Caribbean Reductions

[bee-ess]

More Caribbean reductions for Jan-Mar. All cruises are now further reduced to 999 inside and 1299 balcony. On sale until Dec 16th.

Edited December 5, 2013 by bee-ess

[kevinyork]

Wow, right through to March. Great prices but as they are late savers with no dining choice I still wouldnt go. Its nearly a grand more for an allocated cabin and dining choice.

Edited December 5, 2013 by kevinyork

[davecttr]

Lets face it. There are not enough customers for 2 ships in the caribbean. I wonder just how low those fares will go to fill the ships?

 

I was even offered a £999 deal, for single occupancy in a double cabin so they are getting really desperate if they are willing to forgo the fare and onboard spend of the second person.

[bee-ess]

Wow, right through to March. Great prices but as they are late savers with no dining choice I still wouldnt go. Its nearly a grand more for an allocated cabin and dining choice.

 

Kevin, If I understand it correctly you can request your Dining choice on these cruises, providing it is still available of course. We are looking at booking one in March if we can choose Dining option and a Balcony for 1299.

[kevinyork]

Kevin, If I understand it correctly you can request your Dining choice on these cruises, providing it is still available of course. We are looking at booking one in March if we can choose Dining option and a Balcony for 1299.

 

Thanks. But although you can request your preference apparently you are bottom of the list when they allocate the dining and you cannot change it. Its just not worth the risk for us. Freedom dining is most popular. We would be happy with 2nd sitting but couldnt handle first sitting.

 

Strange thing is, allocating a dining preference cost them nothing but P&O are desperate to make the standard fare appear better than their offer prices so they restrict dining choice. In my opinion they have shot themselves in the foot.

[Daftlad]

19 nights for £1199, Caribbean, Spain and Italy. Unbelieveable.

And still, because of extenuating circumstances, I cannot take advantage of these ridiculously low fares.

[soobs]

which cruise is that daftlad?

[kevinyork]

which cruise is that daftlad?

 

Its the Ventura transatlantic from the Caribbean to the Med.

[leylander]

For our cruise on the 25th Jan, getaways were brought out around a couple of months ago. Vantage price for a balcony was/is £2100, while the getaway price was brought in at £1499. Now the getaways for A balcony have disappeared, but you can still pay full price vantage fare for one. Not sure what the thinking is there.

[daiB]

For our cruise on the 25th Jan, getaways were brought out around a couple of months ago. Vantage price for a balcony was/is £2100, while the getaway price was brought in at £1499. Now the getaways for A balcony have disappeared, but you can still pay full price vantage fare for one. Not sure what the thinking is there.

 

Errr there are not many left so no need to sell them cheap? That has been the case in the past.

[Marmaduke]

Booked one of these Caribbean Getaway fares last night and was asked by the travel agent what dinning I wanted. I asked for Freedom and it was available and is now clearly showing on my itinerary on the P & O Personaliser.

[margam49]

Have just booked T/A getaway on Azura balcony cabin with freedom dining for £999 each.

Bargain!!!

[daiB]

Booked one of these Caribbean Getaway fares last night and was asked by the travel agent what dinning I wanted. I asked for Freedom and it was available and is now clearly showing on my itinerary on the P & O Personaliser.

 

That is correct, you can ask for your dining choice up until April with a getaway.

[bee-ess]

Have booked March 8th Azura Getaway Balcony Cabin today. All 3 Dining Options were available. It may well get cheaper but we are travelling as part of a 6 so wanted linked booking and reasoned that we were all happy with the price so went for it. This will be our 10th Caribbean and the cheapest !!

[Prawnik]

No matter how I try to get into my P&O Cruise Personaliser

I cannot get in. All I get is "Cannot find validation summary

element “Form Validation Summary” Make sure you’ve put

element with this ID into your HTML document. What is this

'gobbledegook'. I have been trying all day today. I had no

problem getting in before although I must add that I was

asked to register no less than 3 times because they

either did not have my details or my wife's details. Considering

how much money one pays this is pretty poor show on any

view. P&O this is not the way to treat your customers!

[daiB]

No matter how I try to get into my P&O Cruise Personaliser

I cannot get in. All I get is "Cannot find validation summary

element “Form Validation Summary” Make sure you’ve put

element with this ID into your HTML document. What is this

'gobbledegook'. I have been trying all day today. I had no

problem getting in before although I must add that I was

asked to register no less than 3 times because they

either did not have my details or my wife's details. Considering

how much money one pays this is pretty poor show on any

view. P&O this is not the way to treat your customers!

 

Try logging in as your wife using her peninsular code. Worked for us when we had a problem. I have also read there is a problem with some versions of Internet explorer.

