9265359

9 hours ago, 9265359 said:

If you look closely I am sure you can see me sat on the balcony of my apartment!

And here is one back in the opposite direction with Azura just peeking around the corner.

1 hour ago, ScotchBoy said:

Does anyone have first-hand experience of plumbing issues on board Azura, or any other ship for that matter. Heard some horror stories at the weekend, but mostly anecdotal, so was wondering if it was a regular occurrence.  

Yes and no.

Just before Christmas on our cruise we frequently had issues where the toilet wouldn't flush - not a blockage issue, simply no response from pressing the button.

Multiple visits from the engineers didn't seem to have much effect, and the ships's management solution seemed to be "here have a lump of OBC" every time - which was repeated so often that it became difficult to spend.

During the waits at the reception desk, there didn't seem to be a shortage of other people with similar issues - although they seemed to being fobbed off without the OBC.

Throughout the cruise on the section of indoor corridor from the atrium towards the back of the ship past Sindu there had been buckets to catch water dripping from the ceiling - give them the benefit of the doubt that it was from the aircon.

However... on the evening before we disembarked the stench in that area made it clear that it was *not* aircon water. It wasn't a mere whiff of something in the air, it was a full on assault on the nostrils with the smell of - well I will stop there. Quite how people continued with their meals in Sindu... 

And then the following day the sea-doors were closed at each end of that section of corridor with the sound of engineers working hard to resolve whatever the issue was.

However on our previous cruise on Azura 18 months or so ago, there were no issues at all.

So flip a coin, you might be lucky or you might not be.

On 2/3/2024 at 2:35 PM, grapau27 said:

Here is a few balcony photos from our Iona cruise 13-27 January which made us very happy.

If you look closely I am sure you can see me sat on the balcony of my apartment!

Another quiet day in the port like yesterday with no cruise ships in, and I don't think anything due until Wednesday with Balmoral and an Aida.

Into the third week here in Santa Cruz and another week to go before we head over to Puerto de la Cruz for a few more weeks.

The weather out here this year post-Christmas has been fabulous - daytimes constantly low to mid twenties, and warm enough to be sitting outside into late into the evening.

Santa Cruz is in the midst of the preparations for the carnival, and those who are lucky enough to be on Azura and in-port on Saturday 17th when the daytime celebrations take place will have an 'interesting' time - we were here a few years ago and the crowds, the drumming, etc. are incredible.

On 2/1/2024 at 11:02 PM, kruzseeka said:

Have you looked at Nationwide FlexPlus?   It is changing its insurers from UK Insurance to Aviva in May but with the bank account a £13 p.m. charge gives you annual world wide insurance. 

That is very interesting.

I had looked at the Nationwide insurance for the additional mobile phone and breakdown cover as well as the travel insurance, but having gone through the health screening with UK Insurance the added premium to cover some pretty standard health issues was a few hundred pounds.

However it is Aviva that provides the 'free' travel insurance with my HSBC account, and they accept those same conditions without additional charge.

And so it will be interesting to see if Aviva apply the same policy when they Nationwide's travel insurer.

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

Walked along to Camera de Lobos from Funchal, nice village but not much to see (bus back).

Last time we were in Camera de Lobos we got a 'tuna sandwich' from the cafe at the market. It wasn't like any tuna sandwich I have ever had before in my life - the tuna had obviously been swimming rather recently and had never seen the inside of a can, and instead it was a thick whole piece of tuna that had been marinated before being placed in a freshly baked crispy bun - absolutely fabulous and ridiculously inexpensive.

Anyway, here in Santa Cruz it was a fabulously sunny day for Iona's passengers who were filling the main street when we headed down for lunch.

Everywhere in the centre is being set up for the upcoming carnival celebrations, including the La Charca 'puddle' on Plaza Espana being drained to create a big open space.

On 1/31/2024 at 12:43 AM, indiana123 said:

I needed to see the Dr on our NCL cruise. 

...

Then I noticed the price charged for a 'puffer'.  We looked it up and it retailed at £20.  The cost  on the bill was over 350 dollars. 

An American cruise ship with mostly American passengers.

Prices onboard will naturally follow 'home country' prices whether that is for drinks at the bar or medication from the doctor - and medication prices in America are eye-wateringly expensive compared to the rest of the world. 

6 hours ago, newport dave said:

Never been asked to show my insurance upon boarding, so how would they know if I had any or not??

They know you have it as it is part of the 'tick the box' T&Cs - now if you choose to falsely declare you have insurance when you don't...

47 minutes ago, 84k said:

That's two for Azura, maybe it's ship dependent now.

Can I ask how long the sailing was, my last 2 were both 7 nights, this could also be a potential factor 

I was on for two weeks, but the Azura winter cruises are in reality 7 night cruises with one week going that way and the next week going the other, so you can do two week or one week cruises.

