gazwag

On 3/6/2022 at 9:25 PM, LifeonMars said:

Share holder credit is usually allowed to both fare types, unless you have an additional discount by using  a blue light card or Military benefit here in the UK

No true we have blue light and shareholder OBC in July

2 hours ago, welshy74 said:

Back from my fantastic, if rather eventful, cruise

 

My first sea day I took the basic package which was £7.95 as I wanted to make sure it worked ok.. and it did.  I was actually quite surprised how well it worked.   For the other sea days I went for the medium package at £12.50 and again it worked perfectly.  At £12.50 I could browse and upload on social media, even a 7 min video.  I could not facetime or VOIP but that was fine and expected.  

Shame its so expensive though.  P&O need to rethink their internet package costs if they are to appeal to families and younger cruisers.  

If they make it cheap everybody will have it and it will be unusable due the number of people using it, put people off will mean those who cannot cope without facebook for five minutes might be able to post an update about a waiter taking ten minutes to bring their cheese while they are sitting in the restaurant. 

I cannot imagine it is cheap for the ship to provide access either.

Its clearly a way for the airline to make free money and they will intentionally put couples/families as far apart as they can who do not pre book so next time they will choose to pre book.

For example, everybody flying to Malta for a weeks Oceana summer cruise this year, that's what 2,000 people flying from various airports around the UK for a cruise each paying £35 each way that's £140k pure profit (before taxes) per cruise. I realise some people will do two weeks not one but still that free money will add up over a year.

1 hour ago, Lottie A said:

Many passengers travelling a long distance to Southampton have no choice but to stay in a hotel overnight. Why SHOULD they be out of pocket when their cruise is cancelled through no fault of their own? P&O are notorious for not compensating passengers properly...for example it is very rare for them to refund the port fees for missed ports, which many other cruise lines do routinely. 

It seems that Ventura is staying in port in Tenerife for the repairs to be undertaken. Then presumably a slow return to Southampton arriving next Tuesday.
 

I’d much rather be stuck in Tenerife too  P&O Sue ....LOL but I do feel very sorry for the passengers who had their little pre Christmas jaunt cancelled. 

I might book a concert in Glasgow for example and 5 days before the singer pulls out because they are ill, I don't expect the singer to reimburse me my hotel, I just expect to get my ticket price back again. If I'm lucky I might get my hotel deposit back or, as posted earlier, a lot of hotels you can get the full cost back anyway depending on how you paid for it.

25 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

That is a poor excuse passengers have still paid them whether they are included in cruise fare or separately listed they have still been paid and P&O will now not need to pay them so over 3000 passengers will be a considerable amount straight into P&O coffers as profit.

Is the ship staying at the port in Tenerife for free then

27 minutes ago, Lottie A said:

I hope they also compensate the passengers for travel arrangements and hotels booked. Often with the excess on travel insurance it is not worth claiming smaller amounts but no passengers should be out of pocket due to the problems with Ventura. 

Not sure why, hotel costs and travel arrangements are a persons free choice P&O haven't forced anybody to stay in a hotel beforehand.

On ‎11‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 3:31 PM, groovechick said:

My adult daughter's petite and we've had several instances of her being barged out of the way/knocked over by rampaging passengers when queing for tenders/getting on and off shuttles/entering/exiting the theatre or other busy venue. As a result she now tends to cling on to me or her 6 ft athlete brother for dear life whenever we are in a busy area.

Two instances I've seen in our handful of cruises: elderly gentleman in a motorised wheelchair lashing out with his walking stick at anyone he perceived to be in his way and swearing like a trooper, this in the middle of the day in a mildly busy area; elderly couple at dinner in the MDR clicking their fingers at the waiter, shouting "Come here boy", talking about him as if he wasn't there when he was serving them and generally treating the lovely waiter like dirt, with the kind of attitude one associates with colonial types in films set around the turn of the century. 

Having just returned home we have decided there are two types of elderly people, lovely polite ones, happy to chat and share their tables when there are no others free and insist on letting those who are in the queue for lifts before them go first.

And then there are (the minority I would add) who are like you describe - we called them "the entitled". They barge past you to get onto a lift when you are trying to leave one, they insist on being first just because they are driving a buggy, they sit in the costa area all day long reading so those who want a coffee have no where to sit. The best one this time was in the buffet restaurant. They were three of us at lunchtime and we found a table for two next to a table of four. The table of four had one person sitting there. We asked her if we could have one of the chairs so the three of us could sit at the table for two. She objected because her husband was going to come back with his food and he wouldn't be able to get through to the table. The other side of us where the good ones as they were happy for use to use a spare chair from their table. Funny thing was when the husband returned he has no difficulty getting to his table.

Best comment of the cruise was an elderly gentleman replying to a question of whether he was interested in booking a future cruise - "June 2021" he said "don't be silly, I'm not even sure I will still be alive then"

Sounds a bit "money grabbing" to me, why not just put it on for free so everybody can watch it. I would imagine a lot of people will spend money anyway. Its not as if it costs P&O anything to put it on.

On ‎9‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 2:53 PM, Showingthatgame said:

My take on Iona is that it is aimed towards a different demographic than the usual P&O clientele. Gearing it towards younger generations with the focus on food and freedom of times should help towards its space management. 

 

The millennial generation (of which I am a part of) prefer less human interaction. Yes Ionas public space is lower per passenger but I feel that a lot of passengers are going to be spending more time in their rooms. There doesn't actually seem to be that many interior rooms and with the layout of rooms on the exterior I am far more inclined to spend time in the room rather than the room I was in on Azura. 

