molecrochip

I've never actually been on a Princess cruise where they have done that. As yet Princess don't have any ships the size of Iona & Arvia. We'll see if it works when Sun Princess arrives. Its also worth considering that on a lot of Princess cruises, you don't have whole ship turnarounds (especially outside of the UK).

Let me manage expectations, this is the legally required dry docking of the ship. Its required every 5 years so is scheduled at 4.5 year intervals. The primary purpose is to fully stop the ship, do a hull check, a repaint, an 'mot' on the ships non-stop working parts. It allows maintenance on equipment such as propellers / thrusters/ stabilisers as appropriate. Obviously, with a ship out of the water, the opportunity is taken to do a refurb - in most cases this is painting, carpets, new furniture, other repairs. For example, if you had a wooden dance floor, this might have a full refurbishment. It's also an opportunity to do work in the galley areas without disrupting dinner service, and the pools without forcing one out of action. The lifeboats are also offloaded and serviced. As I've said before a lot of the physical ship is designed to last 30 years without major maintenance. Re: Andersons: it really is the one thing missing. Re Disembarkation: The biggest restriction is the number of people you can push through the terminal. Although the ships have got significantly bigger than Cunard's, the luggage hall capacity has not. That is largely why disembarkation feels so bad on Ventura and bigger ships. In this respect, MSC are lucky in Southampton in that they have a new larger terminal.

It’s worth reading the Wikipedia article. Travel City Direct was independent and using old 747s bought post 9/11. Then part of XL before they went bust. Virgin then bought the brand and used their own aircraft before finally retiring the brand.

Refub - you are correct re April. I’ve heard nothing to suggest that Club (fixed) dining is being removed on Britannia.

There is one lounge, it gets busy and is not up to UK standards. That said, can still be preferable to the departure lounge.

P&O don’t use Jet2 long haul.

Expect it to be 31”

P&O specify the level of service - they have no reason to specify anything different to what they have specificied for the Tui Charters.

I was reading some stats and IFE usage on some flights is now as low as 25%. Many people prefer to take their own streaming devices/iPads/phones etc. On my last four flights, I've not used the IFE. I don't think anyone is suggesting no food & drink.

This is the list you want. https://www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/pdfs/PO Accessible Cabin List.pdf Mobility scooters can go in any Accessible cabin but not Partially Accessible cabin.

Your TA should take all of the blame here. There are no conservatory suites on Arvia or Iona which can accept a mobility scooter. This is common knowledge amongst travel agents and has been made clear time and time again by P&O. You may have now upgraded to a full suite however if its one at the front of the ship, they are not suitable for mobility scooters as they have a kink in the corridor just after entering the cabin which most scooters cannot navigate. Even the deck 8 family suites have a 90 degree turn straight after entering the cabin.

Probably the best, most accurate, comment I’ve read on here this year!

The website automatically charges everyone in the room when buying a drinks package on the website in advance. If the adults are buying the two top packages, the children's package are discounted. If you want to only buy a package for the first two guests in a cabin, then you need to do it onboard on days 1 or 2. No one is forced to buy the package.

Here is the thread

The ability to spend your OBS before stepping on ship is coming… I don’t yet have a date though.

Whilst it was introduced as a Covid protocol, it’s been used with mixed success since then. On Iona’s shakedown cruise and it was shocking! At this point it was already in use on Britannia. The app has had constant development since 2020. If Covid hadn’t happened, there wouldn’t be an app. I’m not saying the app is stopping any time soon, but I think it’s being pushed less and less. For example, booking theatre shows has really good feedback. Medallion is not perfect but I prefer it.

My understanding is this just relates to there being no need to pre-book for departure. Pagers/restaurant buzzers are still in use as they are in many restaurants around the U.K. as this is an easy way of queue management without requiring everyone to wait by the podium. On the newer ships they use the wifi rather than a cell phone network. As for the app, it wasn’t introduced for Iona and Arvia. The app was introduced first on Britannia as part of the post Covid restart protocols. It was the the way, post Covid, that bookings could be taken without needing mass queues by the restaurants

They have only just full integrated though. High street shops are currently being rebranded.

Now we're into October, the information is out on Facebook. I can share. On Iona/Arvia, the arts & crafts activities are led by ted, under the branding Creative Waves. https://www.experienceted.com/portfolio/po-cruises This is a fresh approach to the long standing arts & crafts offering on board. Its been wonderfully successful with great feedback. So, the classes are not finishing - just changing provider. Their exact content may change slightly but it was always focused on the demographic of passengers onboard ship. As it is a new provider, they are bringing their own tutors/artists on board and therefore the existing tutors were not having their contracts renewed. On a different Arts & Crafts note, the Whitewall Galleries brand is being phased out in favour of the Clarendon Fine Art brand which already features on Cunard ships. This goes for both the land and sea galleries, and is a decision of the Art Gallery - not P&O.

Just personal experience. Never come across it being broken. Do have to press button to turn it on though! I have surprised a few guests in the past by turning it on! They assumed it was broken as not running 24/7!

There is a story here about how quickly the legal restart requirements changed. If the restart had taken another 3 months, and needed active passenger close contact tracking, as originally suggested, then you may have ended up with the Ocean Medallion system that Princess use. This was a lot closer than you may believe and is the reason that Britannia restarted first - as there was a known scheme of work based upon the other Royal class ships. In the end, the restart approval was given for June and things had to move a bit quicker.

There was practically no bad news in the numbers put out on Friday, and those numbers beat expectations. More revenue, more profit, more debt paid down. Bookings for 2023 setting records, bookings for 2024 setting even bigger records. This should now give the company confidence that will lead to subtle price rises over the next couple of years thereby making even bigger records.

The stock market didn’t agree the day that Q2 results were released. But over the following two weeks the shares rallied significantly.

It’s just a website - it’s not an app. Website is only available once onboard using their wifi (for free).

We saw it 3 months and 6 months ago. Drop on the day and rally the week after.