Certainly on Azura before Christmas they were doing the Indian nights and Asian nights in the buffet and they tended to be the same nights as the formal nights to divert some of the traffic from the MDR.

1 hour ago, Josy1953 said:

DH wants another Mazda because the last 3 were Mazdas and much nicer to drive and more comfortable.

A Mazda that is nice to drive and comfortable - must be after an MX5 then. www.mazda.co.uk/cars/mazda-mx-5/ 

Anyway Azura disappeared last night for this week’s circuit of the islands, and there are no other ships in port. Absolutely peaceful sat outside eating breakfast on the terrace overlooking the empty port.

13 hours ago, twotravellersLondon said:

 

Pop them in an envelope, addressed to the company, forget the stamp... hey presto... a point is made!

If you actually want to stop them you just let the Royal Mail know - 

https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/293/~/how-do-i-opt-out-of-receiving-any-leaflets-or-unaddressed-promotional-material%3F#:~:text=If you still wish to,address shown on the form.&text=We'll action your request,a period of two years.

11 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

But all letter post is delivered by Royal Mail, so presumably they must consider this to be profitable enough at the rate they currently charge the other companies, otherwise they wouldn't do it?

They are forced to do it by law as they are deemed to have a dominant position, and they have previously been taken to court over the amounts they wanted to charge their competitors.

Anyway, from my terrace I can see that Marella Explorer, Mein Schiff 1, and Azura are in port today so town is going to be quite busy.

2 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

A cloudy start for us today but a pleasant 22oC. We decided to get the bus to Puerto del Rosario and have a look around for a change, however on seeing an AIDA ship and Azura in port we decided to go to Corralejo. The bus was full so we had to wait for the next one, there was a long queue by the time that came which was made up with lots of cruise passengers.

Cruise passengers sensibly getting out of the grim Puerto del Rosario!

Corralejo is a far nicer place to spend time - I wintered there a couple of years ago and have some very pleasant memories of the place.

35 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Or open up the letter market to competition. It may well be that a commercial enterprise could do things better than the post office.

As a point of order, the Post Office is a separate company from Royal Mail.

The letter market is open to competition - it happened in 2006 - and that is part of the cause of Royal Mail's issues. Take a look at the letters you receive from businesses and they will be using these competing companies.

The commercial competition take the profitable stuff - bulk mail between large urban centres - and for the non-profitable stuff they either say 'nope' or do the profitable part and then dump it back into the Royal Mail network to do the unprofitable 'last leg' part.

25 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

The problem is as Molechip explained, overcrowding.  The terminals have safe capacity for 2000 people. Big ship can hold 6000, so you must control entry to terminal. So can't let those too early in.

If boarding times were actually enforced - you have a 4pm boarding time, no matter what you are *not* getting on before 4pm, how many people do you really think would turn up hours early? Certainly not 4,000.

And even with 6,000 passengers that means processing around 1,000 passengers an hour with people going directly to the check-in queue then the security queue and then the ship and not actually going anywhere near the seating.

So a 2,000 capacity should have no issue with dealing with those who are not arriving early to try to blag their way onto the ship - and actually it would be trivially easy to achieve that if anyone wanted to do so.

On 10/26/2022 at 4:25 PM, bbtablet said:

Of course, you could always try pinching a sun-lounger from poolside and carrying it down to your cabin - good luck with that!

That’s exactly what I did on another cruise line where I had a very large aft balcony but was only equipped with chairs and a side table.

8 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

It’s entirely a contractual matter. When you sign a long term contract, whether it be in the public or private sector, you accept the consequences of that contract. The fact that the contract was with the government makes no difference. Situations are always changing, and in business if a contract has to be renegotiated there’s invariably a penalty to pay. This is no different.

So what was the penalty stipulated in the contract if changes were made a decade or more down the line - that’s right, there wasn’t one.

9 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

If International Distributions Services plc goes under, its shareholders lose their money, and the Royal Mail business would be resold or operated under public ownership again. This is all about trying to get the government (at public expense) to bail out the shareholders.

And if (when…) Royal Mail goes bust no government of any political flavour would choose to recreate it in public ownership in the current format as that would mean throwing hundreds of millions of taxpayers money in subsidies to allow it to meet the unviable obligations it currently has.

38 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

It's the chancers who turn up at 12pm for a 3pm slot that should be turned away

They shouldn’t.

They should be let in but kept waiting for the three hours until their check in time.

The chancers will reduce because they will discover they won’t get on any quicker, whilst those who had to arrive early because of the whole host of reasons some people here seem blind to, will simply be grateful they are not stood outside in the weather.

Just now, Harry Peterson said:

It’s unfortunate, isn’t it, that those were precisely the terms on which the company now running it took over the Royal Mail ten years or so ago. I can see that there are issues, but that’s the responsibility of the company and the shareholders that own it. You win some, you lose some - those are the risks involved in operating and investing in businesses.

