Who has decided to take a summer staycation cruise?

[zap99]

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

Currently a a pair on ebay for £5 with no bids not worth the price of a Ritz stay just for a cheap chinese quality slipper with The Ritz embroidered on the front.

Premier Inn slippers are as rare as hen's teeth. We stayed in a very posh 5 star in Venice. I said to DW do you want me to pack these slippers?. Nah!, We've got enough clutter at home. I pinched the soap anyway🤣

[davemorton]

18 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

Anyone would think money grew on trees. Covid Rate amongst vaccinated is 1 in 3000  and soon we will all have at least one dose, so at £25 a test that's £75000 to identify one case. That's more than NHS will spend on life saving cancer drugs to keep someone alive ! Crazy

Im not quite sure where you are getting the cost of £25 for a lateral flow test, but that seems to be wildly inflated.  I can buy a box of them for £7 each, so imagine the discount I could get if buying millions of them. 

[grapau27]

44 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

But generally Princess cruises are a higher cost than P&O so it isnt really for free. We always give our Elite mini bar up for coffee cards.

It depends on the itinerary Tom.

Our last cruise was November/December 2019 a 15 night Hawaiian cruise on Grand Princess out of San Francisco which I cannot ever see P&O doing.

Our basic cabin gratuities alone were almost $400 on Grand Princess.

I acknowledge sailings from Southampton are a different proposition.

 

[grapau27]

23 minutes ago, davemorton said:

Im not quite sure where you are getting the cost of £25 for a lateral flow test, but that seems to be wildly inflated.  I can buy a box of them for £7 each, so imagine the discount I could get if buying millions of them. 

We got 2 boxes from our local pharmacy for free 

[yorkshirephil]

11 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

We got 2 boxes from our local pharmacy for free 

Same ones as the NHS are sending by post Graham.

[grapau27]

Just now, yorkshirephil said:

Same ones as the NHS are sending by post Graham.

There are a lot of tests in each box.

Pauline tested herself before meeting her best friend at Dalton Park Retail park last week.

Her friend also did a test from her home the day before too.

[Windsurfboy]

3 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

I do hope your assumption of the cost is a gross over estimate, if not poor Rishi is going to struggle.

The £25 was what i saw quoted in the paper, think it was on article about testing for holidays. Even at a fiver 65 million x 5 x 2 is £650million for two tests a week. Ok the cost to spot the one in 3000 vaccinated people will be only £15,000 per positive case identified. Many medicines have been rejected by NHS costing less than this.

 

Still think mass testing is getting less effective and more extravagant as cases come down. Building more vaccine production facilities in UK a much better investment.  We have hard proof lockdown cut transmission,  but don't want another.  Hard proof vaccination cuts transmission and  death. Little proof about testing, it must do something but evidence is not in same league as vaccination 

 

 

 

[Snow Hill]

24 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

We got 2 boxes from our local pharmacy for free 

We have as well, picked them up from our local independent pharmacy when I went for my prescription at beginning of last week.

[grapau27]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

After 6 cruises with Celebrity we had reached their lowest top tier category, and it also gave us the equivalent level on  Azamara before the sell off, and RCI, and even for a moderate drinker like me, it reduced our bar bill to just daytime drinks and mocktails  and it also gave free wi fi for 2 days between us. 

So far we have done nearly 20 cruises with P&O, and see hardly any worthwhile benefit from our continued loyalty.

80 nights on Royal Caribbean gets you to Diamond level and the free drinks.

Sailing in a junior or full suite gets you double points and sailing as a single gets you an extra point per night so it is possible to get there quite quickly.

We like P&O but their loyalty program is practically nothing.

8.5% Mediterranean discount off our bill but as we always sail in Balcony cabins on Select fares and get a substantial OBC and the discount does not apply until our OBC is used up so it really is negligible.

Edited May 2, 2021 by grapau27

[zap99]

1 hour ago, grapau27 said:

80 nights on Royal Caribbean gets you to Diamond level and the free drinks.

Sailing in a junior or full suite gets you double points and sailing as a single gets you an extra point per night so it is possible to get there quite quickly.

We like P&O but their loyalty program is practically nothing.

8.5% Mediterranean discount off our bill but as we always sail in Balcony cabins on Select fares and get a substantial OBC and the discount does not apply until our OBC is used up so it really is negligible.

Don't forget to mention your C&A pin. I was shown one by an American gentleman on Indy, very impressive. He was a bit annoyed when I showed him the label in my dinner jacket. Geeeze...how did you get a C&A tux🤣

[majortom10]

13 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Don't forget to mention your C&A pin. I was shown one by an American gentleman on Indy, very impressive. He was a bit annoyed when I showed him the label in my dinner jacket. Geeeze...how did you get a C&A tux🤣

Got numerous loyalty pins for varying levels on different cruise lines and can honestly say have never worn one. Once we get home they get thrown in my sock draw and they have stayed there ever since.

[grapau27]

57 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Don't forget to mention your C&A pin. I was shown one by an American gentleman on Indy, very impressive. He was a bit annoyed when I showed him the label in my dinner jacket. Geeeze...how did you get a C&A tux🤣

We left the pins in our cabin.

They look cheap and we would never wear them.

Do you wear your Crown & Anchor pin Zap?

