bubsie

HI @Lizzylou600, sorry we booked with CPS in the end not Aeropark. So sorry you've not had a good experience with them, hope you sort it out x

Thanks @purplesea, hope you have a fab time!

Thanks @TigerB, yes, lots learnt thanks to all of you and we did still enjoy ourselves despite the setbacks! Hope you had a good trip @ParisHilton?

HI everyone, thought I'd pop back on and give you a little account of our week. Unfortunately we were affected by Storm Antoni which meant that we were kept at Southampton until after midnight on departure day. In the morning we were still only at Dover and then the Captain advised that due to Antoni it would not be safe to dock at Stavanger on the Monday and instead the plan was to decrease our speed and meander up slowly until our planned stop at Olden on Tuesday. This was obviously disappointing but we were happy to be safe - it was very rocky on the boat! On Tuesday we did dock but then were told that our excursion to the glacier and other excursions via helicopter were cancelled due to risk of landslides and the stormy weather. Again, very disappointing but we completely respected their decision and were again, happy to be safe! We knew that weather in Norway would be unpredictable and we weren't expecting to come home with a tan but it was definitely quite not what we were expecting! As to all your recommendations, well I can only say THANK YOU! Everything you recommended was spot on. We logged onto My Holiday once we reached the terminal and were able to book some of the 710 shows. On board we were able to book more and it turned out that this was our favourite thing of the week - the group on our sailing were absolutely fabulous. The pianist (Seb) went home part way through the week and a new one started who, for us, wasn't quite the same but was still great. Thanks so much for this recommendation! Seb, Ryan, Ellis and Adam, you were just wonderful! I also have to recommend Neil Lockwood. He was great! We went to both of his shows and loved them. Thanks again for enlightening me! We had also booked the other shows (Handwritten/Festival etc) presented by Headliners Theatre Company. Unfortunately these weren't for us. We ended up cancelling our bookings for the shows later in the week. We decided not to go to Limelight and see Gareth, however we did end up going to the Limelight house band shows and we thought they were absolutely great! They were sadly almost deserted. The female vocalist and bass player were particularly brilliant! Like ICF we liked the Crows Nest bar the best, followed by Anderson's and then Emerald (they had some different cocktails in Emerald, including one served under a smoking dome which my husband loved!). Crows Nest was our favourite by far though. We did book Epicurian - if I did this again I would pay more attention to the itinerary as we went on a 'cruise by' evening which was unusually dry and clear (at least the first part was) and we could have sat on our balcony and watched as we sailed through a Fjord whereas in the restaurant we weren't on a table next to the window so didn't see much. It was foggy by dessert time anyway! It was also rainy or foggy on the other occasions we could have watched a Fjord as we drifted through so our Epicurian night was our best opportunity and we missed it! Well you live and learn. We also ended up in Sindhu - we waited over an hour and still no starters - turns out our orders hadn't been submitted properly on the tablets they use. The manager dealt with this very well and we were well looked after once the error was realised - happy customers! Unfortunately only 1 of the 4 of us actually enjoyed our meal and our friends sent their bottle of wine back as they thought it was so poor. Not a great experience for us sadly. We enjoyed our Chefs Table meal. The chocolate dessert was yum! We mostly ate in Coral and Pearl; we also tried Aqua once, all were perfectly nice. We were particularly impressed by their vegetable cookery! They didn't offer a wide range of veg but none of us could workout how they managed to cook such huge quantities of broccoli without it going soggy - brilliant. We usually went to these restaurant for breakfast too which was very nice. We also used the buffet a few times. I had planned to use the outside area by the Quays as recommended by ICF but it rained every day until Thursday so we weren't able to sit outside at all until then. Getting on and off the ship was easy and smooth. Virtually no queue to enter the terminal and then a 5-10 min queue to show our passports etc. Barely stopped walking when we reached the luggage scanning area and then straight on board - absolutely great! Brilliant again when we disembarked. All very smooth and easy. We also managed to use CPS for parking which was very expensive but did make it incredibly easy! We paid £180 for parking booking CPS via a link on the P&O website. Our travelling companions opted for free parking from P&O (versus increased OBC or coach transfer) and when we boarded and checked our OBC we only had £90 OBC more than them which means choosing free parking from P&O was by far the better option! We will know for next time. Thanks so much for all your information and help, you guys make this a really great community! THANK YOU!

Brilliant, thank you

One more question - we have a standard balcony cabin. Will there be room under the bed for suitcases or are we best to take soft bags which are collapsible once empty?

Thanks @Gettingwarmer

Thanks so much @Megabear2

Hi @Megabear2, I've just realised that I don't know how to access the app. I looked in the app store but can only see P&O Australia or freight. Is it a normal app or is it the website I've been booking all the excursions, shows and restaurants on? Sorry to ask such a dumb question!

I love it! Thanks so much to all of you 🥰

PS @ParisHilton we could also have booked Limelight Club on Saturday morning, The entertainer for our week is Gareth Gates. Tickets were £28pp so our group decided to leave it but there was loads of availability when we were booking (which was around 7.30am).

@TigerB, thanks for this advice, will definitely follow your advice about the 710 club.

Yes, you're quite right, the original poster had mentioned lots of window tables in the Quays if you just walked a little. In the restaurants I'm expecting to be escorted as you say! There's so much info in this post, it's great!

HI everyone, sorry for the late response. We've been at our son and DIL's all weekend. @ParisHilton, we didn't need to sit up until midnight! On Friday lunchtime the other couple we are travelling with messaged to say that they had just checked the website and found that bookings for the shows had opened. We didn't have any difficulty booking each show once on different evenings. We also found a quiz we could book for, so we did! Restaurant bookings were not open at this point. On Saturday morning I woke about 6.30 and checked the website and sure enough, some of the restaurants were now open for bookings. We booked Chef's table and Epicurean easily with lots of availability. We could have booked Sindhu and a few others but Keel and Cow and others like Olive Grove and Glass House were not accepting bookings. Weirdly, if I log in now I can't book anything! Those who advised we would be able to book shows on Friday and restaurants on Saturday were right, thank you so much! You are all absolutely brilliant. Paris, let us know if this all works for you too!

That's great to hear! Looking forward to seeing him