Britannia delayed Baltic departure 6th July

[majortom10]

2 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

In defence of P&O I have just come off the Sapphire Princess and the drinks prices are much higher plus they had the 18% gratuity to each drink. I knew this when I booked but what I didn’t know was they don’t ask you to sign for the drinks so we couldn’t really check the bill properly. It was 10 Euros each for the shuttle bus into Blankenberge and an eye watering 19.95 USD for the bus at Copenhagen as we were at the furthest port.

On a plus point for Princess, we missed Skagen and got 18 USD each re- credited to our account!

If in future if you berth at the new docks at Copenhagen Ocenakaj (Ocean Quay) there are service buses that take you from the berth and drop you off in Copenhagen town centre at a fraction of the price charged by Princess. 

• You can purchase tickets on-board the bus with Danish cash. Credit cards are not accepted.
• Tickets can be purchased from the tourist information, from a ticket machine and in a souvenir shop all located at Ocean Quay. 

It is service 25 and costs 24 Danish Krone per person.

 

[Eglesbrech]

10 minutes ago, daiB said:

How do you know the problem was caused by poor maintenance. No evidence at all.

I don’t because P&O keep hiding behind the term “technical issues”. Perhaps if they were more open and transparent then passengers would not have to make educated assumptions. If there is nothing to hide why say nothing when you know your passengers are being adversely affected. I would be likely to be more sympathetic to P&O if there was a reasonable explanation for all these missed ports and late arrivals

 

What I do know is that it has been happening much more frequently recently and no proper explanation given.  Meantime you have people like r60lt above with young children being left to just get on with it according to their post. Customer service?

[Eglesbrech]

7 minutes ago, daiB said:

Btw boarding started about 15.00. All reporting very smooth.

All very smooth and many hours late 😉

[majortom10]

Dont really know what is cause for late arrivals except for medivac which is understandable and unavoidable. On our return off Britannia in May when we were over 2 hrs late in docking and the 2 days prior to arrival we were told that we were going to be late due to strong head winds. Why then did Britannia on leaving Gibraltar go that slow for a number of hours it looked as if we were just going along with the wind and we also went slowly for a lot of the time on our way to Southampton. If they knew that far in advance that they were going to be late due to supposedly head winds why didnt they go faster to try and make up for at least some of the time we were losing. My theory is that P&O would have preferred to be late rather than using extra fuel by going faster and the subsequent cost. But I do not believe for one minute and think it is a made up rumour that P&O are late because of poor maintenance schedule and dont know where or why this has spread around forums with no evidence whatsoever.

[Eglesbrech]

28 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

Dont really know what is cause for late arrivals except for medivac which is understandable and unavoidable. On our return off Britannia in May when we were over 2 hrs late in docking and the 2 days prior to arrival we were told that we were going to be late due to strong head winds. Why then did Britannia on leaving Gibraltar go that slow for a number of hours it looked as if we were just going along with the wind and we also went slowly for a lot of the time on our way to Southampton. If they knew that far in advance that they were going to be late due to supposedly head winds why didnt they go faster to try and make up for at least some of the time we were losing. My theory is that P&O would have preferred to be late rather than using extra fuel by going faster and the subsequent cost. But I do not believe for one minute and think it is a made up rumour that P&O are late because of poor maintenance schedule and dont know where or why this has spread around forums with no evidence whatsoever.

 

Your theory re fuel costs has no more basis than any general comments on these boards about maintenance. It is all pure guess work in the absence of hard facts.

 

There was however one post that indicated that maintenance was given as a reason directly from P&O .

 

”Friends on board got an email before sailing saying they would have a two day stop in Malaga formaintenance  work, missing out Messina later in the cruise to stay on schedule”.

 

What is fact is the impact on customers.

 

 

Edited July 6, 2019 by Eglesbrech
To add in a quote.

