Megabear2

This is interesting. Yesterday from the trade. https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/tour-operators/po-cruises-apologises-to-trade-over-flight-charter-issues

You booked in March 2023 for March 2024 or was it March 2022 for March 2024?

This computer problem has been there since last Wednesday regardless of which airline. I waited up all Friday night to book my friend on to her 30 December 2023 cruise (currently she is on Aurora so unable to do it herself) with absolutely no luck. Spoke to P&O on Saturday who advised to keep trying until Wednesday and then call again. On Sunday I eventually got in on My P&O to see the Flights page but the seat selection was greyed out with availability after 14 weeks. I left the screen open. At 1.00am on Monday I got up to let the cat out and whilst waiting for him to return refreshed the flight screen. Surprisingly it opened with the green select seats button. Going in I noted only 4 seats appeared to have been reserved but on picking s seat for my friend it reserved it and put it and the return in my bssked. I paid and received a receipt. Reading of these continued problems I've just been back in. I am allowed to log in and get the flights screen. It confirms the seat selection however it will not display the aircraft plan stating: There are currently no seats available to be pre-purchased, please try again later. I have the distinct impression I just was lucky. The social media pages are full of people on both airlines who cannot get access and once you're past the AI woman on the telephone they have a message stating they know there is a problem and wait times are currently in excess of an hour. I can only suggest keep trying and if you get the flights page open keep trying.

The buses are now running in convoy for security reasons. If the flights are delayed the airport made have to hold you too as it has limited capacity landside with steps etc - remember every aircraft is a different fitting for these things so get 4 dreamliners arrive around the same time and they have 3 lots of steps someone has to wait. That happened to us last year as we were 3 hours late and 5 planes arrived within 20 minutes of each other. Grantley Adam's is a very busy airport with lots of international flights.

Depends on your flight time. If you are on the ones either end and on one if the first buses no wait normally. If you're flight is the middle one you can meet up with the one from another airport and get held on the bus before checking in. Fingers crossed you're the one either end!

Hi. You are on a charter if it's TUI. Basically check in, fly, leave the aircraft, debark, walk across the tarmac and directly on to the bus (no passport control, no collecting luggage). Your bus will go directly to the port. Alightvat the "shed" - have your boarding passes, passports and credit card to hand. You will be called forward and they will check your passport and stamp your boarding pass. They may retake your photo but it doesn't occur as much as it used to. You then go through the security machines and board. Once onboard you should go directly to your muster station where your boarding pass is scanned. You are now officially onboard and off you go to your cabin which will be ready with keys outside. Your luggage will be delivered to you. Extremely simple, takes about 1 1/2 hours from the plane to your room. If you are sailing on Arvia try to log in to the app the second you are in the shed to start bookings - I can't guarantee it will work, perhaps ICF can pop along and tell you, he's the Arvia expert!! Relax and have a great holiday.

As someone who has had cancer including removal of various thankfully benign skin growths I would not wish to sit in the sun all day, plus as I've aged I get skin irritation and hives. However I can confirm our normal port side midforward cabins normally have sun on them from around 11.00am until sunset. We do of course sail at a period of shorter days than you. In fact my only problem with Britannia is the lack of shade in public open space. One of the few things I liked better on Arvia was the fact the adult only pool at the front did offer a shaded area.

We would never believe that - you paying for a balcony?? Nah, not in a million years!

Some of us want it because it's not in the sun. If we want sun we have a balcony....

Clearly thinks we have short memories.

Simon Calder is continually stating this £20 a day pp drinks package in his weekly blog when he mentions cruising. I've no idea where he magicked this figure from but I've never seen a price that low on anything currently on sale!

Over Christmas last year (only Britannia sailing of course) several planes did go "technical" and TUI unfortunately didn't have spare planes. A very large number of them had very long delays as a result - 12 hours in one case. One Glasgow flight didn't even make it to Barbados on its scheduled day with people being brought back to the ship overnight to go home a day late. It is currently a fact of life there is a huge shortage of aircraft as a knock on from the pandemic. Lots of orders for new planes are severely behind as they aren't built and therefore are not being delivered. For instance Ryanair have 24 out of 51 orders delayed by Boeing, Airbus are already announcing delays to 2024 deliveries and both manufacturers have more severe delays and difficulties with wide bodied long haul aircraft. Unfortunately this is going to run and run for quite a while. https://about.ch-aviation.com/blog/2023/06/19/ch-aviation-report-aircraft-on-order-worldwide/#:~:text=In terms of aircraft types,is second with 2%2C265 commitments. https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Airline-News/Delivery-delays-keep-limiting-airline-capacity-growth

Apparently according to a thread on tadvisor, someone has set up a concerted attack on P&O via social media. Certainly the 21 pages over there are mind boggling on occasions, however my favourite post is this one: "The cruisecritic thread is similarly entertaining: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2964236-flight-changes-to-caribbean-with-no-inflight-entertainment/#comment-66123956 More reasonable posts from cruisers there than over here." Keep up the good work chaps!!!

Final story on airlines before I close. My 82 year old aunt and I went on a fly cruise with Princess last year and she had booked it all - I was a very late substitute. My aunt has Internet but doesn't have a clue how to use it. On the night before we were flying I asked her if she'd checked us in. No she sys the agent knows I don’t do Internet, We arrive at Gatwick next day and approach the Easyjet check in. Hmm ... sorry you aren't flying as you aren't checked in and we've given someone else your seat! Apparently full flight and Easyjet, BA etc oversell the seats. Wasn't a big problem before the pandemic although it's happened for years. Now it's very much a problem with reduced capacity on aircraft and far less flights. It really is a bit hit and miss what you'll fly on, where from and when. Ohby the way after many desperate phone calls between me, the agent and Princess we did finally get to Barcelona courtesy of BA and caught the ship but it was a real trauma. We had arrived 10.00am for a 2.00pm flight ended up early morning next day on a different airline!

