doog442

As stated West Quay is a decent bet. We use it all the time when popping into Southampton and have left cars in 24/7 - there are loads left overnight. For starters no one really steals a car from a public multi story as they have to pay to get out and it has CCTV and ANPR in this case. Since West Quay was built ( its a big commercial shopping centre) I've never seen any evidence of people breaking into cars ( which is usually broken glass fragments on the ground). Likewise loads of security in the immediate area on foot as I said its a highly productive commercial shopping centre who rely on people using that car park and IKEA next door. If people want to screw cars there are thousands of poorly lit streets and driveways not that far away. That said you still have to get to the immediate port area, although nearby might not suit everyone without the hassle of a taxi.

Yes in particular the Caribbean. We normally do land based AI but avoid Jan / Feb as the prices literally double. Our latest cruise (14 day aft cabin Arvia- ) was coming in at less than half the price of some of our favourite hotels in Antigua / St Lucia and it was weird sat on their beaches this time around. The OBC paid for our drinks (and two tours). Having last sailed P&O in 2019 and comparing it to now I honestly can't say any changes have put us off. As a matter of fact nice as it is we didn't miss turn down as we always felt we had to leave the cabin looking presentable before going out 🤣. We did Princess in 2022 and I'm damned if I could tell any difference between the both apart from Arvias cocktail menu being woeful - especially the Crows nest. Looking ahead I've noticed Caribbean prices aren't really softening for next winter (unlike 12 months ago) with less OBC, probably due to strong demand for what I think is still a very good value product. I think I'll hold off and monitor but that Arvia 22 night TA plus Islands looks tempting. We also saw the bookings desk was very busy most days.

Have you spoken to people ? I was on Arvia after the LGW delay, those on the 7 day cruise said they wouldn't do it again. Likewise those delayed today didn't get to bed until silly o'clock this morning then had to unpack even later - I doubt they had any sleep last night. Maleth as a dirty word dominated the cruise. There's hyperbole and then there's reality. That's why they've been binned off. Keep defending it as normal and expected.

Likewise will move them on for a tidy sum if they bin it. The profit will cover a few years bookings of lost OBC.

Seeing @carlanthony24like this post is a bit of an oxymoron as he suggested it was regular and normal. 🤣 If you've done regular Caribbean flights with BA you'd know the press were talking out of their arris.

I think you mean Easter holidays - half term was last week I believe .From what I can see most are breaking up on 28th March for Easter so you should be fine within reason. It looks like Arvia's heading back for the school run 😉

This is the daft thing, we're retired as well🤣. I'm hoping that 1.They won't be that attracted to a Cunard ship 2.The Fjords aren't that inspiring for kids 3.The parents of the little buggers will still have to pay gratuities for the kids. 4. They'll all be on Iona or RCL 😆 ..obviously none of that will happen and it will be rammed with them.

Sorry for the late reply and thanks for the info and your review. Our dates this year got a little squeezed but I ended up booking new The Queen Anne for our first Fjords cruise next July. They're doing some decent OBC offers at the moment that brought price parity with P&O for what we wanted (gratuities aside). Actually the deal was really good, the issue is that it's in the school holidays which made the deal even stranger 😬 but I'm hoping they're all little angels. When we last went on Britannia that was also in the summer holidays, it was full of teachers😆...to be fair we hardly even noticed the children. Anyway I better have a mooch over on the Cunard forum and start asking some really silly questions.

Hi I didn't see any shuttles per se as we didn't really have the need. Barbados - we did a tour straight from the quay but saw plenty of people walking from the ship with towels etc down towards the beach and town centre (20 mins?) . Tortola - Again we did a tour but the terminal is pretty central to the town, probably a 15 minute walk to town. La Romana - there's a purpose built tourist trap straight off the ship, free pool, bars, usual tourist shops all within a secure zone. 15 min walk to local town (we saw people walking) St Maartin - usual tourist trap shops / bars at the cruise terminal. We did an external tour but saw literally hundreds of people walking towards the town and beach which I guess was a 20 minutes walk. Antigua. You are bang in the centre of St Johns 10 min walk but not a great area out of the cruise terminal shops. St Kitts - usual cruise terminal area then a short walk to the town. Martinique - long pier, town is literally 200 yards away from the waterfront. Castries, a longer walk to the town centre depending on where the ship moors. So yes, everything walkable and nothing like some of the Med ports where you need a shuttle. Just a note. We had a fantastic time with this itinerary and the cruise, I hope you manage to make it.

Of course, wish everyone a safe and non delayed flight.

Sadly we saw no one using the wash basins on Arvia, so that encouraged us to also use them on the way out of the buffet as well . Staff were enforcing the hand gel in the MDR's. The toilet door sensor buttons are also a great idea.

Is the link not on my P&O cruises log in where you print the boarding passes ? ps at the same time you might as well stick in your flight delay claim to Maleth 🤣 Joking aside we were with TUI, perhaps a Maleth victim can help..oops

We had the same issues at Barbados airport last weekend. It was carnage, the airport simply couldn't cope with the number of flights on top of the normal scheduled flights. We were all directed towards an Air Canada flight, boarding passes weren't being checked properly, the staff had lost control at gates 14-16 which were handling multiple flights at once. It's clear that the extra passenger numbers involved with Arvia are putting a big strain on these airports. Best of luck with your claim.

