Summer 2024

[yorkshirephil]

42 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Three weeks booked in Faro Park (PB) at the end of November! 

Three weeks in a villa with pool, flights and car hire for around £3k for  the two of us. Makes cruising look expensive. 

 

We will be taking more land holidays in the coming years after enjoying our first 4 week self catering in Lanzagrote. We had already decided cruising was becoming a bit so so before covid. With nearly 50 cruises taken there are only so many med and Caribbean cruises you can do, albeit we do like the 35 night Caribbean cruises from Southampton and are booked on Arcadia 40 nights in Nov, but those are more for the winter sun than anything else. We are planning for less cruises but to places we have not cruised to or really want to go back, ie Cunard Japan and Alaska in 2023 and Aurora Greek isles 2023. However as a true Yorkshire man I still like a bargain so we will see how it pans out. 

[pete14]

58 minutes ago, Peanut006 said:

We have the same repo booked but for 2024.
 

I booked select fare to choose my cabin and I have now found out it’s currently an isolation cabin. As I need an accessible cabin there is not a great choice to move me to. Hopefully isolation cabins will be a thing of the past by then

It might be a self catering villa for us too if they want me to move cabins. Playa Blanca would be a good option, we love it there 

Michelle

We are also on the 2024 repo. Looks a nice cruise and was well priced when we booked.

[Son of Anarchy]

On 3/21/2022 at 2:56 PM, Son of Anarchy said:

Bit surprised to see St Petersburg being mentioned in the Baltic itineries

Looks the Baltic has been pulled completely for 2024.

 

Clearly appropriate to not have St Petersburg on the menu, but a bit surprised that the rest of the Baltic has been pulled.  Still so many other lovely places to visit.  Oh well...

Edited March 23, 2022 by Son of Anarchy

[Vampiress88]

Are the pre registration price this wee better than booking it in a few months time?

[terrierjohn]

45 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

Looks the Baltic has been pulled completely for 2024.

 

Clearly appropriate to not have St Petersburg on the menu, but a bit surprised that the rest of the Baltic has been pulled.  Still so many other lovely places to visit.  Oh well...

The Baltic still figures in our TA brochure for P&O 2024, Britannia is doing mainly Baltic cruises. SPB is still showing but I assume that's because the brochures and itineraries were fixed long before the current crisis, but will be changed unless sanctions are reduced.

[Ulsteinvik]

1 hour ago, Son of Anarchy said:

Looks the Baltic has been pulled completely for 2024.

 

Clearly appropriate to not have St Petersburg on the menu, but a bit surprised that the rest of the Baltic has been pulled.  Still so many other lovely places to visit.  Oh well...

Nah, I don't think that they wont sail any Baltic cruise, why they should sail 2022 and 2023 there but 2024 not. According to my infos there were 9 Baltic cruises planned for 2024 (5 Britannia, 2 Arcadia, 2 Aurora).

[pete14]

1 hour ago, Vampiress88 said:

Are the pre registration price this wee better than booking it in a few months time?

I think they normally are better, especially on popular cruises. It also means that if you book a select fare, you get a wider choice of cabins, including the better ones that sell out first.

[Selbourne]

Had a trawl through all the Summer 2024 P&O offerings this morning. Can’t say that I felt enthused about any of them. Quite a good British Isles cruise on Arcadia, but sadly she is the only P&O ship that we didn’t like! We can only do round trips from Southampton and have been to most of the ports covered in these cruises several times. Some nice cruises on Aurora but, much as we love her, she is very dated now, especially the cabins (even after the latest refit) and lacks some facilities that we enjoy (e.g. Epicurean) so it’s difficult to justify the premium prices. Might see how we get on with our cruises on Iona and Ventura next year and see if we can get our enthusiasm for cruising back. If so, we will see what fluid pricing delivers in a post Covid world and if they have shot up we might try Cunard, or if we are feeling flush, Saga 😂 

[Harry Peterson]

1 hour ago, Vampiress88 said:

Are the pre registration price this wee better than booking it in a few months time?