[P&O SUE]

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

If in future if you berth at the new docks at Copenhagen Ocenakaj (Ocean Quay) there are service buses that take you from the berth and drop you off in Copenhagen town centre at a fraction of the price charged by Princess. 

• You can purchase tickets on-board the bus with Danish cash. Credit cards are not accepted.
• Tickets can be purchased from the tourist information, from a ticket machine and in a souvenir shop all located at Ocean Quay. 

It is service 25 and costs 24 Danish Krone per person.

 

 

Thanks majortom, I found this out from other passengers later! Ah well, we live and learn!

[molecrochip]

6 hours ago, daiB said:

Number of points.

 

Do you know if the other cruise lines have more or less medi-vac’s.

The  age profile for P&O is high.

There are no fewer medical staff. 

Decisions about who should be evacuated are made in the US. The medical team on all Carnival ships is run from the US. It’s contracted out.  So little to do with P&O as a separate company.  This takes the decision on these matters out of the ships control.

not sure why you would see this as a problem for booking P&O again.

Just to add a few points here:

 

P&O cruises typically have more sea days that an average Caribbean cruise therefore the opportunity to offload at the next port is often longer away.

 

P&O and Carnival operate a joint pool of medical staff including Senior Doctors and nurses. They operate under UK medical standards. Staff are recruited by Carnival UK who often hold medical centre open days when ships are in Southampton. There are more medical staff on board than ever.

 

Decisions to medically evacuate passengers are taken ultimately by the Captain in conjunction with the senior doctor and the 24/7 operations team at Carnival UK in Southampton. 

 

When my mother was unexpectedly taken sick last year, the senior doctor carefully talked her through the decision making process and her kept her updated following each conversation with the Captain and Southampton. Once the Captain had approved, a discussion was then taken with the air ambulance and local ports to decide which was the best method of evacuation. For reference, it was agreed to evacuate by air at the entrance to the English Channel by the Portland air-sea rescue at 1am in the morning to Southampton hospital. Final decision to evacuate was at midnight and was following additional calls between the doctor and Southampton General. The doctor worked tirelessly all evening to bring my mothers condition to a position whereby she could stay on board a further 28 hours back to Southampton. Thanks to the skilful work of the medical team, she made it back to Southampton and was transferred straight to Southampton General by ambulance.

[the english lady]

I am rather intrigued by people stating pando are "hiding" behind mtce issues, and not being clear about what is wrong. Are all of them ship engineers so if it was explained that the thingymajig next to the whatyoumacallit it is out of allingment so we are going to have to ?????? they would all say, thank you for that we know exactly what you mean.

If people read the brochure or T and C it says in there that the medical centre is not a hospital, they can do care but only on an emergency basis and that is how they should be viewed. Not as a HDU that you get in a hospital.

[Eglesbrech]

12 minutes ago, the english lady said:

I am rather intrigued by people stating pando are "hiding" behind mtce issues, and not being clear about what is wrong. Are all of them ship engineers so if it was explained that the thingymajig next to the whatyoumacallit it is out of allingment so we are going to have to ?????? they would all say, thank you for that we know exactly what you mean.

If people read the brochure or T and C it says in there that the medical centre is not a hospital, they can do care but only on an emergency basis and that is how they should be viewed. Not as a HDU that you get in a hospital.

No the onboard hospitals are not ICUs but from what Molecrochip has described above them seem to do a very fine job to help those unfortunate enough to fall ill.

 

You are right about the technicalities of ships, most folks would not know their white metal bearing from their stators. 

 

 

[Josy1953]

6 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

In defence of P&O I have just come off the Sapphire Princess and the drinks prices are much higher plus they had the 18% gratuity to each drink. I knew this when I booked but what I didn’t know was they don’t ask you to sign for the drinks so we couldn’t really check the bill properly. It was 10 Euros each for the shuttle bus into Blankenberge and an eye watering 19.95 USD for the bus at Copenhagen as we were at the furthest port.

