P&O extend pause to April

[Selbourne]

48 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

I am concerned as my grade was already sold out earlier in the year, now they are saying they are reducing so who will they potentially bump?

 

Hopefully the vaccine will resolve the issue before cruises begin again.

I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure you will be fine. A lot of people will have made 2021 bookings pre Covid, or more recently but on the assumption that things would have been back to normal by then. As I would think that there are still likely to be residual impacts throughout much of 2021, I suspect that more passengers will cancel nearer the time or defer bookings to 2022 or beyond. I’d therefore be very surprised if P&O had to cancel bookings of those who were still prepared to cruise in spite of these issues. 

[tring]

5 hours ago, Manx buoy said:

We were on that one changed it to Arcadia in 2022 not rushing back with all the new protocols 

 

Probably a good idea, but I have had some medical tests recently so would prefer not to try to get insurance for a cruise booked now, especially as I am due another check in December and if all looks well I hope to be signed off then.  We have annual insurance, but they always ask for anything within 6 months of booking a holiday as well as anything in the previous 6 months of renewal, so stuff can need to be declared for a couple of years hence.

 

I would have liked a reply from molecrochip, but perhaps an unfair question for him, if a decision not made yet.

Edited November 24, 2020 by tring

[molecrochip]

Carnival continue to rejig their debt instruments.

 

They have converted a number of loan notes to shares (debt to equity) which has pushed the share price down in recent days as it effectively devalues existing shares. They gave also issued new secured loan notes. The new loan notes don’t raise additional capital as most is being used to repay existing loan notes.

 

re Cabin reductions: I don’t believe it’s a broad x%, it’s more complicated than that. Very early on restrictions were put on available cabin numbers which pushed prices up on those remaining. It’s a mix of every grade and across all ship areas and decks. I believe it’s still the plan to have a section of quarantine cabins - this may mean a few cabin swaps but no one being kicked off.

 

I see today that Spain will vaccine it’s population from January to June. That bodes well for cruises in the second half of the year with the U.K., Norway, Spain and the Canaries all open and vaccinated. Could do with Italy and France announcing now!

Assuming the vaccination plan goes as announced, I believe we’ve seen the last fleet wide cancellations. Yes we may have amendments to individual cruises and the Malta fly-cruise season still looks iffy as that’s a rolling program (ie not everyone joins/leaves on the same say).

Finally, re Aurora to the US, time will tell. I believe the restriction re 7 days covers sny cruises starting or finishing in the US, although I’ve not seen the formal announcement just commentary on it.

[molecrochip]

6 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Yes, the travel sector as a whole was the biggest riser yesterday, but I fear that the cruise industry could be the last to recover as there’s a long way to go before they can dream of returning to normality. Cruising at reduced capacity won’t be sustainable long term. It might cover the fixed costs and basic operating costs (just) but won’t allow room for investment. 

I think P&O will be one of the better placed cruise lines to recover quickly now. I would say the more countries a ship visits, the more risky the cruise is to amendment.

[Selbourne]

25 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

I think P&O will be one of the better placed cruise lines to recover quickly now. I would say the more countries a ship visits, the more risky the cruise is to amendment.

I hope that you are right. I’m not sure that the volumes of customers who will be prepared to do ‘cruises to nowhere’ or ‘around the U.K.’ cruises or in fact cruises to anywhere, for as long as any restrictions of any kind apply, will be sufficient to sustain them long term. I don’t feel that we are representative on here, as we are all cruise enthusiasts, to a greater or lesser degree. I fear that the ‘floating voter’ equivalent (the ‘new to cruising’ market that P&O now relies on so much) will not be so easily convinced that cruising, in its currently proposed form, will be for them.  

Edited November 24, 2020 by Selbourne

[terrierjohn]

4 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I hope that you are right. I’m not sure that the volumes of customers who will be prepared to do ‘cruises to nowhere’ or ‘around the U.K.’ cruises or in fact cruises to anywhere, for as long as any restrictions of any kind apply, will be sufficient to sustain them long term. I don’t feel that we are representative on here as we are all cruise enthusiasts, to a greater or lesser degree. I fear that the ‘floating voter’ equivalent (the ‘new to cruising’ market that P&O now relies on so much) will be as easily convinced. 

I am assuming that these short cruises to nowhere or around the UK, will just be used to trial and tweak the covid secure restrictions,  and as such will be short lived. Then the advertised itineraries can be restarted, albeit these may still need to be amended to comply with possible port restrictions.

