Megabear2

My OH and I do not send cards, however the cat does! The first Christmas after he arrived we made some personalised cards made to let our family and friends know he'd arrived, not realising it would start a trend. Year two we were going away at Christmas so thought we'd go electronic. Sudden outraged protests on my husband's social media as apparently no one cared about us but what about the DFC - the cat's full name is RAF based and DFC is "Distinguished Feline Companion"! Last minute Vistaprint order, lesson learnt and gulp 80 cards every year. Here's this year's offering, sorry about the glare.

We know a few people who've taken the option of these working abroad on remote "nomad" visas, two of them chose Barbados, one Antigua, one Germany and the other Spain. The visa varies between 1 year and 3 years depending on which country. Apart from having to meet minimum income requirements to prove self sufficiency and medical cover it was relatively easy although the German one was quite lengthy. I'd guess this might be more popular with a lot of the types we are discussing.

So are we ....😉

That's fine for your line of business, not so everyone's. We have to have live zoom and teams meetings with up to 20 people including the FCA, bad enough on a laptop, but would be horrendous on a tablet and impossible on a phone.

Bless them. Unfortunately we are banned from dog and cat adoption as "unsuitable" due to our address. Thirteen years ago, almost to the day, after losing three of our four cats at 19, 21 and 23 with one left aged 26, we tried very many times with different organisations and would have taken a new friend in a heartbeat. All refused. Someone smiled on us though, a very special visitor was sent (i swear by my furry girls) and appeared on Christmas Eve in our car port unchipped, unloved and in temperatures of-8, and here he is, our own very specially sent adoptee! He sends a very big hello and a Merry Christmas as he's due to go to his "hotel" any day soon and is busy overseeing his servants preparing his bag! After all isn't that what humans are for?

No, been a fan since I was 5. My uncle used to take me to a match in London every Saturday from the age of 4. The day he took me to Stamford Bridge on my 5th birthday i fell in love with Peter Bonetti and Jimmy Greaves. We were relegated but I refused to go to any other ground if Chelsea were at home. I'm completely the person Suggs describes in his Chelsea anthem Blue Day - every other Saturday was spent at the Bridge until the advent of the Premier League. To this day I get a huge thrill when we leave West Brompton and I catch my first glimpse of Stamford Bridge, I'm a very sad individual!

The best. The amount of times you'd walk in and find Stevie Winwood and his mates having an impromptu jam session were my favourites with added bonus of some very inebriated Chelsea footballers. I used to love the Parrots Perch on Friday nights when your new togs used to have to be on display, and shopping in The Garage, especially for crazy hats! Surprisingly so many of these places still exist and we do drop in when we go to football but the new crowds are very tame compared to us.

Yes at 16 I shared a flat in Chelsea two roads down from Stamford Bridge so I do know about sharing. However safety regulations and council rules wouldn't allow that now - we were 10 who rotated in and out rapt weekends when work colleagues joined us for the football and nights out in the King's Road. Happy days but we certainly wouldn't have been able to work under those conditions!

P&O's own. I noticed them lunchtime when I did a quick check on my own cruise which was showing sold out but they have now put an upgrade bid from £0 to £1,357pp on a suite into my planner. Crazy pricing as you say. At least the 7 night Arvia one has dropped in price, at one point starting price was £3,500 for an outside!

I've been in an Arvia inside cabin ... no way can I see 4 young working people making that work! Maybe a suite but absolutely not on any P&O, or for that matter any mainstream line unless at suite level.

J320? A42 and A38 balconies along with guarantee outsides currently available.

In fairness Arvia's 14 night Barbados Christmas cruises are also sold out, together with Britannia's and most of Azura's. Most of the other Christmas cruises have room - even your Arcadia cruise currently has a couple of insides and balconies. This is a good year for Christmas cruises selling, not just on P&O as a great many actually over the Christmas period on other lines have also been sold out for months.

And hence the push for the younger cruisers. Interestingly worldwide there is a new desire to offer long world cruises and there must be a call for them. The answer probably lies with the entrepreneur age who work very hard and then retire exceptionally early. However that may be a problem for the mainstream like P&O as the quality of the offering will need to be very high to attract these guys.

@CarlaMarie's wording is also that used by Cunard, this from a 2017 post by a contributor on that forum (my bold): "Important Reminder - Yellow Fever Vaccination** We hope you are looking forward to joining us on board. We would just like to take a final opportunity to remind you that a yellow fever vaccination is required for this cruise. Failure to provide a valid International Vaccination Certificate may result in you being denied boarding or being asked to leave the ship before the relevant port of call. The vaccination must be given 10 days before entering a yellow fever area in order for it to be effective and valid. If yellow fever vaccination is contraindicated for medical reasons an exemption can be issued by your Medical Practitioner and this must be brought with you to the ship. Local Port Health Officials will then decide if a vaccination waiver can be issued. The exemption should be either detailed in a headed letter or recorded in the International Certificate of Vaccination. It should be signed by the clinician and include the practice stamp. We look forward to welcoming you on board."

