Ventura 3rd October 2021 sailing

[LF2C]

1st time with P&O and only booked a couple of weeks ago. There’s no roll call that I can find for this cruise. I have tried and tried and tried to contact P&O as I need to ask some very pertinent questions about shore excursions. Their customer service is pathetic, actually it’s nonexistent and their email seems to have a problem (why am I not surprised).

Ive been on many cruises, mainly Celebrity so I know what I’m doing. Just want to know if anyone out there has similar experience of P&Os appalling customer service. Unless you want to book a cruise, all the other options just go dead.

I sincerely hope the onboard experience is better than the precruise experience!

[wowzz]

10 minutes ago, LF2C said:

1st time with P&O and only booked a couple of weeks ago. There’s no roll call that I can find for this cruise. I have tried and tried and tried to contact P&O as I need to ask some very pertinent questions about shore excursions. Their customer service is pathetic, actually it’s nonexistent and their email seems to have a problem (why am I not surprised).

Ive been on many cruises, mainly Celebrity so I know what I’m doing. Just want to know if anyone out there has similar experience of P&Os appalling customer service. Unless you want to book a cruise, all the other options just go dead.

I sincerely hope the onboard experience is better than the precruise experience!

Sorry to repeat the same old mantra, but you should have booked through a TA.

[Son of Anarchy]

13 minutes ago, LF2C said:

I sincerely hope the onboard experience is better than the precruise experience!

The onboard experience vs P&O's shoreside admin, does appear to be a major reason for why people keep coming back.

[Jennizor]

We are on the 25th September Britannia cruise. All the shore excursions are available to purchase. I would have thought it would be the same with Ventura. I am sure you know that currently you can only get off if you are on a P&O excursion. As has already been said, the sailing experience with P&O is much better than the land service. 

[P&O SUE]

My Ventura cruise should have finished on 3rd October (obviously cancelled now) I was looking out of interest and see it’s going to the Canaries on the 3rd. It was definitely going to the Baltic originally, my point is it must have changed in the last couple of months so perhaps that’s why there’s no roll call.

[LF2C]

45 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Sorry to repeat the same old mantra, but you should have booked through a TA.

I did, which is something I never usually do and generally, they’re about as much use as a chocolate fire guard! Having said that, without going into boring detail, it’s not something a TA could answer anyway.

[LF2C]

34 minutes ago, Jennizor said:

We are on the 25th September Britannia cruise. All the shore excursions are available to purchase. I would have thought it would be the same with Ventura. I am sure you know that currently you can only get off if you are on a P&O excursion. As has already been said, the sailing experience with P&O is much better than the land service. 

That’s the real issue I have. Knowing that unless the rules regarding shore excursions is relaxed on 25th September, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t, the availability of reasonable low priced excursions is somewhat limited. We’ve been to all the ports before and are really only doing the cruise just to get away, but nevertheless, want to be able to go ashore without being blackmailed into booking excursions we don’t want to do that entails sitting on a coach all day.

[wowzz]

6 minutes ago, LF2C said:

I did, which is something I never usually do and generally, they’re about as much use as a chocolate fire guard

Some are better than others!

[LF2C]

24 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

My Ventura cruise should have finished on 3rd October (obviously cancelled now) I was looking out of interest and see it’s going to the Canaries on the 3rd. It was definitely going to the Baltic originally, my point is it must have changed in the last couple of months so perhaps that’s why there’s no roll call.

The only reason I wanted to find the RC for this sailing was to find out if anyone was having issues with the lack of availability of reasonably priced trips so that we can at least get off the ship and if anyone was having issues with P&Os email.

Travelling with friends and have been to all the ports more than once before, so ordinarily I wouldn’t bother with the RC for this one.

[terrierjohn]

4 hours ago, Jennizor said:

We are on the 25th September Britannia cruise. All the shore excursions are available to purchase. I would have thought it would be the same with Ventura. I am sure you know that currently you can only get off if you are on a P&O excursion. As has already been said, the sailing experience with P&O is much better than the land service. 

I have not looked at the offered shore excursions on the website,  but from what I have read they appear to be the ones offered in normal times. So I would not expect them to go ahead exactly as advertised.

[P&O SUE]

21 hours ago, wowzz said:

Some are better than others!

l’ve always booked direct with P&O and not had any problems. After the fiasco with the refunds last year a lot of people said they would book direct next time because of the problems they had with their T/A’s. 

[wowzz]

6 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

l’ve always booked direct with P&O and not had any problems. After the fiasco with the refunds last year a lot of people said they would book direct next time because of the problems they had with their T/A’s. 

Some TAs were undoubtedly better than others,  but after reading about how long it is taking people to contact  P&O., there is no way that I will ever book direct.

[jeanlyon]

Strange thing is that the excursions on offer, some of them have free time ashore on your own, so I cannot see how that is any different from going ashore on your own.

[L751]

Yes I don't understand it we are on Britannia in Oct, and there is a beach trip with free time there. That is no different to getting off the ship and having a wonder

[jeanlyon]

15 minutes ago, L751 said:

Yes I don't understand it we are on Britannia in Oct, and there is a beach trip with free time there. That is no different to getting off the ship and having a wonder

Exactly.  I tried to get them to answer the question but got no response to email.  That was a week ago.  One of mine is a transfer to Athens and 4 hours to do your own thing?

[wowzz]

46 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Strange thing is that the excursions on offer, some of them have free time ashore on your own, so I cannot see how that is any different from going ashore on your own.

I think those sort of excursions will be cancelled, if "bubble " only tours are allowed.

[davecttr]

When Costa started cruises in the med they had 'bubble' excursions with free time in a park. I think the park was closed to locals!. Maybe the same for a beach?

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, jeanlyon said:

Strange thing is that the excursions on offer, some of them have free time ashore on your own, so I cannot see how that is any different from going ashore on your own.

I just checked the shore excursions on our Oct 9th Britannia cruise, and they are the usual ones that are always offered, so I would not expect that they will be offering all the time off the coach that they depict. In fact I cannot see any of the proposed cheap coach tour only ones that they indicated they would be offering.

[Cruiserjules]

On 8/14/2021 at 2:32 PM, jeanlyon said:

Exactly.  I tried to get them to answer the question but got no response to email.  That was a week ago.  One of mine is a transfer to Athens and 4 hours to do your own thing?

Jean

We are booked on Britannia on 9th October, and whilst on Iona last week, I spoke to the Excursions Manager about these tours offering "free time in xxx" .  We've paid for the cruise in full, but are still wondering about cancelling.  She said that though she didn't have a crystal ball, she thought that this "time to roam on your own" would be changed to a refreshment stop or something similar - so we're still none the wiser.

Jules

Edited August 15, 2021 by Cruiserjules