Britannia Itinerary Changes/Cancellations

[elsieelsie]

Reading reports on my social media of Northern Europe and British Isles Cruises being cancelled for other itineraries.

[elsieelsie]

Sorry, should have made it clear - one cruise of each itinerary.

[david63]

Cruises or ports?

[elsieelsie]

The whole cruise. One cruise is a Northern European and one is a British Isles Cruise. They are replacing them with totally different destinations. 

[elsieelsie]

I believe from what I’m reading the Northern European one was in Set 2024 and the British Isles one in June 2024.

[CarlaMarie]

Apparently due to 'customer feedback'. 

[FangedRose]

Wonder if it is connected to the fact that I've £600 knocked off my British Isles cruise in 2025?

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, CarlaMarie said:

Apparently due to 'customer feedback'. 

That phrase seems to be replacing the ‘Operational reasons’ excuse and is equally unbelievable. Customers who booked these cruises for the destinations certainly won’t have given feedback that they want the itinerary changed and there is no mechanic that I know of where the rest of us can provide feedback on itineraries. 🤔

[jeanlyon]

21 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

That phrase seems to be replacing the ‘Operational reasons’ excuse and is equally unbelievable. Customers who booked these cruises for the destinations certainly won’t have given feedback that they want the itinerary changed and there is no mechanic that I know of where the rest of us can provide feedback on itineraries. 🤔

I thought exactly the same.  What a ridiculous excuse.

[david63]

2 hours ago, CarlaMarie said:

Apparently due to 'customer feedback'. 

Or to be more precise - lack of customer feedback - aka customers not booking these cruises.

[CarlaMarie]

I always thought that the British Isles cruises were popular and sold well, but I am guessing they would appeal more to the loyal P&O/regular cruiser than a new cruiser... It is concerning that this is becoming a regular occurrence with cruises suddenly being replaced with others that are a completely different cruise altogether. We saw it happen with the Lifestyle and Wellbeing cruises. 

[terrierjohn]

29 minutes ago, david63 said:

Or to be more precise - lack of customer feedback - aka customers not booking these cruises.

Probably spot on David, round Britain cruises sell well for Princess, but  mainly to Americans, most Brits want Med sunshine for their holidays.

P&O might be able to fill Aurora or Arcadia with an odd round Britain cruise, but not Britannia or even Ventura. 

Never understood why they cancelled Baltic cruises and replaced them with round Britain ones, probably if they had included more ports than the 5 our cancelled Britannia cruise ended up with, they might have been more popular.

[Bill Y]

4 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Probably spot on David, round Britain cruises sell well for Princess, but  mainly to Americans, most Brits want Med sunshine for their holidays.

P&O might be able to fill Aurora or Arcadia with an odd round Britain cruise, but not Britannia or even Ventura. 

Never understood why they cancelled Baltic cruises and replaced them with round Britain ones, probably if they had included more ports than the 5 our cancelled Britannia cruise ended up with, they might have been more popular.

I am amazed that P&O manages to keep filling Iona week in week out to break even going to Norway surely there is only so many people wishing to go so many times, or perhaps its treated as a vanity product like world cruises and and subsidised?

 

I agree increasing sea days by sailing slower is making itineraries less appealing to us, no matter how they rap them up "relaxing sea days".

[FangedRose]

I agree increasing sea days by sailing slower is making itineraries less appealing to us, no matter how they rap them up "relaxing sea days".

 

I disagree, I love sea days,  don't like many port days one after the other and deliberately seek out cruises with a lot of sea days. They are not relaxing at all! One activity after another, and time to explore the ship.

[captain blyth]

quite simply p and cancelled the cruise in June  for financial reason caused deliberately by them balcony cabins were around £3000 after 3 months of the cruise not showing on the website it was confirmed that the reason was because it was fully booked it then reappeared and was increased to £5800 this had the effect of stopping people booking and therefore justified the cancellation of the cruise . At 9.30 this morning it could be booked at the higher price , i confirmed this with my agent who had not received any notification . I rang P and O at 10.15 and was told it was cancelled and agents had been informed not so but at 11.00 am they stopped the bookings. in my opinion They had sold the cruise at an original price too low and therefore they had decided they could make more money cancelling giving people £100 obc and hoping they would rebook at a higher price. This is corporate carnival working the boot in they don't care about customers just MONEY that care about customers money.

[1980]

We are booked on B421 and got the change of itinerary email this morning, and notification P&O were canceling our booking. It was never going to be an email received with any joy, but P&O always seem to find a way to make a bad situation worse, including:

 

My wife is lead passenger, but gets no notification. 

Did not tell our travel agent, so the first they knew is when we phoned them. 

The cruise is still available to book, even at the time of posting. 

Cruise personalised still allowed log in this morning.

The cruise is still listed as a future booking when I log in to my account. 

The revised itinerary is not to be published untill Thursday. 

The option to accept the alteration, as per the booking conditions has not been offered to customers. 

 

This is not a decision that was dreamt up over the weekend, and should have been far better planned and communicated.