Certainly that used to be the case - often very substantially so. Not sure whether that’s still the case, but we work on the basis that if what we’re looking for is available at a good price we’ll take it on day one. If it isn’t we’ll not book at all and find an alternative holiday.

 

We’ve had some incredible deals booking very early, and in the exact location we want (just four specific cabins on Azura and Ventura for example). Later prices can and do increase by 50 or even 100%.

 

So far, that policy’s always paid off, but things can always change. A few years back there were better deals to be had in the few weeks before departure, but there were obvious risks in that strategy.

 

I’d suggest setting yourself what you see as a sensible, affordable price. If you find something in that ball park, book it. If not, wait.

[Peanut006]

3 hours ago, pete14 said:

We are also on the 2024 repo. Looks a nice cruise and was well priced when we booked.

Hopefully see you on board in 2024

Michelle

[yorkshirephil]

After checking out the brochure I like the look of some of the longer cruises to the Med and Canaries in 24. It will be interesting to check out the prices.

[majortom10]

5 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

The Baltic still figures in our TA brochure for P&O 2024, Britannia is doing mainly Baltic cruises. SPB is still showing but I assume that's because the brochures and itineraries were fixed long before the current crisis, but will be changed unless sanctions are reduced.

They are also showing in mine possibly same TA but nothing available to Baltics on P&O website for 2024. I should imagine the brochures and pricing were printed prior to war in Ukraine and P&O have since pulled the selling of the cruises.

[AuroraCruiser08]

It appears all the original Baltic cruises have now become Norways. Britannia is doing an awful lot of them in 2024. It's a shame they couldn't replace them with something more original. 2024 is basically Iona and Britannia on repetitive Norway and Aurora and Arcadia doing quite a few 12nt Norway. Where has the P&O that used to do all original itinaries with no ship assigned to a specific 'route'? Such a shame. 

[Britboys]

With so many trips to Norway in 2024 (especially with Iona doing it for the third year in a row) you would think there will be a few cheap late deals...

[Presto2]

11 hours ago, pete14 said:

We are also on the 2024 repo. Looks a nice cruise and was well priced when we booked.

If we've retired by then we may join you ! Does Charlie come too ????

[Peanut006]

7 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

If we've retired by then we may join you ! Does Charlie come too ????

There could be a few of us on the 2024 repo!! Could be lots and fun

Michelle

[Presto2]

33 minutes ago, Peanut006 said:

There could be a few of us on the 2024 repo!! Could be lots and fun

Michelle

We quite like this one IF we have retired ... looks a good 'un and on a ship we like

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Azura

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A411B

[Ulsteinvik]

3 hours ago, AuroraCruiser08 said:

It appears all the original Baltic cruises have now become Norways. Britannia is doing an awful lot of them in 2024. It's a shame they couldn't replace them with something more original. 2024 is basically Iona and Britannia on repetitive Norway and Aurora and Arcadia doing quite a few 12nt Norway. Where has the P&O that used to do all original itinaries with no ship assigned to a specific 'route'? Such a shame. 

That is not correct. If you look at the cruises of Britannia, you will notice 5x 14 days gaps between May and September. These gaps were planned to go to the Baltics. And if you compare it with 2023 you will also notice that she also sails 2023 a lot of Norway cruises.

[terrierjohn]

3 hours ago, AuroraCruiser08 said:

It appears all the original Baltic cruises have now become Norways. Britannia is doing an awful lot of them in 2024. It's a shame they couldn't replace them with something more original. 2024 is basically Iona and Britannia on repetitive Norway and Aurora and Arcadia doing quite a few 12nt Norway. Where has the P&O that used to do all original itinaries with no ship assigned to a specific 'route'? Such a shame. 

Not sure they have changed them  there are still gaps where Baltic cruises existed. Since they are continuing with this years Baltic cruises, but with itinerary changes, then I would expect the same will ultimately apply to 2024.

[pete14]

1 hour ago, Presto2 said:

If we've retired by then we may join you ! Does Charlie come too ????

