left P&O.

I thought the current P&O Arcadia was a new build in 2004 and in service with P&O from 2005.

1 minute ago, ozzysdad said:

Transferring monies between cruises isn't a problem, at one time you had to book something of at least the same value but now I think you can transfer what you like.

That option only exists up until final balance it paid. The OP has paid their final balance

23 minutes ago, wowzz said:

No, you would have either cancel, lose your deposit, and rebook at the lower price,   or move your booking to a new cruise, and then move that new booking back to the original cruise. 

That's what I thought, just wondered if anyone else had tried it,.

I wonder, can you transfer to a cruise that you are already booked on if the price has dropped to lower than you paid.

1 hour ago, amajaa said:

Has anyone else had their old Portunus Club points removed from their loyalty . I wondered why our points had changed so checked all the cruises and they matched and then realised it said the Portunus ones don’t count, well they always used to. We are now back to Mediterranean. 

Just checked mine and they are all still there. Might just be a IT blip.

1 hour ago, purplesea said:

Have now seen the testing requirements, but as I am concentrating on my cruise is two weeks, didn't give it a lot of attention when I realised it was for January 2023. 

First things first!

Yes, it would help if they put the date of the cruise on the email rather than the 6 character reference number.

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Moley has said that testing at the port for those unable to do the home test will be available, but that prenetics will be reducing the testing facilities at the port, presumablyib line with how successful the take up of home testing goes.

What determines not being able to take a home test, if it is not having a smart phone, we could all say that and get a free test. Just saying.

Does this mean that testing in Southampton Port is ending. I cannot see that mentioned on the P&O website. Surely we won't have to have 2 tests, the port one and our own test ?

45 minutes ago, Stokie33 said:

Many thanks for posting that number Pete14 it won’t let me quote you, I was trying the 0345 one and it kept saying waiting times are beyond what we expect you to wait, tried your magic 0800 number and got through in 2 minutes after trying at 17.53 answered at 17.55, and now everything as been moved over to our replacement for Arcadia and we go away in 3 weeks can’t wait 😂

Yes, I always found if you don't get through right on open ( I always dial all the numbers except the last and press that as the clock kicks over) then I leave it until the the very end of their day. Anything in between those times is rubbish.

I think these are the current opening hours

1 minute ago, amajaa said:

We’ve booked Christmas 2023, tbh I’m not holding out much hope for that one at the moment 

I agree, we have 5 2022/3/4 cruises booked and the way things are cannot feel confident of any of them running or P&O still being in business the way they are currently performing,.

7 minutes ago, paulatsea said:

And I had to cancel the hotel night before booking - luckily free cancellation and I now will have to cancel the Cruise Parking.

 

What a hassle. Could do without it.

 

We have Arcadia booked for this Christmas - that’s the last cruise with p&o for us.

I think a few more will be saying that, especially if these 2 ships are sold.

31 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

I do wonder whether we will ever get our worldie on Arcadia.  Originally booked for 21.  Took the FCC and subsequently re-booked for 23.  When the worldie 24 itinery was released decided we preferred that, so moved the booking to 24.  Increasingly looking like this is going into the "wasn't to be" box.  Must admit, I'm glad we moved the 23 booking.  

I am thinking the same about our Eastern Med fly cruise, we moved it from 2020 to July 2022 and have now moved it again to July 2024 as we are still not 100% sure of cruising at the moment, too many ways it can go wrong with Covid and Greece ports require a test. We have 4 others with P&O through 2022/3 that we have moved and moved multiple times because of covid with various deposits and FCC's. It has all become a bit of a mess really trying to keep track of where we are with it.

Our next cruise is now Sept 2022 but not sure if we will do that one of not. Our last cruise was March 2020 and the longer we leave it the less we miss it I think and reading about the current performance of P&O on here doesn't help.

We are tied into these 5 cruises so it is either go or lose money, a couple are only small deposits but others have FCC's that almost cover the cost.

Wish we could get all our money back and start again.

Would like to see P&O base a ship in Dubai and resurrect the seasons they did with Oceana visiting

Dubai, Abu Dhabi and ports in Oman, or even some longer ones to the same ports from Southampton.

I just email P&O for the actual port times, takes a while to get a reply but they have always replied with the actual times.

Their rough estimates use these timeframes

I don't really get any of this anymore with cruising.

If I want to go on a land holiday to Malta I don't need a test for entry.

Greece is showing as needing a test on board before going ashore but again not required for a land holiday.

I think I have answered my own question, due to pay balance on Thursday but am not going to, will either move or just cancel.

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

Was this recently or did the "Legal Department" actually respond?  I'm astonished if this is really the intention to move a perfectly reasonable request up to lawyers.

No, I got the email today from Paul Ludlow's office, haven't heard from the Legal Dept.

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

Going off topic a bit but certainly on P&O Administration, I've just received an email apologising for the delay in answering my emails and saying it's now with the legal department! I've nothing outstanding with P&O except the correspondence on insurance issues  so goodness knows who this is really intended for.  I'm awaiting a reply to my reply so to speak but my email has been responded to that I'll here in 28 days.

 

Hope whoever's waiting for their issue to be resolved isn't in dire straits.

I had the same reply to my question about quarantine ashore.

It seems strange as it implied that I had an issue about something that had occurred but it was just the same question that you were asking, i.e. clarity regarding negative testing.close contacts

50 minutes ago, Denarius said:

I think it may well depend on where you are travelling to Greece from. As I understand it, fully vacinated invidividuals travelling to Greece from the UK do not need to test, but different rules may apply re travel to Greece from other countries. So if a cruise ship goes to Greece from one of the latter the rules appertaining to that country will apply. Which may well involve testing.

We go to Greece from Malta and the first 4 ports are in Greece. We don't go for while but we have to pay our balance on 24th March. So we have to decide in the couple of weeks what to do.

23 minutes ago, wowzz said:

That's strange, as I can see no mention of any testing requirements on the official Greek website.

It does seem odd, I'm expecting rules to be relaxed rather than being made stricter, Hoping it is a P&O mistake on the document.

Just seen that there is a new Destinations guide

https://www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/pdfs/A-Z-destination-entry-requirements-guide-9-March-2022.pdf

Notice that Greece now requires an Antigen test, it previously said no tests required.

Hope that changes back as we have 4 Greece ports on our Easter Med cruise.

45 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I think that sums up our feelings as well. 

We are on Azura in March 2022, which we booked on launch, and I felt I was being daring at the time !

To think about booking for June 2024  is a step too far. 

I tend to agree, can't really think that far ahead. The only draw is that it is always the best prices - our next cruise in July (booked in Nov 20) is now £1000 each more expensive than when we booked.

Not sure what to do about  this launch, was hoping for some new itineraries but looking at the ship deployments, it is a bit same old same old

Just had a mail from P&O to say that Summer 2024 will be available for Pre Register on 23rd March.

Hope there are some different itineraries/ports.

49 minutes ago, purplesea said:

We're flying in from Bristol and our flight time is 6 am. 

We don't land in Malta until 6PM on P&O charter from Gatwick