 

The Quays variety of food offerings should absorb a fair few passengers as P&O is now indicating that these are included in the price. The atrium seems huge with no shops around its edge like on the other ships so the capacity of that space should be significant. Freedom dining should ensure that passengers aren't all in the same place at once. 

 

The skydome should help disperse crowds due to it being evening entertainment on a higher deck (avoiding that strange occurance on Azura where everyone on the ship swaps ends). However this is all from studying deck plans so it will be interesting to see how Iona is when I'm on it in June.

I would add that P&O must also thinking about the affordability of cruises in the future. We are still at a time when those glorious final salary pensions are being received making smaller ships and higher prices the norm. Add 25 years and the disposable income of 50+ year olds will be much, much less than today. Inheritances will be far less likely until mid-late 60's as mum and dad live longer, massive mortgages will still be serviced until retirement or longer due to such high property values and when retirement is eventually reached will pensions be enough to give options above a beach holiday in Benidorm.

Bigger ships with more people on board at a cheaper price could be the only way forward to stay in business or company's like P&O.

1 hour ago, Son of Anarchy said:

 

My next holiday is 2 weeks of sailing.  So fancy pen knife with a few gadgets a attached, and sailing pen knife, which has a marlinspike on it will both be going in the hold baggage. 

 

Tools of the trade for that sort of holiday.

Ok, I should have said Cruise ship rather than just holiday

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 4:26 PM, brian1 said:

That's good,wonder how many laps to the mile the usual sign will say.

I think I read somewhere its half a mile one lap, which sounds about right as 337 metres is just over 0.2 of a mile

I'm not sure I understand why you would need to take a pen knife on holiday anyway, do you sit on your balcony whittling away to make a bow and arrow to shoot fish or something

The message from P&O does say "your vehicle will be moved ready for your disembarkation"

21 hours ago, Tommart said:

Interesting comments suggesting P&O might actually be cheaper than the independent providers!

 

 

 

Yes P&O trips may appear to be cheaper but there are so many on offer its difficult to compare like for like. What you should also consider is a independent tour is by minibus with a maximum of 16-18 people. A minibus can park almost anywhere, drop everybody off in a short time and come back after a quick phone call from the guide. P&O tours are usually on a 50 people+ coach and can only park in designated places which if busy can be a walk from the "attractions". You then have the time taken to off load 50+ passengers and then get everybody back on board again, while sitting waiting for the guaranteed stragglers.

We used Alla Tours in June, absolutely brilliant two days seeing everything - its early morning start and tiring but completely worth it. We went straight into everywhere and really early into the Hermitage and Catherine's Palace so they were practically empty. I don't think I have ever seen a such an long queue like the one outside of the Catherine's Palace when we came out of tour groups trying to get in. We just got back to the minibus and the poured hard for 5 minutes, I wouldn't have wanted to be in that queue. Another good thing was everybody had personal radio mikes with an earphone so you could hear the guide talking without having to stand right in front of him all the time.

One thing to remember at St Petersburg - pickpocketing is rife, at least 3 people had wallets stolen on our cruise and a friend of mine had his stolen a couple of weeks ago on a different cruise. I would advise everybody to only take the essentials in a spare wallet when off board ship and keep passports and cruise card separate from your wallet.

Can't comment on that ship but I assume it is the same as others I have been on, so based on this assumption, the gym is free to use but you pay for classes. Depending on the length of the cruise will depend on the cost but you can buy a package which covers the first few classes and any you attended after this are free. Spin classes are usually first thing in the morning with other classes running during the day, more are run on sea days obviously. From memory a recent 2 week cruise was I think about £50-£60 for the two weeks and the classes were around £9 each. I think that's the costs, my daughter did them not me. So as long as you do 5 or 6 classes any more on top are free.

Just visit the gym after you go on board when you are wandering around the ship getting your bearings and you will be given details of the packages available and you just sign up on a sheet each day before you want to take the classes. There are maximum class sizes.

18 hours ago, Jossie1960 said:

I for one are glad that I am not on this Baltic cruise.

I suspect the current passengers are glad you are not on it as well with your scaremongering

On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 11:48 AM, ann141 said:

We booked a cruise to the Mediterranean for October 2020 on the day the cruises were first released and the price went up at 10 15am on the same day!!!

That might just be the cookies on your computer or something. We booked a cruise this week and after we had done so we noticed the price had jumped up. Logging on the next day or using a different browser showed the price was still the same we had paid.

Our way is to look at the total price for the cabin we want, allow for any on board credit and decide if this price is what we are happy paying. If it is then we book if it is not then we don't. Once booked we don't look at that cruise again, that way we don't get disappointed if the price does drop..

We are not in a position to book cruises two years in advance and don't want to risk it and wait until the week before, we generally book around 6-9 months beforehand.

Could go down further once Trump v Iran kicks off with the possible affect on oil prices and nobody wanting to cruise the Arabian Gulf

We always tip our dustmen, milkman and postman at Christmas not because we have to because we chose to, to show they are appreciated for the job they do. On our last cruise we have just came back from we gave our steward, the two table waiters and the wine waiter tips as a token, it wasn't a big amount but something to show we appreciated them and the fact they worked bloody hard for the two weeks, without a day off, always had a smile on their faces, were friendly and nothing was too much trouble.

We are just back from a balcony cabin on the rear port side right by the lifts on C deck - zero vibration, although some people did comment about vibration on the starboard side on that deck at the back. Only noise was a distant very low ping from the lifts

Ocean Grill is £15 per person, we were on the ship last week and went once and to be honest it was in no way £15 better than the Meridian restaurant food. Basically IMO you are only paying for a quieter place to eat at your choice of time. The food in the Meridian restaurant was so good throughout the two weeks we feel we wasted the money TBH.