elainew

I have decided to remove the auto tips from our on board account on our next cruise. We have cruised twice since the auto tips was introduced and did pay the tips by this method plus extra in envelopes on the last night of the cruise to the cabin steward, waiters and even our wine waiter who soon got to know our drinking pattern and did not push us to buy drinks we did not really want. My reason for removing the auto tips is not to avoid paying them but I want to be sure that our steward and waiters are receiving them. I had heard that if they did not receive a good rating on the passengers' survey they did not receive the tips, if this is the case what happens to those tips? Is this why our steward asked us to fill in the survey? We have been fortunate that every cruise we have had first class stewards and waiters and completed accordingly but what if the cabin next door or the next table in the dining room gave them a negative feed back? Then we come to the problem of deciding what ratio of the £11 goes to the steward and to the waiters. At least on the old system there was some guide to the breakdown of the daily amount, hope I can find one among our papers.

I don't think we will ever reach a situation were we all agree about the correct method of tipping, as long as we appreciate the hard work carried out by the people looking after us and pay.

Just a word of warning, we applied to All Clear online and wisely paid extra for a paper copy of the insurance policy. When filling in details there was no question about hospital admissions although we had truthfully filled in details of our medical problems. When I contacted them to advise them that I had been in hospital for a wash out of a knee infection the previous year I was informed that there would not be any difference to the cost of the policy. Some days later I was contacted to be informed that our insurance premium would increase from £600 to over £800. This was for our cruise to USA/Canada. We had no option but to pay up. We will certainly be continuing to pay for a printed copy of a policy.

Totally agree with your comments about the change of itinery on your Adonia cruise. The same thing has happened to our forthcoming Aurora cruise to the USA/Canada. We were supposed to be calling at Charlottetown and found out last week that "owing to going back into Canadian waters immigration are unable to deal with it. I am sure P&O have visited Charlottetown before so should have been aware of this. After all the itinery was arranged last year before the cruise went on sale. As an alternative we are calling at Sydney Nova Scotia.Apparently unless you do the excursions there is very little to do in Sydney, as one person advised in a review the time might best be spent catching up on emails in the terminal. We had researched Charlottetown and were really looking forward to the visit. If the visit had been cancelled owing to weather conditions we could understand it. I have contacted P&O not that it would make any difference but to let them know our feelings about this late change and apart from an acknowledgement I am still waiting a reply. Like you we have always been loyal customers to P&O but I am regretting our booking with them for next year. They do seem to have a cavalier attitude to regular customers