Eglesbrech

I am not loyal to any line, I travel with who will take me where I want to go at the time I want to go and for the best price for the package as a total.

The P&O loyalty scheme is poor when compared to other lines and they really annoyed me when they changed it a few years ago and moved the goal posts but added points for some of those nearing the old "gold" status but not those who just missed other levels.

That said you have to look at the whole package

Celebrity and RCI offer me snacks and a free bar in the Elite /Diamond lounge for a couple of hours a night which is nice- but they don't let me bring on a good bottle of wine or G&T to have in the cabin.

I get very nice welcome back on board gifts (not lame slippers) but I also get charged 15% on all my drinks.

There is a balance to everything and the loyalty schemes are a nice to have addition but the main point is to enjoy the cruise you are on, or at least that is my view of the world.

Well on the basis of the advice provided here and the general rule of a female wardrobes that any excuse is a good one to add something to it (and of course the shoes to go with it) I have been shopping.

Like others I like the chance to dress up and P&O appears to still provide that which is good in my opinion. New dresses now ready for packing!

On my last celebrity cruise it took less than 15 minutes from arrival to being onboard. You can disembark at 6.30 if it suits you for travel arrangements but absolutely no one is forced to do so.

We have not travelled with P&O in a while and what I am reading on this thread is not warming me to the prospect, well at least as it pertains to boarding the ship.

If the Council or the Police wanted something then they would simply enforce it - on all lines, not just P&O. Consequently this is more likely to be a P&O initiative.

From a business perspective you would think they would want passengers on board asap as that means money over the bars etc. The new system also seems to be annoying some people, not great for customer service.

I will reserve judgement until I go through the process myself.

We have booked late for the next cruise we are travelling on and it has nothing to do with price, more to do with availability of time and fitting in with other commitments. Others may be the same and have to wait to book nearer to a cruise date so cabins sell towards the end.

I can only comment on the cruise we have just booked and we could have had a choice of every grade and a good range of cabins within the grades. Either the ship is not particularly busy or as has been hypothesised there are lots of guarantees waiting to be allocated.

Cruise lines presumably have a break even point on sales and don't push as hard once they reach it.

Thanks folks, that gives me a good idea of what to pack. Much the same as previous P&O cruises, standards seem to be being maintained.

I am looking for advice please re the dress code onboard. It's been a few years since we have travelled with P&O, more recently booking with Celebrity and RCI. On formal nights there has been a mix - everything from long dresses to sparklie jeans and moon boots!

I have read the guidance but wanted some information about what actually fits in while on board. We will be on Ventura which has formal and smart casual.

For formal my husband has is easy, he just needs to pack a tux. Is ladies wear onboard for formal nights long dresses or more cocktail. I have both and actually enjoy the chance to wear long but don't want to feel out of kilter.

What about the smart casual, what are the current onboard trends for that. Do men tend to wear a jacket or just a smart shirt. Are ladies summer dreses and smart trousers and tops?

We are flying so baggage weight is more limited, hence the need to get it right with the mix of clothes we take. Any advice appreciated.

That is definately too small to call a balcony. I like the window box description!

We have been looking at a cruise on Brittania and generally go for a balcony cabin so we can enjoy some private outdoor space but based on the pictures/comments this is not worth the extra cost.

You can't even do that as they confiscate bottles. We were not trying to bring any on for the room, just bottles of whisky we bought at the distillary to take back home. Was not best pleased at handing over a £250 bottle of limited cask but it did come back to us in good order.

You do get a discount of 50 percent on premium brands, wine and cocktails which makes a difference.

To be honest the house brands were fine when mixed. The beers are good, Stella etc.

Sorry, I dont know for certain.

We left after the first show for dinner and it appeared that the majority of people moved out for second sitting. When we went back at around 10.15 the place was busy but there were still fairly decent seats available, we always got a seat.

Hope that helps.

We are just off Boudicca and the show times for second dinner were at 7.15 pm on most nights other than formal/cocktails nights.

On the nights of the 7.15 show there was a second show in the Neptune show lounge at 10.30 pm for both seatings and this was extremely popular and full. Great to have the choice of 2 shows in one night.

The 7.15 start time meant that 2nd seating were out at around 8pm so little to no congestion with those leaving first dinner.

We enjoyed the timings and the additional entertainment though I appreciate that it will not suit everyone.

With all due respect to the opinions expressed above I do not agree and I have been on other ships where they have most definitely not comedered all the tenders for tours and left everyone else to wait. They usually do one and one or two and one splits to get coach groups out together and still allow other people off.

This is by way of information for anyone planning to do the islands tour another time.

