Megabear2

Excellent! Speak to your GP soonest and it really shouldn't be too difficult. I'm fairly confident that as you have already declared your other conditions this won't be too arduous or long winded. One word of caution (from current personal ongoing claims experience!) make sure your GP doesn't cut corners on completing their part of Staysure's enquiry form as this is the only area which can lead to delay with forms going backwards and forwards. The good news is if all paperwork is completed correctly first time round Staysure are usually very good at deciding an outcome. They did change their claim handling company fairly recently and there were reports of delays but the claims company has now taken on extra staff and settlements are returning to normal. Do please keep us informed on how things are going and don't hesitate to ask if you need help on anything - everyone here are a pretty helpful and friendly bunch! Meantime don't be a stranger and hopefully you will want to stay with us all.

Thanks for the clarification. I had a feeling this would be what had happened. At the date of sailing you will still be undiagnosed. In this instance if you speak with your GP and explain what has happened with the cancellation he/she should be able to confirm you could not travel as this was an intervention required in an emergency. This should be sufficient to prove to Staysure that you were medically unfit to travel. Could you confirm whether your policy with Staysure is still in place, have they threatened to cancel it or indeed have they automatically cancelled it due to the tests? Unfortunately they are known to be rather trigger happy on cancellation in this type of situation. However as you have been issued a claim form this is very positive news and hopefully relatively easy to sort.

Yes! A lot of insurers, particularly the Staysure group, cancel automatically your insurance if you are awaiting tests or a medical procedure. Effectively you become uninsurable. It does of course depend on what they are testing for but basically anything that isn't on their "automatically accepted" list will trigger cancellation. Dave's glaucoma is a minor illness on the insurance companies' accepted list.

Yes, that was certainly the intention when I called in Juky to ask what in Serenity was a little extra.

Bingo is an American obsession along with all forms of gambling - let's not even mention the Chinese. It's a cheap profitable event for the cruise line. Basically like the other cardinal "sin" of drinking, it's the way to make lots of money. Those playing know the odds, I have had the odd game for fun on a wet seaday but I'd draw the line at the casino because I've no idea what I'm doing!!

Has your insurer stated categorically they won't cover you? It so what is their reasoning, could it by any chance be that you were aware of seeing a doctor, needing these tests or feeling unwell and did not inform them? Insurance companies insist you notify them of any of these things and will nullify your policy if you fail to do so. Otherwise I cannot see why you aren't covered under cancellation if you have a doctor's letter to state you are unfit to travel. Possibly you are saying your insurer won't cover you because you are awaiting tests in which case you need to obtain as a matter of urgency a written final letter from them stating why they won't pay. Although it's long winded the FCA has been finding for the insured on a lot of this type of claim.

And that's exactly what the lady in white was wearing, club gear. The young still spend a fortune on a Friday night out so they would of course consider those clothes as smart going out ones. You don't see many on the Southend sea front or Blackpool wearing their DJs and gowns ...

From what I can see the sneaky reduction in the fare - never happened before - appears to be a deliberate attempt to cut back on the FCC element. As I love a good conspiracy theory let's think about this as a possible ploy. Sell a cabin for £2,000 pp, total £4,000. See the voyage is not selling well (good excuse), know there's a very high risk it can't sail because of technical difficulties so look at a Baldrick cunning plan ... We know that we've overpriced virtually all our on sale select fares across the fleet, for a few months we've been throwing morsels of OBC to calm those passengers down and they think we've been kind as we know we've over priced our somewhat inferior product for the year. I know: let's give those who paid the highest fares some cash back by refund - 15% sounds okay and they'll be pleased. Let's tell them it's happening but be very tardy in sending it. Now what have we got on sale between now and April we want to get rid of? Oh yes, all those Azura fly cruises no one wanted to book because of the airport difficulties. We've been offering them at stupid prices all year. Now we've cut the fare on the maiden any refund is not going to go far towards our inflated fares on non fly cruises, perhaps because they need a holiday desperately these people might buy some of those Azura cruises ....

Seems reasonable if you've had all the other money back. Are you happy with it or have you lost other money? More to the point do you want to sail P&O again so you can spend the 10% or won't you use it?

Unfortunately smart is in the eye of the beholder. My friend was shocked to see a lady of her own age (31) wearing what she termed a dress for a tart when we cruised earlier in the year. The dress in question was skin tight with large keyhole cut outs where the boobs were proudly on display while so low cut there was little to the imagination. It was also incredibly short and stark white. It was accompanied by Laboutine spiked red shoes. No man of any age could draw their eyes off her. I thought she was brave and extremely confident to carry it off, my young friend on the other hand called her a virtual whore! The lady however felt she was following the dress code as it was clearly what she considered formal. I'd no problem but others probably did judging by their strange looks and nudges.

