Summer 2025

[Mad4WDW]

All pretty much as expected from my first glance.  Our plans to just sit and wait until past balance due date haven’t changed. You can book Iona at the moment for around £360-£400 yet the newly released fares are  around £700 🤷‍♂️

 

Kotor isn’t new is it, we did it on Oceana pre covid. It’s beautiful 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Mad4WDW
Typo

[Megabear2]

2 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Kotor is great. 

Currently one of the top destinations in Europe, stunning place. Would really like more ports like this instead of the old repeats. Montenegro is one of the hot to places for young people these days, with Budva being in the top 5 places most visited by under 30's.

[Britboys]

At one time the smaller ships were advertised as "pathfinders", visiting off the beaten track ports. Sadly, that is long gone...

[CarlaMarie]

5 minutes ago, Britboys said:

At one time the smaller ships were advertised as "pathfinders", visiting off the beaten track ports. Sadly, that is long gone...

 

That's specifically what the beautiful Adonia offered.  

[bee-ess]

Seems to be 10% deposit req'd now, has been 5% for past launches.

Won't be bothering this time, going to wait for offers/bigger OBC.

[purplesea]

Kotor is not new, we visited there when on Ventura quite a few years ago.

[Megabear2]

7 minutes ago, purplesea said:

Kotor is not new, we visited there when on Ventura quite a few years ago.

More to the point I just searched the P&O site for cruises calling there in 2025 and apparently there aren't any!   

[jeanlyon]

Yes went to Kotor on Oriana.  Lovely.

[Leomins]

8 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

More to the point I just searched the P&O site for cruises calling there in 2025 and apparently there aren't any!   

There are definitely some, just the website not working efficiently 🙄

[jh1809]

Having looked at the 2025 cruises for Aurora and Arcadia, P&O do seem to have made an effort to include some different ports. I'm now pre-booked on Arcadia's April-May J503 cruise to the Eastern Med. The ports include Motril, Kusadasi and Heraklion, all of which will be new to me. The other ports are Palermo (a welcome change from Messina), Piraeus, Santorini (which I'm more than happy to visit for a second time) and Gibraltar.  

[Dorset cruise fan]

I have only looked at the itineraries for Aurora and Arcadia and I liked some of the Baltic cruises with interesting ports and 16night cruises so chance to properly explore. The North Cape cruise looks great and a nice Iceland itinerary as well. Also 2 decent length British Isles cruises, we have some lovely places to visit here too.

[jeanlyon]

23 minutes ago, jh1809 said:

Having looked at the 2025 cruises for Aurora and Arcadia, P&O do seem to have made an effort to include some different ports. I'm now pre-booked on Arcadia's April-May J503 cruise to the Eastern Med. The ports include Motril, Kusadasi and Heraklion, all of which will be new to me. The other ports are Palermo (a welcome change from Messina), Piraeus, Santorini (which I'm more than happy to visit for a second time) and Gibraltar.  

You do have to laugh.  Just looked at that Arcadia cruise and Motril appears to be in West Africa on the map!!

[tring]

Had considered a few itineraries from previous leaks, including an Arcadia Baltic the 7th June Med on Aurora that are good itineraries (a number of unusual ports on the Aurora one, Tarragona and Sorrento being two ports particularly good ones), but prices not appealing, so will leave it for now and keep an eye on them perhaps.  P&O do seem to be taking a full 10% off the initial prices, so perhaps stopped showing their 5% discount for the headline prices - so worth investigating further if anyone is interested.

 

Even the 25th October Azura two weeker is coming up at £2159 for cheapest select standard balcony and £2,393 for top grade (mid ship with cabins above/below) of standard balcony, which we prefer.  So £171 pppn, which is way over what we paid for last Sept/Oct.  P&O obviously being very cautious about flight costs no doubt, but I presume they need to be.  I would like to see more longer fly cruises offered, so less flight cost, hence they should be able to offer better prices pppn.  I know you get 10% off B2B's but I feel they may be able to better that by halving the number of flights for a 28 nighter.

 

Edited April 19, 2023 by tring

[purplesea]

24 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

You do have to laugh.  Just looked at that Arcadia cruise and Motril appears to be in West Africa on the map!!

I have been looking at excursions for my upcoming cruise and if you book Easy Pisa, as part of the trip you visit

 

Viseisei Village, Sleeping Giant and Garden Tour, Nadi Town (with free time)

 

which are in Fiji!  😕

[purplesea]

1 hour ago, jh1809 said:

Having looked at the 2025 cruises for Aurora and Arcadia, P&O do seem to have made an effort to include some different ports. I'm now pre-booked on Arcadia's April-May J503 cruise to the Eastern Med. The ports include Motril, Kusadasi and Heraklion, all of which will be new to me. The other ports are Palermo (a welcome change from Messina), Piraeus, Santorini (which I'm more than happy to visit for a second time) and Gibraltar.  

That is the one of a few that interests me. We have relations in and near Palermo so we will be expected to visit them. 

[jeanlyon]

I won't be doing what we used to do and book on launch.  In fact, I will have another look once we are on board in October.