On a plus point for Princess, we missed Skagen and got 18 USD each re- credited to our account!

We were on Sapphire Princess in April and simply asked the waiters in the bars for receipts and there was never a problem getting one.  After a few days they got used to us and would bring a receipt with the drinks.  We were in the Canaries so no shuttles fortunately.  We missed Lanzarote and got the port fees refunded automatically to our on board accounts.  Like you we were aware of the 18% gratuity on drinks and the auto-gratuities so there were no big surprises.

 

We felt that the overall experience on Princess was worth the extra costs because we have become disillusioned with P&O recently.

[daiB]

I am very sorry to be the bringer of good news but everone i have spoken to on the ship and on line, on a 200 strong group, have commented on how welll P&O  have coped with the embarkation. All saying no waiting and no need for letters.

[Eglesbrech]

3 minutes ago, daiB said:

I am very sorry to be the bringer of good news but everone i have spoken to on the ship and on line, on a 200 strong group, have commented on how welll P&O  have coped with the embarkation. All saying no waiting and no need for letters.

Good to hear. Glad that things are going well for them now after the initial delay, no one wants to see the start of a holiday ruined. 

[Bazrat]

Just out of interest is it only p&o that have technical difficulties,because I seam to notice on the news others lines having problems but we can discount them,because there not cost cutting and hiding the facts like p&o. 

[Harry Peterson]

5 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Just out of interest is it only p&o that have technical difficulties,because I seam to notice on the news others lines having problems but we can discount them,because there not cost cutting and hiding the facts like p&o. 

That may well be true, but this is the P&O forum so it’s no surprise that the posts major on P&O.

[Selbourne]

16 minutes ago, daiB said:

I am very sorry to be the bringer of good news but everone i have spoken to on the ship and on line, on a 200 strong group, have commented on how welll P&O  have coped with the embarkation. All saying no waiting and no need for letters.

 

That’s a relief. Presumably they didn’t have the issues with CPS that seemed to cause the irritation when it happened a few weeks ago? With hindsight, with the ship in at 1115 and boarding commencing at 3pm, asking passengers to turn up 6 hours later now seems excessive. If everyone adhered to that 6 hours then many will have only just arrived and have perhaps lost their evening unnecessarily. I guess that they can’t win whatever they do in these situations. As an aside, there IS another festival on in Southampton today and there are roadworks on the M271 just to add to the mix. First night in the MDR can be a bit frantic on the first night even when everything has gone to plan, so I would be heading to a Select Dining venue if I was boarding this evening, assuming that they are open. 

[daiB]

4 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

 

That’s a relief. Presumably they didn’t have the issues with CPS that seemed to cause the irritation when it happened a few weeks ago? With hindsight, with the ship in at 1115 and boarding commencing at 3pm, asking passengers to turn up 6 hours later now seems excessive. If everyone adhered to that 6 hours then many will have only just arrived and have perhaps lost their evening unnecessarily. I guess that they can’t win whatever they do in these situations. As an aside, there IS another festival on in Southampton today and there are roadworks on the M271 just to add to the mix. First night in the MDR can be a bit frantic on the first night even when everything has gone to plan, so I would be heading to a Select Dining venue if I was boarding this evening, assuming that they are open. 

The change to 11.15 came quite late so possibly they did not want to give mixed messages. Certainly most people took notice of the warning and when we got there at 2.45 it was busy but by no way full. Boarding started about 10 minutes aftet that. Not heard of any parking problems.

[molecrochip]

2 hours ago, Bazrat said:

Just out of interest is it only p&o that have technical difficulties,because I seam to notice on the news others lines having problems but we can discount them,because there not cost cutting and hiding the facts like p&o. 

Currently you have a NCL ship limping around the Med, you have Carnival Vista in the Caribbean with Azipod problems to name but two. No matter how good maintenance is, big machines will never be 100% fault free. It’s not just P&O.

