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Fred's tips that are recommended are just for the restaurant waiters and cabin staff because, as once said to us by one of Fred's hotel managers, the bar and other staff are on a totally different renumeration system. The restaurant and cabin staff rely on thier tips as part of their pay, but I understand that nowadays Fred does make up those tips to an extent if people have them removed from their accounts. We do tend to give something in to any particular bar we have used a lot, but a far smaller amount and we just give it at the end of a cruise to show appreciation. We did have especially good service in Colours and Tastes on a recent cruise, so did give them something when we signed the bills. We added it to the bill in the appropriate slot, after having asked if they do get any money given in such a way. We were assured the correct staff do get those tips and they were quite happy to have it given that way. With any bar tips at the end of a cruise we give that in cash as we want them to share it with their colleagues in that bar. All personal choice though.

The further payment is being charged by the agent, not P&O.

But if they do not pay the balance they have effectively cancelled, or to be precise, the cruise line will cancel it.

If it is stated in T&C's say a £50 payment is due in this case then it is perfectly legal. If you do not pay, the agent could sue you, though whether they would bother is perhaps debatable. However, you would be in default of that payment which may get you a bad reputation of non payment. They may tell other travel agents or maybe some way this can be shared with other businesses, though I have no idea how this sort of thing works. Hardly seems worth getting into that situation for the sake of £50 imo though. If it is an agent we have used in the past, (when an amount was kept back from a payment due to us after a cruise line cancelled a cruise). If so, that agent let us make another fresh cruise booking and that lost payment was considered as part of the new cruise cost. What they wanted was a cruise booked with them, so they got a commission from the new cruise. Would not get you the P&O deposit back, but you would not loose a further £50. We did not use that agent again. The alternative, as someone suggested, is to sell the cruise booking which may be viable if you booked at a good price. P&O allow that to be done, but wondering if the agent would be prepared to go with that as well, if so they may lop on an admin charge.

Thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated.

I would have thought the card details are on your computer, rather than the Princess website. Maybe someone who knows exactly how these things work could confirm or deny that.

We joined a cruise ship in Sri Lanka in February 2020, having been there on holiday a couple of times as well. The situation regards the ETS's may have changed, but it was the case that there was a difference if you where joining or leaving a ship there, or if you were just having a call into the port, remaining on the ship. I hope you enjoy the holiday. Both Hing Kong and Dubai are very easy places to stay on an independent basis, we have done both, (more than once in Dubai), though must admit with the current Red Sea situation, I do wonder if the ship may be re re-routed regards Dubai. If so, hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

As others have said you can only transfer to someone same value or higher on select fare and within 12 months of the original booking, so surely they should stick by those rules for everyone rather than make an exception, which could cause big problems for them all round. Can you change your original cruise to something else, then still book the other one? For one cruise, (not P&O) recently we decided to change a booking for a cruise which left sooner than the original one and the new cruise booked had been reduced quite a bit, even on full fare, as only a month or two until sailing date. So we still paid a bit more than our original booking, but got much better value on a pppn basis. Just an idea which may be if use to you, perhaps worth looking at availability now or nearer to your October cruise.

You will find the vast majority, if not all, passengers will be British rather than an international clientele, (I think Cunard have a lot of Americans, though not travelled with them ourselves). The only onboard language is English as you will no doubt expect. I understand prices are a lot more expensive on board Cunard with service charges added as well. No evening room service on P&O now and a lot of people seem to think standards are not as good as on Cunard, but P&O is fine by us and is good value for money. There are formal evenings when the MDR and certain bar areas need formal attire, but only once or twice a week now. On other evenings, smart casual is requested in the MDR The flights from the UK are included in the price of the P&O fly cruises, (apart from a few last minute cruises when flights are not available anymore), and there is no discount if you take a cruise only without the flight - it is not clear if you live in the UK or on Germany. You will find a number of single travellers on the ship, but we only travel as a couple, so cannot comment any further on that.

