Booking plane seats for cruise B229

[Bazrat]

We have now booked our return flights, very easy my beloved stayed up till past midnight to do it, I rang her this morning at 6.30 am to tell her they was on sale, how was I to know she had done it I was asleep.

 

[uk338]

Do P&O send out a notification that seat booking is open, or are people just checking themselves each day? 

[CaptainPedantic]

2 minutes ago, uk338 said:

Do P&O send out a notification that seat booking is open, or are people just checking themselves each day? 

I've been checking daily for our flights, they were made available for booking this morning and I got an email notification from P&O just now. 

[dgs1956]

2 hours ago, clubcardcruiser said:

I've been checking daily for our flights, they were made available for booking this morning and I got an email notification from P&O just now. 

I received an email this morning notifying me when the Seat Booker for my flight opens.

[pennib]

Got the email but we can book our seats only from 08.00 on 21 September  so how have the previous posters been able to book (unless they are Ligurian or Baltic) of course. We are Caribbean.

[pennib]

Update to my previous post- just spoken to P&O. Helpful lady asked if we were using Google to access their site. I said not as we use Safari. She said we should try Google. (Why don’t they suggest this in their advices??). Anyway she then tried to access our booking without success. She said we have to wait until the time and date notified in our email. I asked if customers get the same treatment in Caribbean level if they are in premium economy or economy. I was told that it doesn’t make any difference which category of seat you have booked. I mentioned that we had been messed around before when trying to book pe seats and are anxious that the same does not happen again. There is enough stress as it is.

[CaptainPedantic]

2 hours ago, pennib said:

Got the email but we can book our seats only from 08.00 on 21 September  so how have the previous posters been able to book (unless they are Ligurian or Baltic) of course. We are Caribbean.

Sorry for any confusion - I can see back to the thread title referring to B229, we're on an earlier cruise so this is probably why our flights opened a little earlier.

[Bazrat]

7 hours ago, uk338 said:

Do P&O send out a notification that seat booking is open, or are people just checking themselves each day? 

Just keep checking that what we did last year was the same

Edited September 16, 2022 by Bazrat

[Megabear2]

Well clearly the left hand and right hand at P&O have got in a muddle - there's a surprise!

 

On 16th I received an email stating seats on sale at 8.00am on 21st September. My travel agent also received this and as I was away she diarised it.  I then got an email saying my t/a had been told it was an error and it should in fact be 24th September.

 

Today I receive an email from P&O and an apology with a new time of 0.01am on 23 September.  Anyone else having these fun and games or is it just this voyage?

Edited September 20, 2022 by Megabear2

[pennib]

Hey, we are having the same as you Megabear. Just had the email that booking is a minute past midnight 22/23 September. However we will continue checking in the meantime. All fun and games (not)!!

[dgs1956]

3 hours ago, pennib said:

Hey, we are having the same as you Megabear. Just had the email that booking is a minute past midnight 22/23 September. However we will continue checking in the meantime. All fun and games (not)!!

Can I ask which cruise that's for please?

 

[Megabear2]

12 minutes ago, dgs1956 said:

Can I ask which cruise that's for please?

 

B229 - Britannia 16.12.2022.

[Megabear2]

What an absolute farce!  I've never tried to reserve seats before but this whole scenario is frankly total garbage.  Having been originally told the wrong date and time I've sat here like a total Wally from midnight logged into my cruise personaliser. 3 minutes past midnight I'm connected get instructions how to choose seats.   However no plan of seats to choose from.  Suddenly a message appears, there's a problem please call on blah blah blah.  It's the middle of the night for goodness sake.

 

Now 00.37 tried to connect on laptop and three different tablets and told Sorry, Cruise Personaliser is currently undergoing essential maintenance, please try again later.

 

I am very very far from amused.  As someone who needs to be up at 6.00am every morning this has been a total waste of time and energy and P&O expect me to pay for this privilege??!!