Edited July 6, 2019 by molecrochip

[Twogreynomads]

Hope everyone has a trouble free holiday now. As a matter of interest when there is a very late embarkation when do they have the safety muster?

[the english lady]

Just reading on a  pando FB page somebody said their parents boarded yesterday no problems, but were horrified to hear some of the language being given to the terminal staff. I thought that was terrible. Yes it was not the best start to a holiday, but does taking it out on the terminal staff make it any better. Was it all their fault really.  Maybe some of them if there are any more problems in the future with late arrivals will say, you know what my life is better without being sworn at...and the terminals will not be able to get staff to stay there. Remember this is port staff, so nothing whatsoever to do with the cruise line.  Just hope those who chose to behave in that manner are really really proud of themselves.

[the english lady]

20 hours ago, Clodia said:

Delays, a couple of missed ports, late back and missed booked train costing me over £100 for new ticket. Not to mention being woken up in the night; I'm a poor sleeper at the best of times. Starting to spoil the cruise.

I was under the impression that in these sort of cases pando dealt with a case by case. you pay upfront and claim from pando for the extra cost of a new ticket. That is what people have said has happened in the past.

[molecrochip]

1 hour ago, the english lady said:

Just reading on a  pando FB page somebody said their parents boarded yesterday no problems, but were horrified to hear some of the language being given to the terminal staff. I thought that was terrible. Yes it was not the best start to a holiday, but does taking it out on the terminal staff make it any better. Was it all their fault really.  Maybe some of them if there are any more problems in the future with late arrivals will say, you know what my life is better without being sworn at...and the terminals will not be able to get staff to stay there. Remember this is port staff, so nothing whatsoever to do with the cruise line.  Just hope those who chose to behave in that manner are really really proud of themselves.

From my experience, when you have a late boarding both the terminal staff (who are employed by the dock not P&O despite wearing the right scarf/tie) and CPS become the most rude of people. I wouldn’t want to assume that a passenger is 100% to blame here, they might just be reacting to the staff. I have mentioned this point to P&O who apologised but said it was out of their hands.

[molecrochip]

5 minutes ago, theweatherman said:

 

You have absolutely no evidence for the age and customer profile of passengers on-board, or the change in recent years.

 

Likewise your ‘overweight’ comment is based on your own personal prejudice or phobia, with no facts to back-up your claim.

 

The average P&O age profile is actually dropping. There was an interview not to long ago (Paul Ludlow?) which seemed to suggest average age of all passengers on all ships across one year was down by about 5 years. This is actually a bigger decrease concentrated on the family ships with adult only ships staying level.

[dorsetlad]

One thing I have noticed of late, is the amount of whingers on this board. Was a time when folks just shrugged their shoulders and made the best of their holiday. It seems that today, lots of people are looking to be upset or offended. Get on with it , I say, life is too short.

[Harry Peterson]

43 minutes ago, theweatherman said:

 

You have absolutely no evidence for your statement about the age and customer profile of P & O passengers, or the change in recent years.

 

Likewise your ‘overweight’ comment is based on your own personal prejudice or phobia, with no facts to back-up your claim.

 

There’s plenty of evidence about the age and customer profile if you care to look for it in the company accounts and supporting statements.

 

The rest?  No prejudice, no phobia. Just onboard observation.🙂

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, theweatherman said:

 

You have absolutely no evidence for your statement about the age and customer profile of P & O passengers, or the change in recent years.

 

Likewise your ‘overweight’ comment is based on your own personal prejudice or phobia, with no facts to back-up your claim.

 

On our recent Aurora cruise I asked reception and they said the average age on our cruise was 72.  I realise that adult only ships will have an older clientele, and family friendly ones will be lower, especially during school holidays, however our experience on these outside school holidays is that P&O have a much older age profile than either Celebrity or Princess, and way older than RCI, all of these my observations on out of school holiday Southampton sailings over the past 8/9 years.