Ultimately if Hancock's hope that things will begin to return to normailty from Easter onwards, we could hope that things will steadily improve.

[Selbourne]

9 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I am assuming that these short cruises to nowhere or around the UK, will just be used to trial and tweak the covid secure restrictions,  and as such will be short lived. Then the advertised itineraries can be restarted, albeit these may still need to be amended to comply with possible port restrictions.

Ultimately if Hancock's hope that things will begin to return to normailty from Easter onwards, we could hope that things will steadily improve.

I’m sure that’s right John, but I still feel that cruising will be one of the very last things to return to complete normality (i.e. as it was in 2019) and for every month until then I fear that a lot more damage will be done. Something is most definitely better than nothing though. 

[terrierjohn]

24 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I’m sure that’s right John, but I still feel that cruising will be one of the very last things to return to complete normality (i.e. as it was in 2019) and for every month until then I fear that a lot more damage will be done. Something is most definitely better than nothing though. 

We were only discussing what to do about our July cruise on Britannia and we both agree that we will go if the cruise goes ahead, assuming it will be cruising round the Med.

Pauline is now much less mobile so we rarely go far in the ports, and are rarely out for more than 2 or 3 hours. So we would miss little even if we cannot go ashore on our own, however I hope plenty passengers still go on tours leaving the ship quiet and peaceful as normal.

Wearing face masks, not being able to share dining tables, and maybe not having normal freedom dining options, will not be ideal but we would just make more use of our balcony and of course the more spacious accessible cabin, and maybe even avail ourselves of the room service menu from time to time.

[Selbourne]

12 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

We were only discussing what to do about our July cruise on Britannia and we both agree that we will go if the cruise goes ahead, assuming it will be cruising round the Med.

Pauline is now much less mobile so we rarely go far in the ports, and are rarely out for more than 2 or 3 hours. So we would miss little even if we cannot go ashore on our own, however I hope plenty passengers still go on tours leaving the ship quiet and peaceful as normal.

Wearing face masks, not being able to share dining tables, and maybe not having normal freedom dining options, will not be ideal but we would just make more use of our balcony and of course the more spacious accessible cabin, and maybe even avail ourselves of the room service menu from time to time.

Sounds like a plan John. Fingers crossed that it happens for you. We are similar in that we explore ashore for a few hours and then enjoy the ship whilst it’s quiet. Whilst the proposed restrictions wouldn’t appeal to us, lower passenger numbers would, so I guess there are some advantages as well. I shall be keen to read the reviews from those on the first cruises. I might be persuaded to think again once we are both vaccinated.

[Cathygh]

I imagine that the first trial cruises will be similar to the ones Cunard is offering on Queen Elizabeth starting in march next year. The  first one sails to the Scillies and back, no port stops

Cathy

[P&O SUE]

My Med cruise from Southampton has 2 stops in Italy. This is in September. I wonder if they’ll be a couple more Spanish stops instead? 

[terrierjohn]

11 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

My Med cruise from Southampton has 2 stops in Italy. This is in September. I wonder if they’ll be a couple more Spanish stops instead? 

I would hope that most of Europe will be fully vaccinated by then, so Italy, France as well Spain should be allowing full access to cruise ships by then.

[joeecco]

12 hours ago, molecrochip said:

 the Malta fly-cruise season still looks iffy as that’s a rolling program (ie not everyone joins/leaves on the same say).

 

Could you expand on this further please? Our wedding is booked for July on Azura for 3 weeks B2B and so any info you have would be greatly appreciated! 

[P&O SUE]

I couldn’t believe I didn’t hear about this until yesterday evening! I went to look on P&O’s Facebook page and it wasn’t announced on there! 
There were plenty of posts on cruise groups I’m on by people on the cruises cancelled but no ‘official’ announcement.

[pete14]

3 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

I couldn’t believe I didn’t hear about this until yesterday evening! I went to look on P&O’s Facebook page and it wasn’t announced on there! 
There were plenty of posts on cruise groups I’m on by people on the cruises cancelled but no ‘official’ announcement.

It is on P&Os website but I don’t know when it was put there. Personally, I think it is right to make announcements on their own website rather than, or before, making them on a much more general social media page I choose not to use.