We're looking at the Norwegian Fjords either this June or next year. We last went on her in 2017 and loved the ambience but on a recent cruise I was told she badly needs a refit and that cabins were showing their age somewhat. Recent reviews don't seem that great in many areas and I'm not sure if that's reflected in the pricing. I see she's due a refit between 5-21st April 2024, any idea what's involved ? We have the option of Iona but having just done Arvia I'd prefer a smaller ship. Any thoughts appreciated, thanks.

I had the essential package on Arvia last week and it was brilliant all over the ship. We also used the hotspot feature on our phones so as long as we were together we both had independent internet off the one package.

I found the coffees from the buffet to be fine but the better half wanted Costa. The issue was that the place was completely overrun with long waits and a lot of frustrated people and bars were refusing to do coffees. P&O have also limited their free soft drinks to water, Princess haven't for example. Many of the drinks on drink menus weren't even part of the basic drinks package. P&O meanwhile will continue to raise the price of drinks and try and force people into what is a poor package. Compare the basic drinks package to Princess or Celebrity and I think they're going into unchartered territory here.

We spent £550 of our £750 OBC on booze, mocktails, cocktails and coffee on our recent 14 day Caribbean. The rest went on a couple of tours. My wife isn't much of a drinker but we took 1 litre of gin and paid £18 on board for ten tonic waters. There was no restriction bringing alcohol on board from the various ports we visited so I bought a few beers and soft drinks where I could. I enjoy a drink mind and we still ended up in the Crows nest trying to use up the dregs of the OBC on the last night. Daily was a large glass each of Rose or Merlot for Dinner, Cocktail and beer pre dinner and a cocktail / beer post dinner... sea days perhaps a beer / glass of rose at lunchtime.

As above yes you can use the buffet and everything else as normal. Our internet package was also working up until we left plus we could use up any spare OBC if we wanted. Are you leaving from Barbados or Antigua ? Barbados is a very hot and busy airport, ideally you want to spend as little time there as feasibly possible within reason . With hindsight we would have arranged our own transfer from the ship which I think was about $40 according to the Horizon mag. We had a bit of a wait leaving the ship baking in the sun on the quay in a queue (we also saw the same the day before), the transport to the airport was cramped (we were stuffed into a mini bus with poor air con). P&O have their own lane through security etc at the airport which helps. The issue at our departure gates was complete and utter chaos, incorrect gate numbers posted for flights, some of us were all put in a queue for an Air Canada flight and they were happy for us to get on it 😆, the system just collapsed I daresay due to the increased capacity of passengers leaving our ship (Arvia). Then dumped on the apron with the plane loaded in no order from the front so another long wait , all good fun.

Our flight from Barbados was at 1735hrs. We were asked to meet in the theatre at 1330hrs, left about 1350hrs, journey took 45 minutes. As for tours and dining we had to cancel last year two weeks before the cruise so I cancelled everything online and they were quick in refunding. You can cancel any bookings weeks / days ahead or even on board. I think there might be a cut off time for cancelling tours ie 24 hours or something beforehand where you might lose part of the payment.

This.

That's interesting thanks. We were in Martinique last week and likewise I thought it was very up together on our tour compared to some of the other Islands we have visited. Excellent roads, public transport etc, very clean and tidy, very reminiscent of Southern France in relation to housing, architecture etc. They've also had significant EU funding it appears. https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/in-your-country/programmes/2014-2020/fr/2014fr16m0op011_en

Having just come off Arvia the dining queues have been sorted. The only small queue was at Barbados probably due to new arrivals struggling with the app...like we did at first 😆 .

Keep the posts up @Selbourne this thread is becoming slightly addictive and I love your no nonsense approach to everything and telling it exactly how it is. Since we were moored uptogether in Barbados we're home from Arvia. My wife caught ' the bug' four days in so that was 24th Jan. We quickly exhausted our usual worst case scenario supply of cold and flu tablets on board and were at the point of popping to the medical centre. Like you we were worried they'd confine us. She was bad and in hindsight we should have gone down but I'm pretty sure half the ship had it, some folk were in a bad way. There was also a hint of gastro I heard coming from guests but I think that's been hushed up. My wife battled through and has tested negative for the usual but is sat here tonight with the worst cough ever so I think your choice of dipping into those antibiotics is a decent call ( Incidentally she never had a sore throat) All the best.

We call them 'screamers' so were prepared this time. We also keep clear of the bassinets if a flight has any. I used some noise cancelling ear phones on our recent flights (returned Sunday). Combined with ear plugs I couldn't hear a thing let alone screamers. I think Bose do the best quality but mine were £40 over the ear jobs that I've had stuffed away for a while. PS you won't need earphones for the In flight entertainment on your Maleth as you won't have any😆 (of course you'll take your own)

That's interesting. We were in Martinique a few days ago on Arvia. Perhaps it was weight of numbers but we enjoyed a walk around the town, over to the park and up and down the side streets and felt perfectly safe with no one batting an eyelid. Most of the cafes and bars were clearly full of Brits. We didn't see a cruise shed, we had a large block of flats or hotel at the end of a pier which I presume is the town pier so perhaps a different area ? @Selbourne Arvia was also struggling under the weight of some nasty horrible cold / flu like virus, there were many, clearly ill people and coughing absolutely everywhere as well as with staff. Unfortunately my wife has it and suffered big time, as did half our plane home yesterday it seemed.