It is indeed a choice everyone makes. Some are perfectly happy with absolutely everything, others most definitely not. My Arvia noise situation was unbearable and P&O obstructive and uncaring about it, this despite my having booked a select fare with no upgrade ticked. The reason given for my upgrade - and it was a very big one - was operational reasons, as indeed was our cabin movement last minute on Britannia last Christmas. The cynic in me says perhaps I wasn't just unlucky as both of these new cabins were less than ideal. The price doesn’t really worry me, if it goes down there was an equal chance it could have gone up. I recall a few others posting they'd cancelled bookings as they were unhappy with seeing big price drops so are not booking early at this time. My comments and observations are not based on my own experiences more an exercise looking at the situation for absolutely any potential customer - certainly not those on this forum who are aware of the games being afoot. ICF for instance has a very set and easy pattern to assist him booking his preferred ships and cruise type, basically cheaper the better no worries about location etc - although he did inform us after the event he had changed cabins due to noise issues in the first allocated. Others go by the nightly price they consider reasonable, we all choose what suits us. Your approach to me is the eminently sensible one, book at a price you're happy with and get what you required and liked.

I chose not to go with P&O and looked elsewhere. I can confirm virtually every line I looked at favours this belt and braces approach on their UK booking terms, and I found a great many archived CC threads going back years where this topic had been raised. I would say it's a known situation and as a result the cruise lines should be very much more on top of it and explain it in the minutiae at the time a booking is being made. Unfortunately the onus is left more or less entirely on the passengers who can become extremely confused. I found one thread on the Cunard board of a guy booked on a WC section going nowhere near a YF area but told 8 days before sailing he had to have a YF certificate or exemption despite that. He was understandably completely confused.

I full appreciate that, when I say "budget" I mean your stated good value budget, ie what you believe is a fair price for the product on offer. As I said, I do not look at holidays or cruises on any particular price structure as I book only based on itinerary or destination. I am happy to pay a premium if necessary to facilitate my timing or choice. Therefore I am not in a position to say whether the advertised lead prices on the cruises are high or low but I do monitor both P&O and Cunard pricing virtually daily on the off chance a whim to just go somewhere occurs. Currently the pricing for remaining cruises between now and March is far higher than I have seen for a number of years. I say this not to prove any points but merely as an observer who sometimes makes a sudden decision to leave the country when my SAD and depression trips in.

Certainly something to note for the future. Assumedly you had to pay for this exemption certificate as when I looked into it when I considered this cruise last year I was quoted a fee. If I had to get a GP leter on top that would have been another £75. Seemed a large expense to acquire the second letter to say the same thing so I chose to do something else instead.

Out of interest I've looked earlier today at the "from" prices on every P&O cruise 2024/5 cruise from Southampton between April and October and every 14 night fly cruise with a Barbados departure. This is cruises of every length and based on either an Early Saver or Late Saver. Without actually going into each cruise I noticed only the October transatlantic crossings next year can offer a balcony at less than £100pp a night. There are a handful around £125pp but the remainder are higher with £134 and £150 appearing to be the most common. Some of the 7 night Arvia Caribbean offerings have a price tag of over £240pp. I'm aware a lot of posters on here have personal budgets pp per night - I do not as I book for reasons other than price and therefore have no rule of thumb to compare. However these prices, and don't forget they are starting prices as at today so could be leftovers or fairly new, seem higher than I've seen this year.

Never said people on here were only that the cruise lines are relying on those booking being naive in seeing a headline price. However you can have the last word because this simply isn't worth my time anymore.

I understood this to be a general discussion not me or anyone making definitive statements. I was simply offering as others have done examples of fare types. I would have thought the type of people who read this forum are more than able to make their own mind up on whether prices have risen or fallen. However the 20% rise I mentioned was actually the figure mentioned by Paul Ludlow in an article with a travel agent publication as the price rise that was expected to be in line with Carnival creditor's expectations. You'll note I mentioned with an explanation mark the rise quoted by CC (which is the one in Time Out), that was intended to indicate I thought the statement somewhat extreme.

Which is exactly the point I was making. Price perception, whether high or low, is a personal matter. There are those on here who do not accept that the P&O product is anything other than the cheapest on the market and as a result shout down anyone who says they found a better deal on another line. As you say, on many occasions with research and flexibility it is relatively easy to find an excellent deal on virtually any line. The point of my post was that it is not necessarily the case that the P&O price is superior to any other, in particular the challenges to people such as Glitterati on the cost of their Celebrity cruises. Perception, well that's again down to when and how the individual wants to cruise. Of course a £499 7 night cruise looks and is indeed brilliant pricing but as many will be disbarred from being able to take it due to date restrictions it isn't really a typical offering. Advertising 7 night holidays from ... as cruise lines do is a great way to entice people in, the reality however is often totally different.