[Megabear2]

Well because I'm extremely stubborn I persevered!  At 2.22am(!)  the thing finally reconnected and showed me the seat plan.  As I'd been unable to get in I had assumed most of the seats had already been booked but in fact only a handful in rows 1, 7 and 9 were gone leading me to believe that there had in fact been some technical error. Also when I picked my outbound flights it took 15 minutes to actually add them to my booking with lots of spinning activity once I'd clicked. The return was rather quicker at a mere 10 minutes, so here I am £152 poorer, sleepless but the owner of 2 seats in row 6 of the Premium Cabin!  I hope they're worth it ...

 

This was a first for me.  To all you hardy regular seat bookers, is it always like this or was I just unlucky?

[pennib]

Good morning Megabear2. No it is usually stressful but this year has outstressed itself. My husband sat up to 01.45 this morning and could not get in. I was on the case at 08.00 on the laptop instead of iPad and got in quite quickly only to find that the choice in PE was virtually non existent and we couldn’t get 2  at the side for going out but could get them for the return flight. So I took 2 seats in the middle section (guess who is going to have to sit in the middle seat of the 3 in the row) and the 2 available at the side for return just to make sure we at least had 2 together. I rang P&O and was greeted with a 45 minute wait. Eventually a nice young man answered. I wanted to know if it would be possible to change our seats even though I had paid. The answer was yes but nothing could be done as everyone is working from home and he could not even get the seat plan up on his computer. He said the seat booking section is in total meltdown and he had already dealt with 3 customers before me. The only advice was to call back after lunch. Very apologetic but no use if you see what I mean. So I will ring again after lunch to ask if we can change our outgoing seats to 2 at the side which are “ blocked”. Not really very hopeful. Even row 4 seats were blocked but you don’t choose them as there is no window for 4A. As you quite rightly said, we have to pay for the privilege of being ………….about. Nice work if you can get it P&O.

Might see you on the ship!!

[Megabear2]

Goodness, how stressful.  Seems I was lucky after all.  I've just checked my booking and it does show seats 6A and 6C on both flights.  I assume these are therefore locked in.  When you say "blocked" do you mean P&O hadn't released them? How will the operator be able to move your seats or know which ones are actually sold?  Does this mean I might get moved then or do my selections stand?  I was unaware of row 4 having no window- I'd read row 7 had none so was surprised it was one of the not available seats as a result.

 

I'm now very nervous.  I had been thinking of doing the same for my next Caribbean cruise but this experience and yours has rather put me off.

 

I appreciate you are on Manchester and I'm Gatwick but when I got into the system at 2.22am apart from rows 1, 7 and 9 the only other seats not available were the end of aisle seats on the F/G side and I assumed they had been locked to make pairs book an aisle and middle which is assumedly what has happened in your case.  Good luck with getting moved, I hope they can help.  

 

I've never flown premium economy with P&O so have no experience in choosing.  Do you think row 6 is a reasonable choice, I just clicked on it as I got in and thought I'd better stick once it said adding to my booking!

Edited September 23, 2022 by Megabear2

[pennib]

I think you are ring fenced with your seats. Yes I made a mistake, it is row 7 that you don’t have a window. We have gone on the Christmas cruise every year since Adam was a lad so know how the system works or should work. This year was the worst ever. The sooner they stop this working from home the better customers will be served. Apparently seats can be blocked for a number of reasons such as disabled access etc. we are not quite in that category yet but are working on it!!! The other thing is that you have to book on a round trip basis so as the vacant seat availability for our return journey was quite good I can only assume that a lot of people are doing back to backs. I don’t think you can just do a week now as they stopped the weekly flights to and from St Lucia as too many people were scared on the transfer journeys from airport to port. 
We have another cruise before the Caribbean on Marella round the canaries. We did our first one with them in March and were really impressed.

 

[Megabear2]

49 minutes ago, pennib said:

The sooner they stop this working from home the better customers will be served. 

I can't really comment on that one. My husband has worked from home for 15 years and assures me that since WFH due to pandemic kicked in his clients are producing 25% more business and we are benefiting financially as a result!   His business is in financial compliance and pensions so he deals on a personal basis with just a couple of dozen people, however those clients are of course customer services based so do have to offer good service.  A couple of the firms we are working with have moved to a 4 day working week and business levels are still increased.  I think it really depends on the "mother company" having correct IT infrastructure and we all know how dodgy P&O's is.

 

Hope you do get a better result this afternoon.