Edited May 2, 2021 by grapau27

[zap99]

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

Got numerous loyalty pins for varying levels on different cruise lines and can honestly say have never worn one. Once we get home they get thrown in my sock draw and they have stayed there ever since.

Just a tip... If you get a stabbing pain in your toe if might be that Diamond+.🤣

[zap99]

53 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

We left the pins in our cabin.

They look cheap and we would never wear them.

Do you wear your Crown & Anchor pin Zap?

No, but I have now joined the M&S club for formal nights.🤣

[grapau27]

1 minute ago, zap99 said:

No, but I have now joined the M&S club for formal nights.🤣

Let's hope it's not long before we can enjoy Formal nights again.

[wowzz]

4 hours ago, zap99 said:

Just a tip... If you get a stabbing pain in your toe if might be that Diamond+.🤣

Excellent post. 

All those who get the musical reference start humming along !

[terrierjohn]

18 hours ago, majortom10 said:

But I bet you pay a lot less for your P&O cruise than you do for your RCI

Strangely MT our last cruise in late July 2019 with our youngest sons family, was quite a lot lower on Indy than an equivalent Britannia cruise. Both were launch offers but RCI was far more generous with low children's prices than P&O.

[zap99]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Strangely MT our last cruise in late July 2019 with our youngest sons family, was quite a lot lower on Indy than an equivalent Britannia cruise. Both were launch offers but RCI was far more generous with low children's prices than P&O.

We had 2 good deals with RCI on our last year of cruising, 2019. Canaries and Med. Much lower than P&O, but not many deals at the moment.

[MX-Drew]

21 hours ago, Windsurfboy said:

Still think mass testing is getting less effective and more extravagant as cases come down. Building more vaccine production facilities in UK a much better investment.  We have hard proof lockdown cut transmission,  but don't want another.  Hard proof vaccination cuts transmission and  death. Little proof about testing, it must do something but evidence is not in same league as vaccination 

I think you have quoted your own evidence that testing pays.

 

Test yourself and result = positive so self isolate. Self isolation is a form of very localised lockdown. Lockdown has "hard proof" of cutting transmission.

 

Therefore self testing has value.

[Bertie Doe]

5 hours ago, zap99 said:

We had 2 good deals with RCI on our last year of cruising, 2019. Canaries and Med. Much lower than P&O, but not many deals at the moment.

Yes you have to look out for deals and do the maths. I use the price per person per night for a balcony, as a benchmark.

We had a great deal with P&O for this August, 23 nights out of Southampton, visiting Iceland and also Norway (as far North as the Arctic circle), 14 ports plus 3 cruise-bys at a cost of £143 pppn for balcony.

In '22 their Iceland/Norway cruise is 15 days with 8 ports and 3 cruise-bys. The balcony cost is £226 pppn. Not a good deal INHO. Perhaps things will return to normal -  post Covid?

[zap99]

46 minutes ago, Bertie Doe said:

Yes you have to look out for deals and do the maths. I use the price per person per night for a balcony, as a benchmark.

We had a great deal with P&O for this August, 23 nights out of Southampton, visiting Iceland and also Norway (as far North as the Arctic circle), 14 ports plus 3 cruise-bys at a cost of £143 pppn for balcony.

In '22 their Iceland/Norway cruise is 15 days with 8 ports and 3 cruise-bys. The balcony cost is £226 pppn. Not a good deal INHO. Perhaps things will return to normal -  post Covid?

We like the buy one get one 50/60% off on RC. In 2019 we booked 2 at about 100pppn for a balcony. We have a P&O staycation and an Iona for next year, so will hold off booking any more until some decent deals come along.

[Bertie Doe]

33 minutes ago, zap99 said:

We like the buy one get one 50/60% off on RC. In 2019 we booked 2 at about 100pppn for a balcony. We have a P&O staycation and an Iona for next year, so will hold off booking any more until some decent deals come along.

Thanks for the tip Zap. The above cancelled P&O Iceland trip has left a bit of a hole this August that we'd like to fill, perhaps with a Staycation cruise. We haven't tried RC before, so this could be an opportunity.

I see they (Anthem of the Seas) are doing 8 nts, 4 stops, on 15th Aug at £148 pppn balcony and 7 nts, 2 stops, on 25th July at £135 pppn also for a balcony. This isn't bad value and we may be tempted by the 4 stopper. 

[majortom10]

2 hours ago, Bertie Doe said:

Thanks for the tip Zap. The above cancelled P&O Iceland trip has left a bit of a hole this August that we'd like to fill, perhaps with a Staycation cruise. We haven't tried RC before, so this could be an opportunity.

I see they (Anthem of the Seas) are doing 8 nts, 4 stops, on 15th Aug at £148 pppn balcony and 7 nts, 2 stops, on 25th July at £135 pppn also for a balcony. This isn't bad value and we may be tempted by the 4 stopper. 

I will stick with my Princess at £125pppn for a balcony with unlimited wi-fi, gratuities and drinks package.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by majortom10

[zap99]

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

I will stick with my Princess at £125pppn for a balcony with unlimited wi-fi, gratuities and drinks package.

 

That IS a good deal.

[ann141]

38 minutes ago, zap99 said:

That IS a good deal.

A few of us on this board are sailing in October with Princess priced now at 14 nights balcony cabin all inclusive at £1899 which I think is a good deal.Some of us got it quite a lot cheaper, particularly if you didn t include the drinks package