Valfan

I did this two or three times when I stopped working and cruised quite a lot a few years ago. I never hit any problems. If booked on Select price (or whatever it was called back then) I still got the 10% off both cruises back to back discount. One time the two P&O ships were berthed very close to each other so I just walked from one to the other. Another time an Entertainment Officer I'd met at solo coffee chat was moving between my two ships the same day so he insisted I share his taxi which was all paid for on expenses. I had a great time on all my back to back cruises.

I've done a lot of P&O cruises at Easter time as Easter often coincides with my birthday. The catering department used to (before the pandemic anyway) have lovely displays of hand-made Easter eggs and cakes in the atrium. I don't remember any actual Easter themed activities. But there may well be some for children and families organized through the kids' clubs. Hope you have a great cruise on Arvia and an enjoyable Easter.

I was on that cruise with the fire in the engine, the forced return to Miami and the missed port of Key West. It was in 2015, returning in early May. We had terrible humidity for 11 solid days and nights which I found quite scary. I'd never experienced anything like it. Yes a lot of passengers put in complaints and we ended up with £100 OBC each and a free bottle of wine. The complaints obviously continued from some people after we got back as we all received a big hamper out of the blue after we'd been back home for a week or two. It was the best hamper we'd ever seen.

They entered service a couple of months apart, Oceana in Feb 2000 as Ocean Princess, transferring to P&O Cruises in 2002. Aurora entered service for P&O in April 2000.

I've done six P&O cruises since my own restart 18 months ago, mainly in the cheapest grade of inside cabin. And I've never had any problem getting face flannels, body lotion or conditioner. I just ask the cabin steward on the first day. Some other small items which I thought had stopped being available and they weren't important anyway, I discovered from other passengers that you can still get them by asking your steward. This happened with a P&O note pad and pen on my last cruise in Dec. I noticed that other solos were using them and wondered if they'd got them onboard. I was greeted with a chorus of "Ask your steward".

It's a lot longer than that since P&O had only 2 small ships. Four of the current fleet (Aurora, Arcadia, Ventura and Azura) arrived in 2010 or earlier. 10 years ago the small Adonia was also in the fleet. That's the year I went on her. And Oriana and Oceana had been around for many years by then as well. So that was 7 ships ten years ago.

Lovely to read a glowing recommendation of Roy Locke's show. I hadn't come across him until I was on a 19-nighter on Arcadia last April. I enjoyed his first show so much that I went to both houses of each of his two shows - something that I hadn't done for an individual artist's show (I often go to more than one performance of Headliners shows) since the days of Leo Andrew back in the 1990's to early 2000's. I had a quick chat with him after his final show and, as well as being a very good singer with good stage presence, he was very chatty and polite, very personable. In fact, meeting him and seeing his four shows was a real highlight in an otherwise godawful cruise.

The allowance is higher since Brexit. It's 4 litres per person of spirits or strong liqueurs (as well as 42 litres of beer and 18 litres of still wine, not that anyone could carry all that). The 4 litres of spirits each is a great way of using up some OBC for people who have their cars parked in Southampton. But it's not very practical for someone like myself who has a long journey home on buses and trains.

I've done 6 cruises on 4 different ships in the fleet since resuming cruising 16 months ago and have always received body lotion, conditioner and flannels as soon as I asked cabin steward for them. On the non-toiletries front as well, I noticed on my latest cruise on Ventura last week that the usual little packs of biscuits and notepad and pen in cabin were missing. I just put it down to yet more cutbacks and didn't enquire about them. But someone at my table mentioned towards the end of the cruise that these are now "on request". So I asked next morning and the steward produced them right away.

Is Wes Dunlop on Arcadia now? I thought he just did Iona. I liked having him as Captain on my Iona cruises last year and this. As you say, very friendly. And good at giving updates on our progress each day, and letting us know in advance when we were going to be passing or berthed near to another P&O ship.

I was on Aurora's 30-nighter as well. I always said if they ever brought back Afternoon Tea in MDR and/or Chocoholics buffet I'd definitely go. I did and thoroughly enjoyed both. It was great to see the lovely spread of goodies at Chocoholics, with some people even taking photos of it, like in the good old days. And the return at Afternoon Tea of huge cake stands and tiny square napkins, that were never very practical but helped to evoke memories of days gone by. The other thing I hope to cruise long enough to see the return of is an Officer at each table on Peninsular Club lunches. As someone pointed out on the cruise, they can mix with passengers and sit near them when big groups of Officers come in together and sit in the theatre for the 10:30 show most nights, yet we can't get one of them at each table for the luncheons. Someone else said they'd never bring that back as the Officers would be constantly bombarded with comments and complaints about all the changes and cutbacks. And I suppose they could be right.

It's not a case of engaging in conversations with people. At dinner tables, and particularly at solo get-togethers, I've found on more or less all of my cruises that people talk about their bargain prices, or moan about their high cruise prices, without me saying a word. On this particular cruise, a lot of people were saying in the first couple of days, "Did you all jump on at the brilliant price that this has been for the past few weeks?" They could tell by my face that I wasn't one of the lucky ones without me saying a word. I knew about the £828 price drop for many weeks before sail date, without any conversations with anyone. It was advertised in emails, cruise adverts, mailshots etc. The cruise was ruined for me long before it sailed. A lot of other things happened on the cruise as well which ruined it even more. But that's a story for another day.

I wish P&O had looked after me. My Arcadia cruise in April/May this year (booked at launch in Nov 2021) was completely ruined for me by a price drop of more than £800 after I'd paid full balance. And that was just for the cheapest inside cabin. I know it's all swings and roundabouts. I've had some brilliant solo bargains over the years, and been stung a few times. But it was such a big price drop. (All three of my Iona cruises in the preceding few months had cost me less than £800 each). And, as I knew would happen on the Arcadia one, I kept meeting people who had paid £828 less than me, right from coffee chat the first morning. I never really got going with that cruise. It turned into 19 nights of my life that Id rather have been anywhere else. And I'll certainly never book in advance ever again. So it will be interesting to watch developments with this latest P&O policy.

I saw the July 12th thread "Aurora - Good Solo Deal" about this cruise, which I'd been keeping an eye on for months. It was too late to do anything that night, but I looked up prices. It was still from £2299, same as it had been for a long time. But now it was 0% Single supplement instead of 60%. Price on TA website was from £2254. I called TA next morning (the one a lot of us use), and was very pleasantly surprised to be charged £2047, with the P&O price being £2069, same as you saw. The plot thickened later that morning when I looked at P&O and TA websites again and they were back to quoting £2299 and £2254. All I'd done was danced around the room all excited and phoned a couple of people to tell them of my good fortune. Maybe had a coffee. But it would be barely an hour after booking. So I never actually saw the £2069 or £2047 prices on screen at all. I was just quoted them by the girl on phone, then saw them on my booking confirmation paperwork, which came by post less than 24 hours later. And the £2047 price is correct on my Visa account. So I'm well chuffed!

There's no pre-booking for theatre or freedom dining on any of the four smaller, older ships thank goodness. It's been on P&O's website for a good while now, certainly since before I went my late Apr-early May Arcadia cruise, under "Here's how My Holiday works differently on each of our ships".