oAlgo

Thanks a lot for all of your answers, especially Alberta!!!
Given me a lot to think about, but for sure it´s going to be our next big holiday!!

Thanks for all the answers!
It is illegal in Norway to drive while looking at your phone, as the same as in most of the European countries.
David, thanks for the email, I´ll send them the complaint and the videos I recorded.

Hi, just finished our wonderful Nothern LIght cruise on Aurora, but still a bit angry about "an issue" that happened during one of our excursions in Andalsnes.
While we were travelling by bus, the guide received a call telling him to change the route and take us to a different cafe to have a coffee.
He told the bus driver and while he was driving us on slippery roads he took out his phone, and opened maps, typed in the new address and started looking on the phone without even slowing down. After looking for a while he found it and then drove the rest of the way with one hand on the wheel while holding his phone with the other hand, even going round roundabouts he didn´t put his phone away.
Not only this, but on the way back he received a videocall and took his phone out again, and took the call and then put his phone down on the side so he could continue the call.
I thought about reporting this, but I did feel a bit bad about doing this, but when we got back I told the guide that it was wrong to do that with a bus full of people, but he just said that everybody does it, and that even cars now days have screens that show your phone. I then told the driver that he should not do that and he just smiled at me as if I was crazy, didn´t even apologize. 
I went to shore excursion on the ship, and the guy said there after seeing the video that he was probably looking at maps, giving it no importance at all.
Now I do feel like I should do something, as this is very reckless, and if he keeps on like this people could get hurt.

Hello from Spain,
I´m just starting to think about doing Alaska in August 2025 or maybe 2026, but I have some doubts.
The first plan would be to do the Rocky Mountaineer, inside passage cruise, and Denali park staying at Holland Americas resort, and not sure if the other destinations in Alaska.
What we most enjoy is the scenery, wildlife, little villages, and maybe some "easy" hiking. Not that much into shopping, or bigger cities though.

- First question, will there be lots of kids on the ship and resorts? I know Holland America doesn´t usually attract a lot of families, but we´ve never booked a cruise during school vacations, except for on adults only ships. We´re not a fan of relaxing on a holiday while kids are running around shouting (or whatever).
- Is August a good month to go for the scenery and/or wildlife? I would prefer to go earlier, as we love seeing the Mountains with more snow. Just got back from a northern light cruise to the north of Norway and we almost cried seeing all the scenery round us. The issue is that for at least another 5 or more years I can´t get time off work from May to July, or September. April and October could be done, with a 2 year notice, but I don´t think they´re good months for Alaska?

- Any advice about the Mountaineer? I´ve seen they have different destinations and routes. Also any advice about the rest of the destinations in Alaska (apart from the cruises ones and Mackinley resort as we´ve decided to stay there for 2 or 3 nights)

- Better first inland and then cruise, or other way around?

TIA!!
 

Does anybody know what day of the week does Sindhu on Aurora change it´s menu?
On Britannia last year it was changing on Wednesdays or Thursdays on the cruise we did, not sure if that applies to every cruise or it counts from the day the cruise starts or what.
TIA

14 hours ago, jh1809 said:

Judging by Selbourne's post today in "his" thread", it looks like they may have recently changed things so that you can pre-book Sindhu before the cruise:

 

"For dinner we had booked Sindhu. One of 4  bookings for the restaurant that we had made pre cruise. Pre booking is beneficial as you get 20% discount, plus loyalty discount and the pre booking charge is then deducted from your final bill. However, it gets better in that because you’ve pre booked you also then get a further 20% discount off your final food bill which is then further subject to loyalty discount. It’s a great offer that P&O don’t really promote."

Thanks a lot, I had no idea about the discount
Shame the Glass House can´t be booked though, that´s our favourite restaurant

Hi, does anybody know if it´s possible to pre-book specialty dining on Aurora 14 days before?
We embark in one month and I would like to get this sorted out before we get on the ship.
Also, is it easy to get in the Glass House for dinner (not too early), last time on Britannia the queues on the app filled up in a few minutes every night, and was almost impossible to get a table at around 7:30-8:30.

12 minutes ago, Fionboard said:

No prebooking on small ships, just Arvia, Iona and Britannia. Don't worry. 

On Britannia you can only book the Limelight Club at this moment, on all the rest it says "Enquire on board".
I´ve been trying twice per day for the last 10 days, for both of my cruises.