Kirkwall was along side as advertised but well out of the town so the port offered a shuttle which there was a fairly short wait for. We managed to get in, spend a bit of time and back in time for a Pm tour. (Lovely place to visit)

Lerwick was advertised and confirmed in the booking as along side but was at tender when we arrived, this was around 15 to 20 minute turnaround but dropped off in the middle of the town. Mull was a similar time and again right in the town.

Stornaway and Portree were about 45 minute turnarounds so the tendering process was extremely slow at both. For those who are less able Portree town is up a hill from the harbour and the the FO tours drop off up the hill so you need to walk back down.

The queue for tender tickets got earlier / longer each day but it was better to spend 30 minutes in the queue to get tender 1 or 2 than 2 hours in a lounge waiting to get off on a later tender.

There were a lot of unhappy people due to the long waits, some mornings the independant slots were well after 10 am when arrival was just after 7 am. The knock on meant that many people could not out to visit and get back onboard for lunch so full board became DBB which was an issues for some (we just enjoyed local restaurants, the sea food was amazing).

Imo they should have put down another tender to cope with the demand or fill the boats to (tendering) capacity which they only did towards the end of the cruise and after many,many complaints.

If you book your own tours, make them after 11.30 to ensure you actually have a chance to get off on time for them.

What actually amused me was that my comment made in jest about an uprising was not far off the mark. There was an elderly gentleman up on the prom deck doing what I can only describe as "rabble rousing" about the lack of tender spaces for those not on tour, he was advocating a visit en masse to reception - I did not stay long enough to find out what happened. As they say many a true word said in jest!!!

In spite of all the annoyances this was still a trip that was well worth while, the scenery was stunning, the people friendly and the places to visit and things to see and do made a most enjoyable trip.

I don't expect to be treated specially, I just expect to be treated equally and I and many other independent travellers are being treated as second class. Today the trips have all the tenders from arrival until 10 am so the rest of us will not even have a chance to get off until after that time.

On other ships in my experience some of the tenders are used for ship tours and others for independents at the same time, not tours first and independent second (hence the factual second class comment).

Those on ship tours have paid for a trip yes but everyone else has paid for a cruise. If this is FO policy then it should be made clear, in advance. (The tender trips were about 15 minutes including docking). If I had known this was the case in advance I would have made other arrangements. I did a ships tour in Kirkwall and it was excellent however they are not offering what I have planned over the next few days so I could not book with the ship even had I wished to do so.

I am very good at maths and I agree that on a small ship the process should move quickly but it did not. The tender we were on had many spare seats which did seem strange to me give the number of people waiting.

Yes the uprising crack was extreme, it was meant to be ironic. There were however a lot of very unhappy people complaining and we have 3 more days to go of this. Let's hope it gets better.

Nice calm sailing at least which is great.

I will do a review of the ship with the mainly positive experience to date on my return.

The ship is fine, the food is fine, even the entertainment is fine and the crew is just lovely however today was the first of 4 tender port and it was chaotic. For starters they reserved all the early tenders for FO tours so the rest of us were clearly second class citizens clearly.

After a wait in a queue we got tender ticket no 2 and did not get off until 10.20 am! When we got to the pontoon they sent us down and there wasn't tender there- not exactly safe practice. One of the entertainment staff was dealing with the tenders and had clearly never done do so before, he was being "trained" in front of the guests, the same guests who had been sent down to an empty pontoon then sent back up again.

Once on the tender we then waited for an age for them to call group 3 to fill the tender, common sense would dictate that you call enough groups to fill the thing ASAP. When I commented I was told that the delay was a result of lots of older guests who were slow which I think (as someone in their 40s) is actually extremely disrespectful to the spritly and fun filled older clientele on this ship.

There are a lot of very unhappy guests and FO better get its act in gear for tomorrow or there will be an uprising, people did not pay to come on a cruise to sit around in lounges for hours on end because of lack of tenders and pretty poor organisation.we had ticket 2, some people had ticket 8 so would be long after us.

I had asked about FO tenders before coming on this cruise and got positive feedback from people on this forum so I sincerely hope that today was just a one of. We have private tours booked on other islands and I will not be impressed if I miss them.

I have now done 90 plus cruises with a wide variety of companies at various ports around the world and this was the worst waste of time I have ever experienced. I will be speaking to customer services but I fear the queue will be very very long as I am not alone in being peeved.

Taking 3 days out seems a sensible precaution though I feel for those who have lost their holidays.

At least they are trying to do something about it.

We have seen noro out breaks on ships from many lines over the years. The truth is it is in hotels as well but on ships everyone boards and disembarks at once so it is much more noticeable.

Hope that those affected by the cancellation find something nice to do instead.

Sounds good, thanks. We are second dinner as well so just a bit too long between breakfast and 8.30pm.

We have a pretty full schedule on our next cruise and will probably miss lunch most days and potentially afternoon tea as well.

If time allows we will eat on shore but if not what is available from the room service menu please?