I did not say she was. I said her maiden was tying in with the other two commencing their world cruises. QA maiden sails down to Lisbon only - I have family on her. The intention as I understand it is for a rendezvous in Southampton with her sisters except for QE who will be down under. My point was despite a fairly uninspiring itinerary of one port immediately after Christmas it is sold out. Arvia being a "family" ship needs people to (a) have finished school in time and (b) either be very organised on Christmas planning or not to care about the celebrations.

I assume we are looking at Sharon's case to come to this conclusion. I'd be interested to hear from someone with a straight cash only booking so we can see that everyone actually got the 25% as it appears.

No problem. Didn't think you were having a go but maybe I'd confused you. I don't think they could sell the maiden, too many people needed to fill her arriving back 2 days before Christmas. The cynic in me says they're delighted it's been scrapped as it could have been an embarrassment if it didn't sell out. They can afford to blame someone else this way. Contrast it with Queen Anne: crappy one port itinerary immediately after Christmas to tie in with a The Queens world cruises. Sold out completely for months yet not until 2024.

I don't get anything from anywhere! I understood from another thread people were being given large refunds on the maiden? I want to ascertain if everyone got one of those certainly there are some on this thread saying they're awaiting money. These are totally hypothetical scenarios with no relevance to anyone in particular- I just used round figures for ease. I wanted to understand what actual amounts P&O are offering the 10% FCC on, ie original sale price, refunded/amended price or current on sale price at the date of cancellation. I sympathise with you on pricing - my £8,000 Christmas cruise with £620 OBC is currently £6,000 with £650 OBC for the cabin next door!

I was booked on this and also Norwegian Viva - the latter the replacement for the first. NCL refunded all money paid - just a deposit - plus 10% discount on any cruise which remains for 2 years and if I book an extra $100 OBC by way of thanks.

Certainly: non refundable overnight accommodation - not covered on many policies as a minimum 2 night stay required for UK hotel bookings, policy excess of minimum £75.00pp on most policies, non refundable train tickets - currently rail companies are not selling in most instances cheap advance tickets so these are full fares, the actual policy cost if you bought a single trip policy - not everyone buys an annual policy. A couple are already down a couple of hundred, a family more. Also loss of annual leave which is a big factor. Spending 12 days at home twiddling your thumbs in the winter isn't most people's idea of a good idea and with rising costs the new cruise fares may be beyond their reach - see Host Sharon's £986 more on her offered alternative cruise. I would politely point out Solent Richard that your take on UK insurance policies has already been proven incorrect when you confidently stated that Avanti would cover you and your family in the event you were offloaded shore without a positive PCR test, and also that you would not need to be separated or pay costs yourself if a non positive person chose to stay abroad with their quarantined partner. You were also confident your insurer would meet costs if you were refused boarding, both of which are incorrect and now acknowledged by P&O and their insurer. I hope you enjoy the allotment.

Can we just take breath and clarify what exactly is happening regarding this so called reduced price? Scenario 1: I book a balcony cabin on release date priced at £6,000 for two, ie £3,000 each. I pay my balance 12 weeks before sail date. P&O then reduce the price to £2,500 each and notify me I am receiving £1,000 refund which they will repay to me via my payment card or travel agent. Unfortunately they cancel and say I will get a refund, ie £5,000 plus a FCC of £500. Scenario 2: I book a balcony cabin on release date priced at £6,000 for two, ie £3,000 each. I pay my balance 12 weeks before sail date. P&O then reduce the price to £2,500 each and notify me I am receiving £1,000 in OBC. Unfortunately they cancel and say I will get a refund, ie £5,000 plus a FCC of £500 but no OBC. Scenario 3: I book a balcony cabin on release date priced at £6,000 for two, ie £3,000 each. I pay my balance 12 weeks before sail date. P&O then reduce the price to £2,500 each andnotify me I am receiving £1,000 refund which they will repay to me via my payment card or travel agent. P&O then substantially reduce the price of my cruise as it isn't selling well. The equivalent balcony cabin is now priced at £1,500pp and a new booking would pay £3,000 for two. Unfortunately they cancel and say I will get a refund, ie £5,000 plus a FCC of 10% based on the sale price on the date of cancellation, ie £300. Obviously all of this scenarios have different outcomes for the passenger. Perhaps someone who has been cancelled could identify which of these three scenarios is the one nearest to fact? If on the other hand people were expecting 10% of the original sale price (in scenario 1 £6,000) could they explain why they thought this to be the case as assumedly a refund of £1,000 would have occurred - I am aware some are still awaiting this cash but this hopefully will arrive shortly. Before we get too aerated with P&O on this issue surely the full picture on the money side at least needs to be explained?