[Megabear2]

I've found Kotor, thanks. However I clicked on an Arvia Med cruise and got a lovely map of the Fjords!  

 

I'm looking at the Arcadia April/May too, but very scared of all the talk about she's a cold ship. I'm like a bear with a sore head if I'm cold!

[SarahHben]

I have been looking at two Med cruises in August 2025:

Britannia goes to Cadiz, Mallorca, Cagliari, Ibiza, Cartagena & Gibraltar.

Arvia goes to La Caruna, Malaga, Alicante, Toulon, Barcelona & Cadiz.

 

The only port we will have been to before then is Cadiz, we're going there this summer on Ventura.

 

I think the Britannia itinerary is appealing to me more.

[tring]

22 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I've found Kotor, thanks. However I clicked on an Arvia Med cruise and got a lovely map of the Fjords!  

 

I'm looking at the Arcadia April/May too, but very scared of all the talk about she's a cold ship. I'm like a bear with a sore head if I'm cold!

 

Yes I noticed that one, or another Med cruise for which I took a fleeting glance at the map.  Good old P&O.

 

Confuses some people though, I have just joined an Arcadia group on social media regards our upcoming Baltic in June.  At least a couple of people are thinking she may be going through the Kiel Canal, presumably due to the map.  Many of the maps show ships going overland though, so nothing new there.

 

[tring]

One other ting I noticed is that Azura's fly cruises are much cheaper in April - then I looked at the itineraries and they are only scheduled to call at three ports each week, instead of the four ports each week, which she has been doing on other cruises I have seen.  That changes in May when she starts calling at four ports a week and the prices go up.  I wonder if that is the sign of the times - if more Med ports are unwilling to take ships because of overcrowding, (which is understandable), less port calls could well be on the cards.

[Snow Hill]

3 hours ago, wowzz said:

E-mail today from our favourite TA, advising that I can now register for 2025 summer cruises !

Two new exciting Mediterranean ports, Kotor (nice) and Motril (not nice at all, but handy for Granada). Don't think I'll rush.

I was in Spain some years ago on business and investigation into replacing IT kit in a subsidiary of a business that my employer owned, we stayed near Motril. What I remember from driving around the area was the hectares of poly tunnels across the landscape as you approach from the east. The city itself was too bad, been to worse, but the port was a distance away and primarily cargo and ferries, and certainly not within walkable distance of the city centre.

 

Had the project gone ahead I would have been living in the area for up to 2 years, but they sold the subsidiary and I never went, but I did get the benefit of 3 months of Spanish lessons. 

[JDB78]

Seems like more of the same to me. I only do the non fly cruises. Seems almost exactly the same as 2022, 23 & 24. Noticed Cagliari which have not been to before - but only 1 cruise covering June to September. Price said 1 particular price, clicked on secure your holiday and a different price comes up. Looking at the price, however, I'd say the 2nd price of about £800 more was correct. Are Naples and Sicily off the agenda at the minute? We were booked to visit both for 2020 and then 2021 but have disappeared since the re-start

Edited April 19, 2023 by JDB78

[wowzz]

18 minutes ago, Snow Hill said:

I was in Spain some years ago on business and investigation into replacing IT kit in a subsidiary of a business that my employer owned, we stayed near Motril. What I remember from driving around the area was the hectares of poly tunnels across the landscape as you approach from the east. The city itself was too bad, been to worse, but the port was a distance away and primarily cargo and ferries, and certainly not within walkable distance of the city centre.

 

Had the project gone ahead I would have been living in the area for up to 2 years, but they sold the subsidiary and I never went, but I did get the benefit of 3 months of Spanish lessons. 

That's a good summary. We drove around the area a few times when living in Spain, and one day in Motril and the immediate area was enough.

Unless you are going to Granada, there is no reason to get off the ship.

[Mad4WDW]

1 hour ago, tring said:

 

 

 

Even the 25th October Azura two weeker is coming up at £2159 for cheapest select standard balcony and £2,393 for top grade (mid ship with cabins above/below) of standard balcony, which we prefer.  So £171 pppn, which is way over what we paid for last Sept/Oct.  P&O obviously being very cautious about flight costs no doubt, but I presume they need to be.  I would like to see more longer fly cruises offered, so less flight cost, hence they should be able to offer better prices pppn.  I know you get 10% off B2B's but I feel they may be able to better that by halving the number of flights for a 28 nighter.

 

We did the maiden Christmas/New Year cruise on Azura. A 28 night fly cruise that did Caribbean , Florida New Orleans etc. An epic cruise that is still up there as one of our all time favourites. I wish they did more like that.

[yorkshirephil]

6 minutes ago, Mad4WDW said:

We did the maiden Christmas/New Year cruise on Azura. A 28 night fly cruise that did Caribbean , Florida New Orleans etc. An epic cruise that is still up there as one of our all time favourites. I wish they did more like that.

They usually do two 35 night cruises in Jan and Feb, one tends to do more Caribbean with some Central America the other does USA and Caribbean. These are our favourites even though we tend to do one every year and a lot of repeat ports however what a way to spend five winter weeks. There are also the occasional 28 nights and we did 40 nights on Arcadia last November. Brilliant for us retired wrinklies.