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No. The MDR close the doors at 9.30pm for dinner service, the same as they do at 2pm for lunch service, but service doesn’t stop, and if you walk in at 9.15pm or 1.45pm you still get to eat as you would have done had you walked in earlier. And if I received rubbish service, as has occurred on rare occasions, then I would speak to the restaurant manager - and past experience has demonstrated that the rest of the cruise will go well (and actually better than normal) as the last thing they want is you escalating it to the F&B manager as a repeated failure.

And there is the problem - so does everyone else on the ship! And I would eat at 9.45pm any day rather than 6.30pm which I would see as late afternoon and usually time that I am having a swim, in the gym, a drink on the balcony, etc. and certainly not time to sit down for a three course meal. But either way we are both making compromises to deal with the lack of space in the restaurants compared to the number of passengers who want to use them at a particular time. Unless the solution is building another restaurant to tow behind the ship, then any solution will leave someone disappointed.

Trouble is that on Iona and Arvia you don’t get the numbers of elderly people who actually want to eat dinner at 6.30, so forcing an early sitting on someone who doesn’t want it is a very second class solution for them.

The changes may improve things for a few who are quick to book the limited number of bookable tables, but will likely make things worse for the remainder who are too late to do so and will have to continue to with the current system, but now with fewer tables to queue for. My solution to avoid excessive queues has been to shift my dining habits to ‘Spanish time’ whilst onboard and go to the MDR around 9.15pm when they have a closing time to seat people of 9.30pm, and then get seated immediately (although 9.15pm would be an hour or two too early to eat for a Madrileno!).

Just checked my policy from aegeas (which allows stays up to 60 days away), and this is the relevant extract with my bolding - "Unoccupied - By unoccupied we mean that your home hasn't been or won't be lived in for more than 60 days in a row, or doesn't contain enough furniture to be lived in normally. Regular visits to the home, or occasional overnight stays, would not count as your home being lived in or as a break in this period" So do check your policy.

Anyway, as for the strict arrival times, will I be arriving at the exact arrival time for my cruise in three weeks time - no I will not. I will be arriving an hour and a half *late*. P&O have kindly allocated me a 12:30 arrival time but as my train doesn't get into Southampton until 13:30 that isn't going to happen. And even if I had known the 12:30 time when I booked the train tickets I would still be arriving at 13:30 because that is the earliest arrival time for off-peak tickets from my home station.

If you were looking to get dual Russian nationality then you must have been born in Turkmenistan or Tajikistan as those are the only countries that Russia allows dual nationality with... Any problems cruising on P&O with a Turkmenistan or Tajikistan passport?

Only if they can prove a need for one - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/additional-passports/additional-passports-accessible And even if the passport does accept the evidence you have to provide and approves it, it isn’t a card that will fit in a wallet.

Most will just charge a small amount to extend the cover for longer absences. I would be reading the policy *very* carefully to ensure that they accepted that someone who didn’t normally reside there staying for such a short period qualified.

There are an awful lot of people who would simply buy a new set and return it using the original receipt. Now I am not condoning such behaviour, but I would strongly suspect that the retailer selling the garden furniture knew full well that they would be slashing the price and the higher price was always a false price to trick those buying at the lower price into thinking they had got a bargain (meanwhile those who actually paid full price…). So which is the more dishonest, the customer cheating with their return or the retailer engaged in false pricing to make it look like goods are on sale when they never really were? And as cruise companies are mostly protected from customers returning their cruise, they can play this game to their hearts content. So buy at a price you are happy and then don’t look back in the mirror, because seeing how much extra you paid due to these dubious marketing tricks leaves a bad taste for your upcoming cruise.

But seriously, it is quite handy that Irish citizens can have both a traditional passport book plus in addition if they want a wallet sized passport card - https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/great-britain/passports/passportcard/ The wallet size passport card is a full passport that can be used in the EU, the EEA, and the UK and works the electronic passport gates, and can be used without the traditional passport book. So if you are going ashore to one of those places that says you should take your passport (yes I know nowhere ever checks, but…) then you could take the passport card and leave the passport book in the ship safe (or the other way around), and if you lose it then sure you need to report it but you are not going to be stuck somewhere without a passport. And as someone with dual nationality, then I also have the UK passport to fall back on if really necessary.

Quite handy then that I travel with three passports.

My perception based on what land based restaurants charge is the fee charged by the specialty restaurants is a surcharge, not the value of the MDR food being ‘lost’ and a full charge for the specialty restaurant.

You are quoting the Sun as an authority! Anyway the standard answer to any newspaper article that poses a question is a negative to their proposal. And in scenario 1, are you suggesting the insurance company might not pay out if you left your car parked on the street outside your house whilst you went on holiday? And does it need to be a week it is left unattended? Or just a weekend? Or even overnight? And does it matter if it is around the corner from your house, or does it need to be immediately outside for it to be insured. Those who are happy to take a risk, whether it is booking a Saver cabin or parking in a multi-storey car parks will do so, and those who don’t consider it an acceptable risk will pay for the Select cabins and use the inclusive car parking.