It is indeed possible to do this, but unfortunately it's rather a case of horse and stable door this close to the sailing. People have their policies in place as they've paid their final balances. As is well documented elsewhere on the forum, buying a travel insurance policy for a cruise is far from easy and a large number of people buying the policy wouldn't even think that cancellation of their cruise by the line would leave them possibly hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

The customer could be given an option. If there is a suitable cruise they wish to take (as opposed to feeling compelled to) then FCC is fine. If on the other hand there is no suitable P&O cruise (for instance they are locked in to that time by their employment and are losing annual leave) they could be offered their 10% in a cash payment based on proof of this. Yes, it would require a bit of thought by P&O but would make them seem human. If you want to keep loyal customers such as Host Sharon you should at least show empathy to their plight and not just treat them as a cash cow. This is a small community but already we see Sharon stating she'll go elsewhere and MX saying no more P&O, it only needs a few hundred more of the 5,000 odd passengers to take this stance and they have trouble brewing and all for a few hundred quid each. Solent Richard is very gung ho about insurance policies and caveat emptor however he misses the point that not only is their financial loss but also human. However I expect very little else as he and P&O always sadly appear to have a "I'm always right" attitude.

Britannia has the Retreat of course but if these Sanctuary beds are not converted nothing else. I assume you travelled on Regal before this year and are therefore aware that she had "unfinished garden sheds " identical to the Britannia ones until this year. The plush pink and striped ones onboard her are chargeable at a minimum $50 a day - on seadays the price rise. I used the area on my staycation last year and all beds there were free. In July the whole pool area that was in sun was unavailable to non fee paying people with a large reduction in the number of free beds accordingly. As a result it was not a very welcoming area and as most free beds were in the shade under used as a result. This drive towards paid cabanas offering upmarket drinks and food as paid Extras seems to be creeping in since Celebrity and NCL introduced them. Incidentally on bad positioning those on Celebrity Edge take the prize! They edge the back of the pool terrace - there is only one pool useable by non suite guests - and face outward towards the sea. However you are actually facing a busy walk through area and cannot actually see the ocean. You pay $150 a day for the privilege although a bottle of spirit or champagne is included along with some beers and soft drinks and a meal. However if you want to swim you have to go on a hike to the pool.

With most likely a heavy excess unfortunately.

They could do a lot of things such as refunding non refundable out of pocket expenses or offering a reasonable price on a replacement cruise but sadly they do not wish to so won't. It's not helped by Arvia scuttling off to the Caribbean until April either because presumably if you booked a maiden you chose that ship just for that reason. Anyone not wanting a fly cruise and sailing later from Southampton is left with a heavily booked vessel due to it's newness at what are currently inflated prices.

The rules on shorts are quite clear. If you were unhappy (as I would be) at shorts in the dining room , particularly if you were being refused entry in other areas for no tie, you were at liberty to politely inform staff about the situation. It would seem odd for you to be singled out for the "lesser cardinal sin". May I ask which areas these shorts were being worn in and were they the same places you were barred from? You don't mention your age group or whether this is your first cruise but Iona is fairly relaxed compared with the other P&O ships with only one formal night a week. I assume you are referring to those nights for your ban. If so the rules are spelt out quite clearly before booking. I hope that apart from these minor troubles you enjoyed yourselves and had a good cruise.

I would agree but the ship is effectively two voyages with regional flights from all over on two days. For instance I'm on the second Gatwick flight having moved from the early one to be able to book premium seats. If I recall there's usually a Glasgow flight which comes in last and those people get in around 9.30pm. The only way it would work is if all select venues are split into two sections, one for the 16th and one for the 17th but even then everyone would be booking very late in the night after a 9 hour flight. This will be our 10th one of these, 7 of which have been over Christmas. The online booking, pay in advance has always given everyone a fair chance in the past. We have had cancellation and moved bookings before by P&O. This new aspect of some being able to book if they're fortunate to be early is very much a curved ball. The Epicurean is particularly an important part of our cruise along with a couple of Limelight Club visits and to be honest the way I feel about P&Os current treatment of their passengers could become make or break for our other bookings with them.

This is what we are trying to ascertain! They've always been free but on my cruise personaliser for December they are showing as a little extra. You will no doubt have seen the amendments on Regal where they were tarted up this year and made chargeable so wanted to see what the Serenity little extra is. Regals cabanas are now very plush and expensive. In Walkingdude's photo I spy one white covered frame that certainly wasn't there last time I sailed on Britannia. Further investigation needed ...