Wines by the glass were strange, with some bottles being fine and others of the same type of wine were awful. The Sauvignon blanc was fine in the buffet or at lunch on the downstairs MDR, when we often did not have alcoholic drinks anyway with being on the ship for a month. Wines we were given with dinner in the upstairs MDR were generally pretty awful, yet new bottles has been opened - perhaps a storage issue. The cocktails of the day were mostly ok, so we had one of those most days. We found spirits ok with a glass of orange juice, or sometimes with diet Pepsi and also the Irish Cream, which we found better than one we had had on previous cruises. We did not drink much and would not have paid the full drinks pack price of £24.95pppd, though with lots of sea days in a hot climate it was worthwhile at half that cost, but our cruise price was high when that offer was on, as Fred does. We had some non package drinks, but not often. Drink prices rising a fair bit onboard, but still cheaper than P&O in Sept. We booked about four visits to Colours and Tastes pre cruise and ended up changing the dates for all of them for various reasons, but they still honour the price of £10pp. The bookings can also be cancelled with no charge. We have given up Vasco as far too spicy for me to eat at night, or I would not sleep.

The loyalty discount only applies to certain things and we did not get it for the £10 Colours and Tastes charges, nor for the £16 wash and fold laundry service, though both of those were well priced, so no complaints. We did not have any obc as chose the half price drinks option, though I am not sure if you get a discount whilst using obc. We did do very well drinking glasses of cava in Colours and Tastes, which is included in the package, whilst bottles are not. They kept the bottle in.a cooler and we finished it off each time we drank that there, a glass at a time. We were not keen on the other included wines, so usually kept to mixer drinks before meals in the MDR or buffet, along with the occasional wine.

Yes, but that said only £100 would be eligible for the discount on a total account balance of £150, which includes a £50 gift. That is clear to me and is what is said in the shot on your posting. You could always email or ring P&O if you have a different idea of what is said, or you think it may be wrong. Sounds better for someone to give you the cash, rather than have it added to your onboard account imo.

I agree with the previous poster. If you have obc then you will not get a Peninsular discount for your onboard account until that obc has been used. Pre cruise purchases do not come out of your onboard account, so discount is given, if applicable to you. Makes sense to me as it is a set amount of obc given, which is what you then have to spend.

I am surprised they had any, pretty much sold out when we left, early October and Mon in stock room. That is another point, we had spent most of our obc in good time, then popped back the last night to spend the last bit and the stock of chocolate was almost non existent, so do not leave it too late. Even some duty free spirits do sell out, though others will still be available, if you are not fussy on brand.

The cruise price was on the high side though, prices vary, but often offers of high onboard spend are the thing at the time, rather than good prices. We booked that cruise onboard a ship as well, when you get an extra obc added. The real difference though is that they had an offer of double obc on specific cruises, which also coincided with a time when obc was high.

I think you will find you cannot use obc in the casino at all on P&O. My thoughts are to hit the jewellers, but I would like more than £200 in total for that. We have just over £1,050 for our 19 night cruise in April/May as well as another £150 share benefit obc. I am hoping on a good part of that as a present, since it is a very big anniversary celebration for us, that tanzanite pendant looks like a real possibility 🙂 Watches are always worth looking at, as well as hand bags, perfume, duty free bottles and chocolate. Start thinking presents and it will go very quickly if there is nothing you want yourself.

I had been told you can change a flight date and P&O will arrange another flight, but it can only be done for up to three days ahead or after your cruise. You also loose the transfers, which you would have to pay for yourselves. You can also book a hotel through along with the flight change for Azura cruises, when the transfers would be included. Transfers are fairly pricey in Tenerife. In the Caribbean P&O do not have hotel accommodation, but seems they can still alter the flight date. We were told that by an a future flight rep on Aurora last summer. There is also the proviso that the option has to be available and I got the impression that asking to do that earlier, rather than later is more likely to be successful. We were on an Azura cruise in September/Oct 2022 and was in a social media group for that cruise, where a number of people reported that they had had their flight date changed under the system I mentioned above. A fair number of those flights were with Easy Jet, so presumably P&O would only agree when the replacement flights were of a reasonable price. Some passengers have been placed on scheduled flights for Azura, though I am not sure if they are still doing that as cruises are sometimes sold without without flights now. I should think it is all a case of what is cheaper for P&O.