 

Any changes to the Universal Service Obligation which the company signed up to should be paid for - back to the Treasury (meaning us) - by the company and if necessary its shareholders. Not paid for by the general public by accepting a reduced service just to get the shareholders off the hook.

Ten years is a long time, and would you expect them to continue with that obligation in another decade or two decades, or a hundred years, or a thousand years.

Like it or not things change, and one of those things that has changed in the last decade is how people receive communications.

Few people now receive financial documents by post or utility bills or the whole host of business mail that flowed through the Royal Mail a decade ago.

And so the option is a straightforward one - a reduced service or no service after Royal Mail goes bust.

20 hours ago, zap99 said:

Some..many organisations, need a kick up the backside. Post office/Royal mail are finding things tough so would like to deliver 3 days a week.

Royal Mail is struggling because few people send letters anymore and the only profitable part of their business is parcels, where they are in competition with Amazon Logistics, Ervin, DHL, UPS, etc.

I have been away from home for just over a week and in that time the post lady has delivered one item to my house (Ring doorbells are great) and that might not even have been a letter but the weekly delivery of junk leaflets destined for the bin.

I expect when I get home in a couple of months time there will be only a dozen items of actual post, and likely only a couple I actually needed to receive and that were not advertising material.
 

No way can a business operate where they need to deliver six days a week everywhere in the UK and charge the same cost to deliver it whether it is going two streets away in London or from Lands End to Shetland, and damn all people actually use it to send any letters!

Anyway getting back to the subject in hand, a glorious 25c here in Santa Cruz Tenerife.

Only an Aida ship in today so the town is relatively quiet, and after a late breakfast on the terrace we took a stroll into town and around the park which was full of locals enjoying the weather, then a nice menu del dia at a small out of the way restaurant - three course with wine for €10 - bargain! And now relaxing on the terrace again with a cold one for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

5 hours ago, BouncingWheel said:

Why are we consistently comparing cruise ports to airports? People use airplanes to get to their destinations/holidays not their holiday. Getting on the cruise ship is a major part of the holiday. I’m sure if airplanes took thousands of passengers, had loads of free good food, swimming, spas, bars and entertainment and sat on tarmac for hours before leaving then loads would try and got on early to enjoy the facilities, until then I don’t see people rushing to get there very early.

Your comparison is false.

Even if the airplanes took thousands of passengers, had loads of free good food, swimming, spas, bars and entertainment and sat on tarmac for hours before leaving, you are still not getting on the aircraft until your boarding group is called to allow an on-time departure.

And that means thousands of people sitting waiting in the airport terminal for hours, as that allows the airport to sell them overpriced goods, food, drink, the option to pay for more comfortable seats in lounges, etc.

*That* is the failing of the terminals in Southampton to spot that business opportunity - keep to an absolute boarding schedule so if your boarding time is 4pm but you arrive at 10am then you are *not* going to be called to the check in desk until 4pm let alone getting on before 4pm - no matter if the check in staff and security staff are sat there twiddling their thumbs, it’s a hard hard rule.
 

However if you want to arrive at 10am to sit on an uncomfortable plastic chair for six hours whilst we sell you food and drink at double or treble the High St price then feel free. Or would you like to pay to sit in our lounge for £25 each.

Or this is the real business opportunity - would you like to board early (obviously after the priority guests) - no problem, it’s £100 per person to do so.

15 hours ago, Trevor Fountain said:

That's just what the Italians said on Costa Concordia.

Does Italy not have public healthcare for its citizens and did that not cover those who were rescued?

Or are you suggesting that the rescue boats made a charge?

And for those unfortunate people who were killed, then if they needed insurance to cover their life then logically they would have had that life insurance whether or not they were on a ship.

23 hours ago, AlexMcSpot said:

On a recent cruise my wife had a cut on her arm, the medical centre cleaned the cut, put two butterfly stitches and a patch over the cut. Total cost £109 - yes you need insurance.

You don't need insurance to cover you for a £109 bill of any kind, medical or not.

You need medical insurance for two reasons - 

Firstly when you have had treatment in some far flung place and they have added a few zeros onto the end of that bill, plus the cost of repatriation if needed.

Secondly because P&O won't let you on the ship without it.

But as for anyone actually making a worthwhile claim on a UK only cruise - I seriously doubt that happens an awful lot.

After yesterday’s freezing cold walk out to the aircraft at Gatwick, today is a glorious mid twenties here in Tenerife with a view of the floating tower block that is Iona from my balcony. 

I was interested to see the Valiant Lady appearing in Sky Italia's new drama TV series 'Unwanted', about a cruise ship being taken over by shipwrecked refugees.

Unwanted: le location della serie tv di Sky tratta dal libro Bilal di Fabrizio Gatti (today.it)