pennib

I am concerned to see that a Manchester flight to BGI on 15 December is on the Mareth list. We have booked, paid for and chosen seats on PE on a plane with a TUI number. We have paid for the seats and have a printed receipt from P&O. So now what can we expect? After last year’s debacle with the Christmas flights (ours 12 hours late) I am far from looking forward to this year’s flights for the Britannia Christmas cruise . Has anyone got any more information about this problem?

Anyone used this recently?? We are hoping to on our Christmas cruise. Anyone any idea of format, charges, ease of booking etc? thanks

Not as far as I know unless it is part of the booking circumstances. However, my questions would still apply!!

Hear hear!!! We have done 2 cruises on Explorer and have 2 more booked on her. We are multi P& O cruise people but think Marella are better. Staff excellent, food excellent and ship clean and welcoming. We haven’t eaten in the MDR except for breakfast. We like the speciality restaurants even though they charge a bit more except for Tapas and Vista. You must go to the Dining Club at least one evening. Brilliant. We always upgrade to the premium all inclusive for drinks and it is well worth it. Go for it and enjoy.

After years travelling from Manchester to Barbados for our Christmas cruises we finally ran out of patience in 2022 when there were horrendous delays. So we have booked a 35 nighter on Ventura from Southampton. We have looked into using Eavesway coach travel but have some questions. Please note that I have spoken to Eavesway but did not get sufficient information to feel comfortable about booking. we are travelling from Warrington and there are 2 pick up point fairly near but they are both in motorway service areas. Has anyone been to them and picked up a coach there? How early do you need to be ready to receive the coach? Is it like 3 hours before like at the airport? Can anyone give us some comfort that a coach booking will work . If not what are the alternatives, if any?

In my experience, P&O are not good at cleaning the balconies but we were amazed when on Marella, the balcony got hosed down every week.

We have been on Explorer twice in the last 12 months and had no complaints whatsoever which is why we have booked it again for November 2023. We were amazed that the balcony got hosed down each week. Never had that on P&O.

Presto- I don’t know where you would be flying from but remember that you get penalised if you fly from anywhere except Gatwick at £100 per person. For example our cost for the flights for the Britannia Christmas cruise for the both of us is £1088. Swallow quickly!!

Good luck!!!

Same for Manchester. Of course, the Christmas Friday and Saturday flights were very badly delayed (for which we have been paid delayed flight compensation) so we are hoping there won’t be a repeat of this next Christmas.

From memory, you pay an amount to use the restaurant and then the dishes on the menus are not priced.

I think we booked all our speciality dinners when we got on board. They have a couple of machines near reception that you can use to book restaurants and you get a receipt for your booking which saves you fiddling about with the navigate app. They seem to work on weekly chunks as I think most people are on weekly cruises but we do the back to backs so you just have to remember to book the nights you want towards the end of your first week on the ship. We have never been knocked back from a dining booking. The dining club we think is excellent and better than the epicurean on P& O Britannia. Also do not overlook the Vista restaurant which operates in the MDR in the evenings. You can’t book but you just turn up. We think it is great and my OH is not really a lover of Italian food!! We are on Explorer again in November and are really looking forward to it. The only evening venue we didn’t rate was the Sushi bar and also we were not keen on the pasta restaurant in the Mediterranean lounge in the evening. The tapas restaurant in the lounge is really good however.

That’s right. The only walking from the aircraft you’ll be doing is across the tarmac to a coach. That is assuming you are on a TUI charter flight. If you have instead flown BA or Virgin then you will have to collect your bags from the carousel. Not sure how you get to the ship in that case. Taxi probably.

On page 7 of today’s Daily Telegraph there is a picture of a ship. The title for the pic is “Arvia, the latest vessel to join P&O’s fleet arrives at her home port of Southampton, ahead of her maiden voyage yesterday. The 185,000 tonne 345 metre long liquified natural gas powered liner has 16 decks and is the largest cruise ship ever built for the UK market”. Just goes to show you can never believe what you read in newspapers……

Had a letter this morning from Paul Ludlow about reinstating various things such as afternoon tea (but not on Arvia and Iona) and the peninsula cocktail parties. Are these things a sign of someone at P&O listening to concerns expressed on this and other sites?? Discuss.

I take enough pods for the number of washes I think is needed plus some vanish powder in a plastic bag plus a couple of colour run sheets plus the same number of tumble drier sheets as soap pods. All works fine and fits into a small container which goes into the suitcase. Extra weight is minimal. What is the problem? It just needs some organisation…….

We hate having to sit on banquettes for meals as they are never close enough to the table and are usually too low down so we always ask for a table with 2 chairs and no banquette. This is often met with a look of puzzlement and we just have to persevere with our request. Anyone else have this problem? Actually when you are in a dining room (on chairs!!) take a look at the people who are seated on a banquette. If there is a table for 2 the person on the banquette is always lower down than their table companion seated opposite on a chair and they look uncomfortable.

Selling cabins at rock bottom prices just before the cruise seems to attract a certain type of person. It was the same on Ventura for the. Christmas cruise in 2008 after the financial crash. There were a lot of scalliwags who paid next to nothing and there were fights galore and people thrown off the ship in St Vincent on a Sunday and left to find their own way home. Don’t know if drinks packages were done then but either way these people were able to afford the bar prices as they had paid next to nothing for the trip. Way of the world I’m afraid.

Hi. We have been to Barbados and St Lucia in the last few weeks. The information for Barbados is correct although no one checked it and you can do it quite easily on line. No forms for S Lucia although I think you may have to take your passport with you. Didn’t go to USVI this trip but you will need to look at the US requirements which changed recently if you have been to Cuba. You need to look this up asap in case you need to get a visa rather than the ESTA. have a great cruise

We did Azura for 4 weeks over Christmas and New Year 2021 and it was great. Ship obviously not full and there was a quarantine zone for the big C. We were happy.

Been on Cunard twice. First time on the old QE2 which was brilliant. Second time on QM2 which was awful. Cunard is OK if you can stand the class system. If I am on a ship I like to be able to go where I like on board. If you are not booked in one of the grills then you are definitely steerage.

As confirmed P&O cruisers but wavering at the moment, we have done 2 cruises on Marella Explorer and they were excellent so much that we have booked a third for later this year. Never seen any bad behaviour so far but we have seen this several times on P&O over the years. What slightly puzzles me is what are the on board accounts like for these people who go overboard on booze? Drinks on P & O are not cheap.

Thanks

Bazrat - can you tell me how they made it difficult. I presume you are referring to fb as the other social media site. Thanks

You can get plastic wallets which hold the labels/tags and keep them dry etc. wallets attach to cases with wires. We have reused ours. Look on Amazon. They have tons to choose from. Not expensive.