[molecrochip]

3 hours ago, joeecco said:

Could you expand on this further please? Our wedding is booked for July on Azura for 3 weeks B2B and so any info you have would be greatly appreciated! 

Hi there, firstly, please don't panic. The P&O weddings team are a fantastic bunch and will look after you.

 

With the majority of cruises, everyone gets on at the embarkation port, say Southampton, stay on board for 7, 14 however many days, then disembark back at Southampton. With Azura's fly-cruise season, because you have 3 different routes, some do one week and a replaced by new passengers, some do three weeks like you. These are called rolling cruises. This makes it more complicated as you don't have a fixed point to deep clean the entire ship.

 

I've asked a couple of people this morning and been reliably informed that Costa was operating rolling cruises in September / October and it worked fine so it appears my concern appears misplaced.

 

Sorry if I worried you. I hope you have a lovely wedding.

[joeecco]

8 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Hi there, firstly, please don't panic. The P&O weddings team are a fantastic bunch and will look after you.

 

With the majority of cruises, everyone gets on at the embarkation port, say Southampton, stay on board for 7, 14 however many days, then disembark back at Southampton. With Azura's fly-cruise season, because you have 3 different routes, some do one week and a replaced by new passengers, some do three weeks like you. These are called rolling cruises. This makes it more complicated as you don't have a fixed point to deep clean the entire ship.

 

I've asked a couple of people this morning and been reliably informed that Costa was operating rolling cruises in September / October and it worked fine so it appears my concern appears misplaced.

 

Sorry if I worried you. I hope you have a lovely wedding.

That’s really useful thanks so much for asking around. And thank you for your kind words. 
 

Thanks ever such a lot for all the information that you bring to us on this forum. 

[molecrochip]

8 minutes ago, pete14 said:

It is on P&Os website but I don’t know when it was put there. Personally, I think it is right to make announcements on their own website rather than, or before, making them on a much more general social media page I choose not to use.

The announcement was made yesterday at 0930 to travel agents, their website at 1000 with emails being sent so that they arrived as close to 1000 as possible.

 

Unusual for it not to hit the socials as well.

[bobstheboy]

I am still optimistic that my Ventura cruise to the Med in August next year will go ahead and hopefully relatively normally, with being allowed ashore without being attached to an excursion. If the vaccination program is quick, it should be well advanced by then.

[Manx buoy]

6 hours ago, molecrochip said:

The announcement was made yesterday at 0930 to travel agents, their website at 1000 with emails being sent so that they arrived as close to 1000 as possible.

 

Unusual for it not to hit the socials as well.

They’re probably wising up a bit if they put it on FB or Twitter all they get is flak from pax still waiting from March for refunds so putting on the website alleviates the problem

[P&O SUE]

1 hour ago, Manx buoy said:

They’re probably wising up a bit if they put it on FB or Twitter all they get is flak from pax still waiting from March for refunds so putting on the website alleviates the problem

I did wonder that!

[No pager thank you]

4 hours ago, Manx buoy said:

They’re probably wising up a bit if they put it on FB or Twitter all they get is flak from pax still waiting from March for refunds so putting on the website alleviates the problem

Tuesday at 10 tradition kept but no toe curling video message either ... progress ... the usual refund feedback added to the other Iona posts.

 

Hopefully he'll spare us all a Christmas address too🤦

 

We had another cruise cancelled in the latest cull - number 5 ... but to be honest we saw this coming and had decided to ditch it anyway ...

 

I'm not too sure whether or not this will allow all of the ships to enter the Summer 21 season in some capacity - many unknowns still.

[wowzz]

5 hours ago, bobstheboy said:

I am still optimistic that my Ventura cruise to the Med in August next year will go ahead and hopefully relatively normally, with being allowed ashore without being attached to an excursion. If the vaccination program is quick, it should be well advanced by then.

I think that very much depends if the vaccine programme demonstrates reduction in viral transmission,  which, as yet, no one is sure of.

[terrierjohn]

9 hours ago, wowzz said:

I think that very much depends if the vaccine programme demonstrates reduction in viral transmission,  which, as yet, no one is sure of.

 Most recent comments from the experts seem far more optimistic than you wowzz, unless of course you have more expert knowledge.

[wowzz]

15 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

 Most recent comments from the experts seem far more optimistic than you wowzz, unless of course you have more expert knowledge.

No one is yet sure of the time scales involved.  The figures I saw suggested  that 70% of the population need to be vaccinated in order to control CV19.