 

Who did you book with. We had one problem sorted by our TA.

[Prawnik]

Gan Canny

Thank you for taking the trouble to give me your advice. I shall contact the Agents if the problem continues. Now under my wife's name it is suggesting I contact them later. Still poor

in my opinion. They should get their IT sorted out so people do not have

these problems. I wanted to spend the weekend deciding which trips I

would like to go on and I am being prevented from dealing with the matter.

I have other commitments next week. :)

[sammydo]

We have just returned yesterday from 2weeks on Ventura in caribbean and had a fantastic holiday...our 3rd in 4 years on Ventura in Caribbean. We paid full price on first day of bookings 18 months ago and we chose specific deck and cabin no of our choice. But whilst on board we did not meet one person that had booked more than5 weeks previously and even then they were moaning had they left it another 3weeks they would have got it for 999 instead of 1299 that they paid. Even at 999 people were still getting balcony cabins.

 

There were only approx 2000 on board, so lots of empty cabins and great for getting around on sea days and in the evenings in the different venues. No problem getting a seat.

 

The flight out was on the new Dreamliner, and again only 106 people on board in stead of 299 so we were able to move around and take up as many free seats as we wanted., but one of the Dreamliner flights that went out the next day only

Had 17 people on it...incredible, but they had full flight coming back so they to go out.

 

Overall fantastic cruise, although standard of food in Mdr had definitely gone downhill a lot, although else food was just as good as ever, And the overall service through the ship was definitely improved on our last holiday despite what we may have thought once the automatic tipping started.....I will be mentioning the ups and downs of this in a separate thread

 

Not sure what will happen to the prices next year, according to staff on board, with the new pricing structure, and carol Marlowe gone, they have said that there will not be these massive reductions, and that they are prepared to send out the ship half empty than make drastic reductions, in fairness to those that book early......aa it has apparently caused alot of ill feeling amongst passengers on board, ...... time will tell !!!!

 

We were happy with what we paid, and prefer to know that we have all our choices met, and time to organise work, dogs etc, so going

last minute is really not suitable for us at the moment.

 

When I have time, I will write a full review on our holiday and also the automatic tipping system on board, that apparently seems to work for some staff but not others .??

[annieuk]

Prawnik, I have found I cannot access my Cruise Personaliser using Internet Explorer. However, if I use Google Chrome I can get in - have just done it. Go to the main P&O page then hover over the Account tab and click on Cruise Personaliser - then you have to enter your date of birth and Booking ref. I find I cannot get in if I put my account details and then go to My cruises - that just doesn't work. Good luck.

[kevinyork]

We have just returned yesterday from 2weeks on Ventura in caribbean and had a fantastic holiday...our 3rd in 4 years on Ventura in Caribbean. We paid full price on first day of bookings 18 months ago and we chose specific deck and cabin no of our choice. But whilst on board we did not meet one person that had booked more than5 weeks previously and even then they were moaning had they left it another 3weeks they would have got it for 999 instead of 1299 that they paid. Even at 999 people were still getting balcony cabins.

 

There were only approx 2000 on board, so lots of empty cabins and great for getting around on sea days and in the evenings in the different venues. No problem getting a seat.

 

The flight out was on the new Dreamliner, and again only 106 people on board in stead of 299 so we were able to move around and take up as many free seats as we wanted., but one of the Dreamliner flights that went out the next day only

Had 17 people on it...incredible, but they had full flight coming back so they to go out.

 

Overall fantastic cruise, although standard of food in Mdr had definitely gone downhill a lot, although else food was just as good as ever, And the overall service through the ship was definitely improved on our last holiday despite what we may have thought once the automatic tipping started.....I will be mentioning the ups and downs of this in a separate thread

 

Not sure what will happen to the prices next year, according to staff on board, with the new pricing structure, and carol Marlowe gone, they have said that there will not be these massive reductions, and that they are prepared to send out the ship half empty than make drastic reductions, in fairness to those that book early......aa it has apparently caused alot of ill feeling amongst passengers on board, ...... time will tell !!!!

 

We were happy with what we paid, and prefer to know that we have all our choices met, and time to organise work, dogs etc, so going

last minute is really not suitable for us at the moment.

 

When I have time, I will write a full review on our holiday and also the automatic tipping system on board, that apparently seems to work for some staff but not others .??

 

Thanks for posting this. Only 2000 on board instead of 3200. That isnt a sustainable business model. They cannot go forward saying they are prepared to sail partly empty rather than drop prices in the future as they will be out of business pretty quick. Particularly on flight inclusive cruises where they still have to pay for the chartered plane in full even if it flies out half empty. Any cruise line needs to aim for full occupancy to be profitable.