Unfortunately most people don't read terms and conditions of anything they purchase or indeed in a lot of cases understand them when they do. You will find tucked away in all the small print on any contract things which you and most people feel unfair. Unfortunately they are there to protect the company and the onus is very much on the individual to read and fully understand what they are signing up to. Rather than older and wiser, perhaps buyer beware. The secret is to think the very worst, stupidest thing that would cause you a problem and check and ask how the company could get out of it. Consumer law sadly ain't all its cracked up to be!

Congratulations. Enjoy.

Thank you. I was asking as some people were asked to pay their PE in full at the time of booking rather than the percentage deposit (normally 10%). I was going to say if you had paid the PE supplement in full you would be entitled to a full refund of that amount and only forfeit your deposit on the base rare at cancellation. However you've explained you booked onboard so that is presumably a £100 deposit each, total £200. There are others who have paid the 10% and say they've not been repaid their £409 supplement which was paid up front which was why I asked. Not much consolation but if you had booked not onboard your deposit would have been 10% of your £7,000 at £700 so a far bigger loss. I suspect many who have been on social media may not have followed through on their cancellations faced with a loss of this amount.

I am defending the right of P&O to provide the best available aircraft for the 600 people on that day's flights. Of course I am sorry for those in PE who find there is none, however they were offered their money back and OBC by way of an apology if they accepted to fly on the Maleth aircraft. If those good folk felt they couldn't fly in the offered diminished cabin that is their personal choice. Yes, maybe P&O could be considered "mean" for not offering free cancellation to those PE passengers with a genuine need perhaps for medical reasons or whatever but then you get into what is a genuine need and put simply it would be more trouble than it's worth so take it or leave it is their stance. It is all well and good to say P&O have "changed" the airline but under the rules they haven't because absolutely nowhere do they name an airline. Yes, assumptions are made that a certain airline will provide the flights but as stated above schedules for airlines are planned far nearer to the point of sale than cruises are. For instance I can book a cruise for next Christmas with most cruise lines and have been able to do so for nearly a year. I cannot however book a Christmas 2024 package holiday with TUI to Barbados because they aren't on sale yet. Consequently if TUI plan their long haul holidays after P&O sell a cruise with an included flight, there is always going to be a risk TUI will decide to use their aircraft themselves. In other words P&O will need to go out into the world of aircraft leasing and take what's on offer. Truthfully the world has changed, there simply aren't spare planes lying around the major airlines waiting to be leased out. It's lucky these planes have been "found" by the lease company because otherwise none of that 30% of the Arvia and Britannia passengers would be going anywhere.

Why? You book a cruise that gives you an included flight. It doesn't say who with. It could be anyone, just because historically it was so and so it does hold it will be them forever.

I fully understand your situation. Clearly P&O were hoping even back in June to source these aircraft from TUI or Virgin. Incidentally I booked my cruise in June onboard Arvia too. I actually was moving a cruise deposit from an Arvia cruise and needed it to cost more than £7,100 to be able to do this. The PE option was in a separate section of the computer with fares listed according to airport. Many of the Arvia options showed quite clearly no PE fares on sale. I assumed this meant sold out, however maybe not since this has broken.

Exactly, sounds like it would be the only other choice and that would be 5,000 very unhappy passengers for each cruise rather than a couple of plane loads. Then listen to the screams.

The buses used to leave when full rather than wait. The waiting bit came about in 2021, apparently due to covid protocols. One of the big benefits for PE passengers was they got the first buses and left first. That also meant quicker boarding for them. I've only done the PE since 2022 and as I say first off because the clear that cabin first, and then the wait. Last year all season flights were a mess. Frequently they arrived late, in some cases 12 hours, and the airport had difficulty with steps as they were in use for other arrivals.

I noticed you said you booked onboard. I hope you don't mind me asking, but may I ask if that was a reduced deposit for doing so and as a matter of interest whether you paid the PE supplement upfront?

That of course is a matter of personal choice. However the passengers who are not cancelling would most likely be upset if their cruises were cancelled because P&O hadn't sourced those flights. The main upset I've seen elsewhere appears to be that there is no premium economy. That is at most 63 passengers per flight so approximately 237 others in economy. Yes, all of the passengers will miss inflight entertainment but that's not guaranteed - there were a lot of TUI flights last year where the system was broken and unusable. Disappointed no doubt they are but at the end of the day the decision is really do you want to go on the holiday and is that 8 hours on the plane the breaking point for you personally. Still no one has answered anywhere I can see, the question if P&O hadn't been able to source these aircraft what would you have expected them to do? The other option would presumably have to be cancel all those people who were booked to sail, ie around 30% of their passengers. No flight, no cruise unless of course Dumbo passes by and offers you a lift.

Moley said it was floors from Southampton. It won't matter with your Caribbean job in February, the buses now go in convoy to the port. That means us PE boss get off first, board a bus first and then sit waiting for the very last and slowest passenger to get of the plane! Basically apart from the assisted passengers you have to join the bunfight. I'll admit it's much quicker through the check in but the queues and waiting were certainly longer. I was most unamused last year as we were nearly 3 hours late and then waited on the plane nearly an hour for steps and then another 45 minutes on the bus. For good measure we somehow got to the back of the convoy too and was last to check in. I'd think you can connect to Arvia from the shed to juggle your 710 bookings.