16 minutes ago, windra06 said:

Can you just pack a fold up bag into your luggage and move 5kg into the bag once you get off the plane?

Good idea, I can take the extra weight from both suitcases in one bag. 
Don´t know why I didn´t think of this in the first place
Thanks!

13 minutes ago, david63 said:

If you don't have enough hangers then ask your cabin steward for some more - they all have a "secret" stash of them.

 

As for laundry that is an unknown - it seems to vary by ship and is unpredictable as to when any offer is on. I have tried asking in the past and either nobody knows or they are unwilling/unable to say.

Thanks David, I´ll ask for more hangers if needed and try and keep my clothes clean 🙂

Got a couple of questions more:
On our last Canary cruise, there was a laundry offer on the second last night, that was fill the whole laundry bag and they washed and ironed everything for a flat rate. Does anybody know how much this is and if they would do it at the end of the first cruise of a back to back cruise?
Also wondering about how many hangers are available in the wardrobe?
Never done a cruise longer than 10 days or so, and this one will be 21 days and will need to use more hangers than normal and not sure whether to take a few more with us or not.

12 minutes ago, zap99 said:

As an expert, any advice on the correct temperature to serve a nice Blue Nun. I asked my Son, who is a MW. He said " sorry Dad ", we didn't cover that one.

 

Is that a Riesling? If so, at around 45 or 50 Fahrenhiet, or slightly lower if you´re having the whole bottle and then you can appreciate the difference of aromas when it starts getting warmer.

16 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

That might be true of Cunard but not P&O, you can get nice wine for £30 

 

However a £30 bottle plus £20 corkage Will be far far better than a P&O £50 bottle

The bottles we will take cost more than 30 pounds (usually around 50-60€ when bought).
All of them have aged 5 years or more more from when they were sold, and on P&O they don´t have older vintages, and if they do they would be much more expensive. Lots of complex wines are much better and don´t finish "rounding" all the tannins to get the perfect balance until 5 or 10 years after being sold.
I have a wine cellar in my house with around 750 bottles, some more than 50 years old (the very old ones can only be drunken at home).
All of the wines sold on board are big production wines, not comparable to some of the bottles we have that are bought from small family run wineries, with very small productions (maybe between 300 and 1000 bottles per year). These we really enjoy due to their unique qualities.
 

We also enjoy wines served on board, and they have very good prices compared to any other cruise line (one of the reasons we choose P&O), and we also enjoy trying wines from other regions and grape varieties that we don´t have that much at home (Spain). We´ll be going to the Glass House a few times, for sure. I just hope they don´t serve red wine by the glass at room temperature like last time we went.

As I said before, we´re wine snobs, lol

 

Not business, but flight from Malaga with Wizz allows 32kg, and flight back 25kg.
I was never thinking on bringing 32kg, but 25-26 including a couple of bottles of wine each.

I did know about the corkage fee of 20 Pounds, and have no problem with it. 

The trouble about taking more cases is that we fly from Spain (where we live), and we have one piece of luggage + hand luggage allowed for our flight.
I´ll try and keep it the lowest weight possible then

About carrying it on myself, I wouldn´t mind that, maybe not 30kg, but could move 25 with no problem at all.

Thanks for all the answers.
Really looking forward to the cruise!!!

Hi, just printed our luggage tags and I was surprised as it says that only 23kilos of weight per piece is allowed.
We´re doing back-to-back 21 days in total (both starting and ending in Southampton) and were thinking of taking more weight than that.

Also, we´ve usually always taken 2 or 3 bottles of wine each (as we´re wine snobs, haha), and never had a problem. We have some in the cabin and pay corkage to get it served in the restaurants.
I´ve now read that only one bottle is allowed per person, but not sure if this has always been the policy and never been enforced, or is this new.
On our last cruise in the Canaries last November, we took some bottles on board and bought more in some wineries we visited and some ports of call, and took them back on in our backpack that was scanned and they didn´t even mention them. We had some on board and brought the others back with us.

12 hours ago, jh1809 said:

I noticed that for my cruise on Arcadia this summer, rather hidden away in the cruise personaliser it says that the specialty restaurants will be available to book from two weeks before the start of the cruise. It seems likely that that would be the same across the fleet.