The more the merrier but sadly, Charlie won’t be coming although his presence would add a certain extra something to the experience 🐶. Wales this weekend?

[jh1809]

12 hours ago, Ulsteinvik said:

That is not correct. If you look at the cruises of Britannia, you will notice 5x 14 days gaps between May and September. These gaps were planned to go to the Baltics. And if you compare it with 2023 you will also notice that she also sails 2023 a lot of Norway cruises.

My guess is that P&O are waiting to see how things pan out with Russia before committing themselves for 2024 Baltic cruises. They are probably hoping in the best case to be able to include St Petersburg. In the worst case they might have to exclude Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well, and stick to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and Germany.

[molecrochip]

13 hours ago, Ulsteinvik said:

That is not correct. If you look at the cruises of Britannia, you will notice 5x 14 days gaps between May and September. These gaps were planned to go to the Baltics. And if you compare it with 2023 you will also notice that she also sails 2023 a lot of Norway cruises.

 

9 minutes ago, jh1809 said:

My guess is that P&O are waiting to see how things pan out with Russia before committing themselves for 2024 Baltic cruises. They are probably hoping in the best case to be able to include St Petersburg. In the worst case they might have to exclude Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well, and stick to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and Germany.

 

It is correct that the Baltic's cruises have not gone on sale. They are broadly every third cruise, with the other two being 7 night x Norway. Ports and local planning teams have been too busy reorganising summer 2022 due to the war that summer 2024 had to wait. Brochures were already printed anyway!

 

Britannia provides a more traditional offering compared to Iona up to the Fjords. Also Norway is very popular with guests and it provides a very accessible price point for new cruisers.

 

Most large cruise lines now allocate ships to broad routes. There are however tweaks from cruise to cruise. This is true for P&O's family ships. There is also a smaller number of ports that can accept the larger ships.

 

Obviously P&O's adult ships are smaller, can access more ports and have to cover a full variety of destinations. That said, there are only a finite number of ports. Therefore original calls are very difficult.

 

One final thought with a corporate hat on. The company wants to make as much money as possible. Therefore, the company is going to call at the ports that their data tells them passengers want. This is what attracts people to one cruise over another.

 

[Host Sharon]

6 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Obviously P&O's adult ships are smaller, can access more ports and have to cover a full variety of destinations. That said, there are only a finite number of ports. Therefore original calls are very difficult.

 

One final thought with a corporate hat on. The company wants to make as much money as possible. Therefore, the company is going to call at the ports that their data tells them passengers want. This is what attracts people to one cruise over another.

 

Whilst that is great for attracting new cruisers, it deters regular ones. After 10 calls at Lisbon and 8 to Cadiz over the years, they each have a new name in my house 🙂  which I can't print here! At the very least they need some new excursions - pleeeaase. 

[molecrochip]

2 minutes ago, Host Sharon said:

Whilst that is great for attracting new cruisers, it deters regular ones. After 10 calls at Lisbon and 8 to Cadiz over the years, they each have a new name in my house 🙂  which I can't print here! At the very least they need some new excursions - pleeeaase. 

There are due to be some new excursions coming on board, but expect these to be aimed at the family/active sector as the ones suitable for the older/less active are pretty much covered.

[Megabear2]

16 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

There are due to be some new excursions coming on board, but expect these to be aimed at the family/active sector as the ones suitable for the older/less active are pretty much covered.

Very sad to say nothing to attract me at this stage and appears if I want to go somewhere warm I'm very limited by P&O direct from Southampton with the natural shortage of cruises from there pushing the price up way beyond what im prepared to pay for a cruise to ports I've visited tens of times.

 

Looking at the fly cruises - which are useless for my family group because we have non flyers - they're not exactly exhilarating either. If I have to fly other lines seem to offer a better product at around the same cost these days with the bonded luggage being the only benefit i can see.

 

P&O may well get lots of new families onboard but come the dead of winter they should be grateful for the loyalty of the older passengers to fill these ships.  They have four to fill of the larger size and I cant see many families trundling off through rain and snow for what may in these cash strapped times be their only holiday.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Megabear2