yorkshirephil

There can be various offers, lower deposit, extra OBC and discounts. If there are cruises you are considering make a note of prices as some offers are no better than what a TA at home can give or the general P&O sites.

We liked Caybeach, the apartments were clean and tidy with the cleaner coming round 5 days a week and regular bed changes. We had an apartment that was set back from the road and had sun all day. There is a restaurant for those who don't do self catering with a snack bar and a lovely large pool. They have entertainment in the evenings we did see a good saxophonist one evening but tended not to go very often, preferring to go for a walk in the evenings and stop off for a drink or sit on the prom watching the world go by. We found the Jet2 package for this stay was almost the same price as booking the stay and flights separate.

We prefer Caleta de Fuste too @brian1. Corralejo is fine for a visit and has a nice front but is too city like for us. Morro Jable is pretty but a bit remote and a bit more traditional. Caleta has everything we want. We stayed at Caybeach Cala for six weeks and were contemplating adding a few more weeks but Mrs YP damaged a tendon and trapped some nerves so we headed home. We went with Jet2 on a package. We didn't bother with a car as we have found that you either use the car because you feel you should or it sits at the roadside. The buses are pretty good and cheap, taxi's OK.

A dull windy start here with rain forecast (of course rain is forecast) We have decided we are staying home today after a busy week. We seem to have a sheep theme going today so here is my two penneth. How do shepherds tell their sheep apart? They have baa codes. The chuckle brothers ewest to own a massive sheep It was a two metre ewe. I like the Stones song "Hey you get off of my cloud" The Scottish version is better; "Hey McCloud get off of mt ewe"

I always thought the saying "mend fire" strange but "purra bit o sleck on" fine. All these old sayings mainly lost in the modern world. We went to visit friends yesterday and ended up going to Fleetwood as there is a quilting shop there that the girls wanted to visit plus a good fish wholesaler. I have to say I wouldn't rush back, although it was nice to see the trams running through the town. Dry dull day here after a sunny crisp start, we were forecast a frost but the sun had burned it off by the time we were up and about. I have been reading about Warwick Davis and sadly the passing of his wife. Warwick is one of my favourite actors and always comes across as a smiley and genuinely nice bloke with a cutting wit. RIP Samantha Davis.

We got ours applied for the December cruise, hopefully soon they will update the Dec 31st 2024 till 2025 end and we can apply for the January cruise.

Lots of people have had the email so I don't think P&O would want to reverse that decision now, especially as they would have to return monies paid. It does make me wonder why people were told that bookings would be cancelled by customer services unless it was a consideration. Enjoy your meals.

Switching to that approach would probably be a smart financial move as they would have a considerable amount of peoples money in the bank in advance. However maybe not so good for people who want to use OBC when they get aboard but find the speciality restaurants full. As they say "You can't please all the people all the time"

We got that too. It doesn't affect us but there was much ado on facecloth with people threatening to cancel cruises as they couldn't get booked but other people on their cruise groups had. I can understand that they are not happy but threatening to cancel the cruise seemed a bit dramatic, especially when it was pointed out that there was no guarantee that they would have got booked anyway.

The P&O email does say that bookings will be honoured. This seems to be the fairest way to deal with it as it was the P&O system fault that allowed it. I would imagine that the phones have been red hot which has probably pushed them to send the email. I did see a couple of posts on facecloth where people had reported that they were told that bookings made beyond the 14/15 day window would be cancelled, which probably caused the phones to get even hotter.

The P&O experience is fine in my opinion, still very British vibe, but sometimes that can apply to other cruise lines that sail out of Southampton. It is usually more than £40 a night for the drinks package although if they have an offer (10-20% discount) with any loyalty deductions you would get close. Wi-fi is not included. P&O cruises have tips built into the cost of the cruise. The Princess loyalty level is not transferred to P&O, it used to be. As you say there are some European cruises with good prices, however depending on how popular they are the price may go up, or on the other hand there may be good discounts if the cruise isn't selling well.

Still lots of problems reported on some of the P&O facecloth groups. Some people seem to be booking OK well in advance and others getting the usual "coming soon" message. It is similar for people trying to book online, working for some not for others.

Absolutely, we have to put up with the bad hip or back, the where did I leave my car key moment so why not embrace the benefits, I got my pizza at Iceland today, 10% senior discount. I saved £1.80, shame about the £2.00 for parking though, a 10% discount on that and I would have broke even.

We have taken several cruises with Ambassador and loved them all. I would compare them favourably with P&O smaller adult only ships as they have a lot of similarities, plus they do have some interesting itineraries and hopefully will add to that if/when they get another ship. The Ambassador entertainment is excellent and their speakers have been very good and varied. The ships are older and have the older ship issues as do Aurora and Arcadia which is why I would only compare Ambassador with them. They do have some strange pricing structures sometimes but we are used to that as they follow the model of CMV who we used many times.

Whatever Fred are doing they seem to be making it work at the moment as they are keeping their prices high with not much in the way of offers. When we cruised with them their costs were on par with P&O and they had the better itineraries for us. We were usually the youngest on board but that didn't bother us, plus we could get some practice in for when we get old😉. Notice the smiley wink for anybody that may feel offended on our behalf. I would pay the higher price for a bucket list itinerary but not for the routine cruises that we have done before.

I think you may need to wait until P&O have sorted their web site to get the full story. The 120 days was being bandied about all over facecloth yesterday but some people who had phoned P&O because they couldn't book the restaurants were being told that this was an error caused by the site faults and it was actually still 14/15 days and that those that has booked well in advance would be cancelled?.

I think this will sell out quickly, it is ideal for us retiree's who would prefer not to fly, it is well priced too for Aurora to say it is over two years out. I will keep an eye on this but don't expect and late availability.

Mushy peas

Our clinic starts jabbing on Thursday this week. Apart from the email requesting volunteers I haven't seen it publicised. I know the take up for the last one was very low. Funny old day today weather wise, we have had sleet, rain, wind and brilliant sunshine and it is cold. We went to the Hardwick inn near Chesterfield for lunch with relatives, very nice it was too, nice plate of steak and Guinness pie, chips and Yorkshire caviar.

Soon you will be wondering how you had time to work.

They must be popular as there is a T shirt

I will order that in Costa later today.

A lovely day for us, our youngest Grandson and his partner and our great Grandson came over for lunch, we had a nice long walk after lunch which the little fella slept through. The weather has been kind today, mainly sunny with a light breeze, looks a bit grim tomorrow though.

A nice to have but unlikely to happen, the other side of the coin is that P&O fall into line with Princess on drinks prices. I have cruises booked with P&O, Cunard and Princess and it is like dealing with three completely different companies.

Hand washing and waiter service are two of the main aids in halting noro, another is increasing cleaning of surfaces especially handrails as noro is a very hardy virus that can survive well on lots of surface types. Alcohol cleaners are not very effective against noro although wipes will remove particles from hands as long as they are properly disposed of, there are a few reports around that claim hand gel can be detrimental as people use it and then think they are safe and do not take other precautions. some of the posts I read on facecloth would support this theory on cruise ships, The only product currently that has much effect is bleach, fortunately it is effective in very dilute concentrations.