Boarding times - if I am driving I will aim to arrive vaguely at the appropriate time, but if I am arriving by train - nope, I get there when I get there. With trains I am not going to suffer the early morning commuter services, nor am I going to risk a late train that arrives just before departure. And bookings for trains usually need to be made before you know the boarding time if you have booked late but still want to buy an Advance ticket. If that means being early and waiting, then so be it. Similarly if it means being late, well I am here now.

Statistics are relevant if it never happens to your car. Care to give an example of a car insurance policy that contains such an exclusion, because I have never seen one (and I consider it would be impossible for any insurance company to actually write such an exclusion that wouldn't fail to meet the expectations of the ombudsman).

Perceptions - you perceive that something bad will happen to a car parked in a public multi-story car park, I do not. What are the actual facts - what proportion of cars are broken into, vandalised, or stolen when parked for a week or two in a public multi-storey car park? 10%? 1%? 0.1%? 0.01%? 0.001%? If it was 10% then paying a premium to park in a secure car park might be worth it, but at 0.001% it likely isn't. And then what is the risk of damage to your car by the secure car park driver that you only notice after you get home so they won't cover? 10%? 1%? 0.1%? 0.01%? 0.001%? Fear of risk is a subject exploited by every company, whether it is a secure car park company, a high street retailer selling you an extended warranty, or a cruise company offering to mitigate the risk of a dodgy cabin or unsatisfactory MDR allocation by paying extra! Some people are happy to accept the risk that most often does not materialise, and some are not.

Likewise, but also cruise control, which on my car is adaptive so it decreases and increases speed based on the car in front. Set it to whatever the limit is (based on GPS readings) and sit back and relax - particularly as it takes over the steering once you reach 40mph.

Your 'perceived' risk. Whether there is actually an increased risk is a matter for debate.

Not sure why you think multiple 2 hour stays in a car park is less risky than a single longer stay. Over the same total period of time there is exactly the same risk that the car will be broken into, vandalised, or stolen, but during multiple stays in a supermarket car park there is a far higher risk from other people going to and from their cars than in a long stay car park with little movement. Of course. But you had expressed an opinion and I was expressing a counter opinion challenging your assertions about risk.

You would never leave your car parked in a multi-storey or hotel car park? Do you never drive to the shops or go on holiday in the UK?

If someone is going to break into, vandalise, or steal your car then whether it is left in a car park for a week or an hour is irrelevant as it will only take a thief a moment to do what they need to do. And do people who take the train or coach to the port park their car in a secure car park whilst they are away, or do they leave it with no security on their drive or on the street outside their house? Then what about commuter railway stations where cars are left all day and it is obvious to any thief that they can do whatever they want for the next eight hours with no risk of being troubled. Secure parking at ports is just 'security theatre'. Pay for it if you want, but the chance of it being needed is trivially small.

I would suggest the car (and whether it is equipped with AEB - Automatic Emergency Braking) and the amount of attention the driver is giving to the road is a greater factor as to whether the car is stationary or not. If anyone has never driven a car with AEB - well the first time it activates you will be shocked. The car 'sees' someone stepping out and the car will *slam* the brakes on as hard as it can with no interaction from the driver. This isn't a mild braking, but a 'throw an anchor out the back' job that will make everyone in the car glad they are wearing a seatbelt. Anyway - another glorious sunny day and just over three weeks to my next cruise with a bonus of an unexpected upgraded cabin (and a good upgraded cabin at that).

My journey this morning took me through a village and lots of drivers don’t stick to the 30 mph limit on this stretch because there is a long straight stretch between two parts of the village where there are no houses at all. This morning was no exception and the BMW driver behind me was raging and getting infuriated that I was doing 30mph when they wanted to go faster. That is until they saw the speed trap van that I already knew about because of Waze. The speed trap van that had hidden itself into the verge so if you hadn’t known it was there it would have been far too late to do anything about it by the time you had seen it. I wonder if the speed awareness courses mentioned using technology so you know where the speed traps are before you speed past them…

The difference is that AirTags use virtually every Apple phone out there because Apple phones up to around six years old or so use the latest software. With Android you might be lucky with a year or two of the latest software, and as it moves on then it is likely they stop doing stuff like this. And so the chance of an AirTag being near a compatible iPhone is high, but the chance of an Android or (even worse) a dedicated Samsung tag being near a compatible phone is far lower. There have been murmurs of cross platform support for tracking tags, but since Apple and Android phones can’t even exchange text messages using full compatibility, then I wouldn’t hold your breath.