I'm cruising the Caribbean with Celebrity over Christmas as a replacement for an Arvia booking made on release, my Celebrity booking was made in March this year. The Celebrity booking was made during several offers but is 13 nights on Beyond, flight provided by Celebrity air (I picked an American Airlines direct to Miami but had a lot of choices including premium and Virgin/BA flights). The offer I booked had premium drinks, wifi, gratuities and speciality dining x 4 included. There was also an offer of 75% off 2nd passenger. The headline price was high, however after adding on 2 night stay in Fort Lauderdale (again our choice) the whole package for an infinity balcony came in at £6,893 for two. The Arvia cancelled cruise departing 22/12 in an overlooked curve balcony was to cost £7,100 (OBC £500). This cruise however was changed to Britannia departure on 13/1 and became a deluxe balcony, premium economy package at a cost of £7,300 (OBC £620). Personally I'd say not much between all three offerings price wise but clearly the Celebrity offering is all inclusive whereas even with the OBC the P&O offerings aren't. The pricing of any cruise in any category is very much a case of hitting the "sweet spot" and with every line it is impossible to actually say "x" or "y" is better priced. A great many of the special offers are very much out of season - a lot of the cheap prices people are offering are either early season or late. There's nothing wrong with that and great offers are there. However much of it is luck when you move away from the headline prices. Selbourne's wonderful offer on his 65 night cruise is one of those cases. That cruise and fare lasted literally a couple of days as people snapped it up. Another example was the Princess Canadian/US cruise in September, again not selling so well so some crazy pricing for a week or two. Then we had the "fire sale" solo fares from P&O on the 21 night Icelandic cruises and the other unexpected solo fares on Aurora which became a talking point earlier this year. Overall prices are pretty stable across all lines. If we are lucky enough to hit the right time we can all say our experience is for "x" to be cheap. The truth is across an entire season the market has this year increased the cost of trips by an average 20% minimum. Research by CC shows an increase of 43% for 2023! No one line, including P&O, have not raised prices or made cuts to their offering. Clever marketing and the lucky ones who've bagged a bargain can and will make people think cruises haven't risen in price which is naive but just what the lines want. Yes there are definitely bargains and cruising remains great value but ... https://www.timeout.com/usa/news/its-official-cruises-are-more-expensive-than-everheres-why-101623

Allowing for traffic SoBe is about 20 minutes by car, its 5 miles to the end or about 7 to Lincoln. The paved boardwalk starts near Lincoln which is technically Miami Beach and probably if you want to see both a good starting point. Once you hit Miami Beach proper there are numerous hotels with gates out on to the promenade which narrows and is more rough terrain. You can't see the street just the hotel rears at this point. I doubt they'll mind the Dad Bod, why not give the free workout a go? They even have personal trainers on hand for a small fee. Do watch out for the rollerbladers, some of them haven’t a clue and they verge on inept to downright dangerous. Or how about a quick try out for beach volleyball or a boxing class? All on offer. The rescue beach huts are works of art, everyone different colours. SoBe is great for people watching. I have a soft spot for The News Cafe for that as I was at the opening in 1988. https://newscafesouthbeach.com/

Sorry Selbourne, I've only ever arrived/departed with RC and MSC. With RC we took a bus out of the terminal to Fort Lauderdale which was free. MSC used to use Terminal F which I believe is now under Carnival having been adapted for their new megaships and I recall it being fairly easy to get from there to Downtown. I do not recall any bus from there - the port being so busy and huge has transport connections of its own. You should by definition be nearer to the exit to Bayside. The link below may help, I think it's been updated to reflect the new terminals of recent years, I last went in December 2020 although I'm there over Christmas but you’ll have sailed by the time I'm back. I'll try to scan the situation- we are on Celebrity so in a total different port area. If it was me, I'd go to the SoBo area in the morning if you want to see it and then to see the Art Deco district, museum etc, possibly have an early lunch and then head back to the Bayside. The Beach is huge, and the walk by it quite stimulating. I assume you wouldn't want to go and sit on it though and a lot of it is taken by private areas for the big hotels when it becomes Miami Beach. It is by no means cheap either, lovely to look at. Path does however offer nice views of some of the older art Deco hotels which are mainly now renovated- when I first started going there in 1988 they were wrecks being pulled down. Bayside is relatively near the ship and if Lady Selbourne needs a rest it is ideal for coming back out later. https://www.miamidade.gov/portmiami/directions-transportation.asp https://www.miamibeachfl.gov/city-hall/transportation/trolley/customer-rights/#:~:text=Accessibility%3A,provided to all Trolley passengers.