As I said, on Britannia at this moment it says that I can pre-book the specialty restaurants (we embark in 12 days), but when I go to do it, it says "Please enquire on board" on all of them except the Limelight Club. Seems like it works on some ships and not on others.
I am checking every day and will report if I can book any of them before I get on the ship.
I´m planning to book specialty restaurants for every night except the 2 scenic fjord cruising evenings, which I will probably eat as fast as possible in the buffet just to get back out to see the views again, or order a meal in the cabin and have it in the balcony with a nice wine (if it´s not too cold)

17 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

A few people have reported this issue now. Like you, I was hoping to pre-book a number of speciality restaurants before we board, especially as you can get a discount by doing so on top of loyalty discount (you lose both of those if using OBC whilst on board). I hope this gets sorted (unless it’s a permanent change). 

I suppose there´s no way around it if the website doesn´t allow the pre bookings?
Or would P&O help over the phone, or my travel agent?
Thanks for your answer!

Hi, We´re going on Britannia to the Fjords on the 5th of May and the dining bookings opened today, but the website only allows me to pre-book the Limelight Club.
Isn´t it possible to pre-book Sindhu or Epicurean?
I know I can do it once on board, but would be nice to already have all our specialty meals pre booked.
TIA!

We went on the Azura a month or so ago and we could book them as soon as you embark, but not before. Once you embark you can book in the restaurant or through your phone connecting to the ships internal wifi (for free)
For a week cruise the Epicurean got fully booked for the whole cruise in a day or two, but we were lucky and got in twice and enjoyed 2 amazing meals, totally worth it IMHO.

Good luck and enjoy!!!
 

Thanks for the answers!!

I´ll ask reception as soon as I get on board and will book the Glass house and Beach house for some of the formal nights if I can get away with DJ and smart jeans or chinos, and will probably book the Epicurean for the 2 nights I will wear a suit.
On my last cruise on Azura the black tie night was a total chaos in one of the MDR´s, felt really stupid to have to dress up for a bad dinning experience.

Hi, we´re doing (B2B) the fjords and Baltic in may 2023 on Britannia.
I´m not a fan of having to wear a suit, might wear it once or twice, but seems like we´re going to have quite a few black tie nights (maybe 6 in total?), and that for me would be a bit of a pain.
The website says that you don´t have to wear one for the buffet (also not a fan), but I think I remember somebody saying that you can also dine somewhere else.
I was thinking of going on some of these days to the Glass house and/or Beach house, as I doubt Sindhu or Epicurean will allow it.
I will be wearing smart (dark) jeans, formal shirt and dinner jacket, just no suit or tie.
Will they allow me into any of these restaurants?
Also, where could we have a drink afterwards, not that bothered about shows, but would be nice to have a relaxing drink even if it´s not in the Crows nest.

TIA!!
 

On 12/17/2022 at 9:05 PM, grapau27 said:

This is fantastic news.

You will love Copenhagen.

If you need a hotel near Malaga we have Stayed at the Vincci Aleysa in Benalmadena 15 times and it is fantastic.

The Vincci group also have a hotel in central Malaga.

Graham 

Thanks Graham.
We live and work in Nerja, just the other side of Málaga:)

Really looking forward to the cruise now!!!

On 12/2/2022 at 10:12 AM, grapau27 said:

We have stayed several times in Copenhagen at the Admiral hotel which has an excellent location near Nyhavn etc.

I would book the cruise and enjoy it then book a mini break to Copenhagen another time to enjoy wonderful Copenhagen.

Graham.

Thanks Graham, but I have important work to do in Spain the same day (at midnight)  the cruise ends in Southampton and it´s just to risky to try and disembark and get to Málaga in that same day.

Finally I found a great Travel Agent that in 2 days got the confirmation from P&O that I can disembark in Copenhaguen, so I´ve just booked my first back to back cruise (Fjords + Baltic).
We´ll stay 2 more days in Copenhaguen before flying back to Malaga
I had already seen the Admiral hotel, looks like it has an amazing location!!!

Thanks for all the answers!!!

Spoke to P&O yesterday morning and they said that the person that I spoke to last week would call me back about this, but still waiting for their call or email. 
It´s been more than 3 weeks since my first call now, and I´ve told them that as soon as they answer I´ll be booking the cruise.
Is there any other more efficient way to speak to them?

TIA