Megabear2

My mum's cousin worked for Telfers in their factory in Bow. I recall my dad asking her what her job entailed and her replying she had to stuff the meat in a big hole at the rear!

Good morning. Thank you all for the help on the Warners breaks. I have now booked my friends in for a 4 day break in June for something described as an "Explore Break". From all your kind help I'm sure they will love it. Very busy day yesterday organising the last Christmas present and then a quick dash up to Essex for my niece's first birthday. How time rushes on, seems impossible it's a year since we were sitting at Gatwick flying out to join Britannia when she decided to come into the world. All the excitement of boarding and rushing to activate our Internet to learn if she was here yet to be greeted by her first photograph, and there she was yesterday literally running around with her slightly older cousin. We learned yesterday we have another niece or nephew on the way as well, arriving in July. We had three weddings in close succession in 2022 and now have two little ones here already from those couples with a third arrival expected. Amongst all the sadness and turmoil it is so lovely to hear such good news and gives hope for us all. We are having our "staff" Christmas lunch today. Every year we take our cleaner, gardner and helpful odd job man and their respective families for a lunch at our local pub, always a really festive do. Last year our local had closed down as the owners had gone into administration, however it reopened in the summer and is apparently thriving. It will be interesting to revisit. Tomorrow will be the frantic packing ready to head to Gatwick on Wednesday for the flight to Florida, I'm totally unorganised this time round but thankfully we don't need too much posh stuff as the worst will be stuff to dress to impress one evening. Looking forward to the two days in FLL before we board as we catch up with my friends. Ellie got 6 votes from us too ...

Help please, all you Warner officianados! Looking at the Somerset Cricket St Thomas hotel as a Christmas present for my two very dear friends who are aged 74 and 76. The lady has unfortunately been very poorly this year with a mystery illness the hospital are unable to track down. I picked it as somewhere relatively easy to get to by train from here - direct train to Crewkerne apparently. I believe it's a short taxi from there but does anyone have any idea? Also the packages seem to offer b&b, entertainment etc. As they will most likely just wander the grounds is it possible to buy other snacks, lunch etc on site? I have a choice of 4 day breaks, one of them seems to include a day out to Lyme Regis if I'm reading it right, if so does anyone know do Warners provide the transport? I can see 2 headline acts mentioned which is great, what happens on the other nights, ie is there entertainment or anything? Basically if anyone can offer information I'd be much obliged. I hope it will be something they can look forward to later in the year. They are pretty easy to please, not ones for posh just something nice, do you think it might suit? Thank you all.

With the introduction of Starlink on cruise ships and very positive reviews of the performance in cabins, I'd hope that the cruise lines would introduce rules that prevent passengers making long Facetime, Zoom or whatever calls at least in public indoor areas. The old excuse of bad connection whilst at sea would appear to be no more - even on QM2 mid Atlantic reports are of fast and efficient connection. ICF, the relevance of this in particular is because of the actual structure of the ship on top of the obvious one of no nearby land to bounce signals off. That used to mean more or less blackout on those voyages. There would now be no need to not use your cabin so I cannot see any way that valuable public space needs to be handed over on the off chance a few if us need to call or make some business zooms etc. Normal telephone conversations while at sea are generally restricted by the cost of onboard telephone costs. If someone wishes to make these calls generally they do so from the open decks whilst in port purely to ensure they are not connected to the onboard phone system.

That sounds lovely. I wonder if it's to do with the Geminid meteor showers last night. This from our local BBC website showing my neighbour yesterday.

Lightbulb moment - perhaps P&O could employ some of these new style WFH cruisers to alleviate the staff shortages in Southampton. Cheap accommodation, food ... it sounds quite appealing, I might even apply.

Is anyone else experiencing an incredible sunset today? Just been driving back from collecting the OH's new dinner suit in Southampton and witnessed incredible red skies most of the way home. Best bit was seeing the Queen Mary 2 bathed in some sort of ethereal glow and actually appearing to radiate, presumably because of her new paint job. Unfortunately because of being alone and driving I couldn't take any pictures but the sky colours were astonishing.

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.