Thomson are pretty good for long haul, much better leg room and services than on short hopper flights.

For me the trick on these long flights is sleep as much of it as possible away and to keep busy for the rest of it so that time passes. I like an audio book to listen to on my iPod rather than trying to read and the head phones block out other sometimes annoying noises. An unabridged audio book can take you through the whole flight.

Flíghts are generally a pain but a ncpecessary one to enjoy the wider world, I long for the day when my holiday starts with the words "beam me up"😄

As mentioned above we did the chefs table on the Anthem but I did not get round to posting about it.

It was dire and a complete waste of money. The service was slow with only one person as waiter, sommelier and host. We were there an hour before the first course even came and the whole event took just under 4 hours in total which was due to massive gaps between courses.

The food was poor, one course was just a plate of "heritage" tomatoes with some basic dressing, a five year old could have produced it. The pea soup was fine but again nothing special, pasta a bit better, lobster and beef adequate and pudding just a mess on a plate To be honest there was nothing served that I or any other reasonable home cook could not have produced.

The wine was nothing special either and served at the wrong tempreture, some of the whites were so cold they were tastless.

All in all I would not recommend it.

My husband and I both have electronic relief bands which never fail us even in the worst the Bay can throw at us (though we have been through it many times when it was calm as a mill pond).

They are drug free so don't interfere with any other medications or have any side effects if that is an important factor to you They look like a watch and have 5 settings depending on how you are reacting to the motion. The only thing you feel is a small pulse in your wrist. They were about £100 each when we bought them but have been worth every penny over the years. You can google as there a few online suppliers? The kit comes with one band, a cell and contact gel.

Just another option.

Great, thanks for the information.

Glad that Stella is still on the list and a good choice of soft drinks and fruit juice.

I am pleasantly surprised at the range for the price charged. I am not a great spirit drinker but I do like an odd (decent) malt whisky so will use the AI discount for this. (We are visiting a few distillary,s during the cruise so will be "forced"to have the odd dram there!).

To widen this out, has the advent of AI made any difference to the feel of Fred Olsen ships? It has been a few years since we travelled with Fred and they did not do AI packages back then. I assume that most people will be like me and enjoy but not overdo the AI.

Is there the odd minority that have a pint of beer with their cornflakes (yes I have seen this on a ship) and then numerous more thereafter And get louder by the minute - has this had any impact on the ambiance onboard given the ships are small and there are fewer bars for those who get a bit drunk / loud to use?

We were on a short cruise earlier this year and there were quite a few loud drunks around but this was on An RCI weekender.

I looked over some old threads which gave the brands of beer etc for the AI from a couple of years ago.

Does anyone have any more up to date information about the brands of beers, gin, whisky etc that is included in the package now.

Many thanks

I seem to be in a minority of one:). As I said above like a show before dinner and have enjoyed this on other cruise lines. We like second dinner with a meal at 6.15 being just too early for our tastes but don't always want to go to a late show. (Though I like the option of an additional alternative show to be available)

What I would say is that FO must have some sort of logical reason for trying this out. I presume that they would not wish to vexatiously annoy their customers as they appear to be doing if the views on this board are in any way representative, so there has to be some basis for doing this.

If I were being cynical I would suggest that like all cruise lines it is probably to do with profit maximisation. The bars will be much busier after second dinner than they would be if the show was on at that time. So they now sell drinks before and after second dinner to a greater extent.

A kinder view might be that they get too many requests for first sitting and that this is a compromise for those who can't get 6.15 and don't want to sit up to well after 11pm every night when they are up again at 6.30/7am for breakfast and trips.

Or could they be thinking of introducing flexible dining in one of the venues? In my experience the lines that offer this mix of shows usually have freedom dining as an option.

This is of course all wild speculation on my part. It would be interesting to actually know the official reason why this is being tried out in the first place given the strong reactions to it on this board.

Yes it was the 3 day cruise but the first one, the one in April. That's probably why the machines were better stocked for the next 3 days as there were complaints about the soda machines and the general bar stock.

There are (at least on Quantum) at least five freestyle machines. The flavors are stocked separately for each machine. Sparkling water is just water and CO2... if they can't do sparkling water, they can't make ANY carbonated soda.

 

Honestly, I don't believe that all five freestyle machines were down. That just sounds INCREDIBLY implausible to me.

I did not try 5 machines, I tried 2 and as a paying customer I should not have to trail around a rather large ship to get a soda, they should be stocked. As to your view of this being implausible - it is a fact, I do not lie.

For that matter the bars also ran out of many of the beers and most of the better wines by the glass, the ship was a shambles when it came to drinks.

So the burning question now is, if it is not noro then what exactly was it?

As someone going on a cruise in a few weeks on another ship I would be very interetseted to know.