Any transfers need to be done before the balance payment date set by P&O for their direct bookings, which I think is 90 days prior to sailing date. If you wish to book another cruise as a B2B though, I think you should still get a 10% reduction in both cruises as it is classed as a combination saver. As it is a fly cruise, you would, of course, only need the flight out on the first cruise and the flight back on the second cruise, but you do not get any more discount for that, except for any flight supplements from a regional airport, as supplements are only chargeable for the flights taken. You do need to pay select fare to get the combination saver with the 10% reductions though. Availability can be a problem at this late stage though, regards specific departure airports as well as any individual cruise availability, so best to check with the website as to what is still available, or not.

Enjoy the cruise, the sun is worth it at this time of year. Also, welcome to the forum, hope you find it is use in the future and you may be able to offer useful information to others.

Not sure about your current situation, but had you not agreed to what was offered, you would have been entitled to a refund along with compensation. Accepting what was offered has lost you the right to that compensation, so unlikely you would get anything else now, even if you do not go on the cruise. Hence a good deal for P&O, as they are unlikely to have sold the inside cabin at this late stage and if you do travel, you will likely give them some extra cash for purchases on the ship, (such as the retreat), rather than them paying you the compensation in cash. So they still gain by not having to pay that. Out of interest, which ship were you due to sail on and for how long?

Partly got my cruise lines mixed up. It is Fred, (if we have the drinks package), when we take drinks into the restaurants. On P&O we have a drink in the balcony before we head off to dinner. Still not unusual for us to take drinks out of the restaurant via the cabin though or likewise from a Captain's drinks reception, when heading onto the restaurant.

We often leave our cabin with drinks in our hands, but that is because we have returned to the cabin with them from the restaurant, or from a bar on the way to the restaurant. It is often easier to stop by the cabin for a bathroom visit and after dinner we often pick up the following day's daily sheet to find out timings. We almost always take drinks from bars into the restaurant as we prefer to sit with a bar type drink, (e.g. orange with a spirit), whilst ordering and waiting for the first course. Regards drinks in cabins, that is easy as there is no restriction on mixers and more often than not, we will buy bottles of spirit for cabin use once onboard as the price difference does not really make it worth carrying the bottles along with the rest of our luggage on embarkation. You can get a litre bottle if spirit for not much over £20, though may be more like £25 now that onboard prices are rising. Beer is another matter admittedly, but if we had taken something like that on board at a port of call, we have been caught, so it was taken from us and returned shortly before leaving the ship. We had wanted to take it home with us though, so that was not a problem. Always a risk you would have alcohol taken off you, though as said that is not likely if security done in a port, which is often done in the bigger ports now.

Quite, the same crew do not fly back for long haul flights. The blogger was totally wrong about that, which says a lot about him imo.

Was looking good in September. They were bringing the new balcony furniture on as we disembarked.

Is a discount for cruise omly something P&O should be considering though, so not everyone is dependent on their flights? Also selling cruise accomodation to specific agents, so they in turn could sell cruise and stay holidays. It makes no sense imo that there is no discount, even a minor one, if you wish to go with another flight. I do understand though, according to a cruise sales rep on board Aurora that you can usually change the date of a flight up to three days before or after a cruise and arrange your own accommodation, or in the case of Med cruises, P&O can book you into hotels. For the change of flight date, I was told all you loose is the transfer between the airport and port, unless you book the P&O hotel in Malta, when transfers are included. I am wondering whether P&O may go along those sort of routes in the future. If people make their independent arrangements through an agent they will have protection against disruption.