 

I have to say I feel a little sad if this is the case. Is this all the result of the appalling marketing catastrophe of the Vantage Fare price promise and/or dissatisfaction with the P&O product?

Edited December 8, 2013 by kevinyork

[Wiltonian]

Or just the consequence of over-supply world wide of cruise holidays while most countries are still in recession?

 

Stuart

[bee-ess]

Thanks for posting this. Only 2000 on board instead of 3200. That isnt a sustainable business model. They cannot go forward saying they are prepared to sail partly empty rather than drop prices in the future as they will be out of business pretty quick. Particularly on flight inclusive cruises where they still have to pay for the chartered plane in full even if it flies out half empty. Any cruise line needs to aim for full occupancy to be profitable.

 

I have to say I feel a little sad if this is the case. Is this all the result of the appalling marketing catastrophe of the Vantage Fare price promise and/or dissatisfaction with the P&O product?

 

I agree, it is a downward spiral. How is it that not very long ago they had a mad week in April when a large number of the cabins sold. They still had savers later on but at a small manageable number. To survive they have to get back to the situation where to book early was the best option but now we all just sit there and wait for the price to drop. It is a situation that they have created for themselves and very difficult to break now. They need something radical - Celebrity give free drink packages and many take up the offer. They have to realise that when comparing like for like many are not choosing P&O.

I also think that they need to improve the itineraries - outside of the World Cruise they are all very samey and too many out of Southampton, of which I am bored - a 2 week Med Cruise only gets you to Rome. Other companies Fly to Venice or Rome to start the cruise and that allows different ports in 2 weeks - 3 days from the Soton to the Med and back often in poor weather does not appeal to everyone. Not everyone can go on cruises longer then 2 weeks. In the Caribbean it is the same old ports every year - why not base one of their ships in Florida for more opportunities. If there is no fresh thinking they will not survive and I for one will be sad about that. Come on P&O - TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

Edited December 8, 2013 by bee-ess

[sueandphil]

We have just returned yesterday from 2weeks on Ventura in caribbean and had a fantastic holiday...our 3rd in 4 years on Ventura in Caribbean. We paid full price on first day of bookings 18 months ago and we chose specific deck and cabin no of our choice. But whilst on board we did not meet one person that had booked more than5 weeks previously and even then they were moaning had they left it another 3weeks they would have got it for 999 instead of 1299 that they paid. Even at 999 people were still getting balcony cabins.

 

There were only approx 2000 on board, so lots of empty cabins and great for getting around on sea days and in the evenings in the different venues. No problem getting a seat.

 

The flight out was on the new Dreamliner, and again only 106 people on board in stead of 299 so we were able to move around and take up as many free seats as we wanted., but one of the Dreamliner flights that went out the next day only

Had 17 people on it...incredible, but they had full flight coming back so they to go out.

 

Overall fantastic cruise, although standard of food in Mdr had definitely gone downhill a lot, although else food was just as good as ever, And the overall service through the ship was definitely improved on our last holiday despite what we may have thought once the automatic tipping started.....I will be mentioning the ups and downs of this in a separate thread

 

Not sure what will happen to the prices next year, according to staff on board, with the new pricing structure, and carol Marlowe gone, they have said that there will not be these massive reductions, and that they are prepared to send out the ship half empty than make drastic reductions, in fairness to those that book early......aa it has apparently caused alot of ill feeling amongst passengers on board, ...... time will tell !!!!

 

We were happy with what we paid, and prefer to know that we have all our choices met, and time to organise work, dogs etc, so going

last minute is really not suitable for us at the moment.

 

When I have time, I will write a full review on our holiday and also the automatic tipping system on board, that apparently seems to work for some staff but not others .??

So the rumours were true then. We were on Ventura for the two weeks previously to you and were told by some passengers(on Baltic tier apparently) that they were offered a further two weeks at no extra charge. Dismissed it at the time as an urban myth being bandied around but they also quoted the 2000 passenger figure as you have done. Seems that the Caribbean is being flooded with both Azura and Ventura out there, especially in the run up to Christmas. Will probably wait to book next years cruise. Even with the new fare tiers I'm guessing there will be bargains to be had with both ships out there again next winter

[Thejuggler]

2000 on ship and only 106 on a charter flight. I hope this was a one off, because that isn't sustainable.

 

I have just been flicking channels and one of the channels was selling cruises. There were some amazing deals with trips in different areas at £50-70 a night, including as has been mentioned the P&O Caribbean departures.

[jeanlyon]

Those are scary numbers and worse than my information that a Baltic cruise on Oriana had over 800 Getaways on board. out of 1200 pax, that is a loss of revenue for sure.