[daiB]

8 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Probably spot on David, round Britain cruises sell well for Princess, but  mainly to Americans, most Brits want Med sunshine for their holidays.

P&O might be able to fill Aurora or Arcadia with an odd round Britain cruise, but not Britannia or even Ventura. 

Never understood why they cancelled Baltic cruises and replaced them with round Britain ones, probably if they had included more ports than the 5 our cancelled Britannia cruise ended up with, they might have been more popular.

The replacement round Britain cruise had TA involvement it was a TA who asked for it presumably after the Baltic cruises were cancelled 3/4 of them this year. 

[daiB]

8 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Probably spot on David, round Britain cruises sell well for Princess, but  mainly to Americans, most Brits want Med sunshine for their holidays.

P&O might be able to fill Aurora or Arcadia with an odd round Britain cruise, but not Britannia or even Ventura. 

Never understood why they cancelled Baltic cruises and replaced them with round Britain ones, probably if they had included more ports than the 5 our cancelled Britannia cruise ended up with, they might have been more popular.

Yes if round UK cruises were in demand then P&O would have been doing them for years. They can work if you can sell them in the US. So Princess do them.

[Dermotsgirl]

9 hours ago, daiB said:

Yes if round UK cruises were in demand then P&O would have been doing them for years. They can work if you can sell them in the US. So Princess do them.

P&O have done Round Britain cruises for several years. My first was in 2009 on Artemis and I did one on Oriana in 2016.  I also did a couple of British Isles cruises on CMV.

 

I think there is a market for British Isles cruises aimed at  British cruisers. Saga and Ambassador seem to do well with their cruises that call at British ports. Indeed, the Round Britain cruise I did with Saga last month was sold out some months in advance.

 

I’ve got another Saga cruise booked for next May, which is called ‘West Coast Explorer’, and includes ports on the west coat of Scotland and Ireland.

 

even though I’ve done quite a few British Isles cruise, both of the Saga crises mentioned above had ports that were new to me - there’s so many places accessible by ship in the U.K. and Ireland.

 

I hope P&O stay in the market for cruising in British waters. There’s a cruise on Aurora in August 2025 that has a U.K. and Ireland itinerary, and has several ports that are new to me, even though I’ve already cruised several times in the region. I’ve been thinking that it’s the ideal cruise for me to stage a return to P&O. I’d be fed up if they cancel it and replace it with yet another Canary Island cruise or 7 day jaunts to Belgium and France 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Dermotsgirl

[daiB]

1 hour ago, Dermotsgirl said:

P&O have done Round Britain cruises for several years. My first was in 2009 on Artemis and I did one on Oriana in 2016.  I also did a couple of British Isles cruises on CMV.

 

I think there is a market for British Isles cruises aimed at  British cruisers. Saga and Ambassador seem to do well with their cruises that call at British ports. Indeed, the Round Britain cruise I did with Saga last month was sold out some months in advance.

 

I’ve got another Saga cruise booked for next May, which is called ‘West Coast Explorer’, and includes ports on the west coat of Scotland and Ireland.

 

even though I’ve done quite a few British Isles cruise, both of the Saga crises mentioned above had ports that were new to me - there’s so many places accessible by ship in the U.K. and Ireland.

 

I hope P&O stay in the market for cruising in British waters. There’s a cruise on Aurora in August 2025 that has a U.K. and Ireland itinerary, and has several ports that are new to me, even though I’ve already cruised several times in the region. I’ve been thinking that it’s the ideal cruise for me to stage a return to P&O. I’d be fed up if they cancel it and replace it with yet another Canary Island cruise or 7 day jaunts to Belgium and France 

There have been the odd cruise but never on a regular basis. Possibly on Aurora or Arcadia being adult only but families want sun in the summer holidays.

[Lady Meer]

12 hours ago, 1980 said:

We are booked on B421 and got the change of itinerary email this morning, and notification P&O were canceling our booking. It was never going to be an email received with any joy, but P&O always seem to find a way to make a bad situation worse, including:

 

 

How disappointing. What was the original itinerary and what is the new one?

[Fionboard]

Notice they are plugging the new "Wellbeing" cruises.   Wonder why they are not popular? 

[daiB]

1 minute ago, Fionboard said:

Notice they are plugging the new "Wellbeing" cruises.   Wonder why they are not popular? 

Because they are “new” They have to promote them when they come out. Who said they are not popular, they have only just been announced.

[Fionboard]

Just now, daiB said:

Because they are “new” They have to promote them when they come out. Who said they are not popular, they have only just been announced.

No, they have been on sale for some time. Maybe you have missed the discussion about the changes of itinerary, and theme, over the past month or so. Spain and Portugal changed to Canaries, etc, and disappointing folk. See post #11. 

[daiB]

58 minutes ago, Fionboard said:

No, they have been on sale for some time. Maybe you have missed the discussion about the changes of itinerary, and theme, over the past month or so. Spain and Portugal changed to Canaries, etc, and disappointing folk. See post #11. 

No you mentioned the Well-being Cruises. Which have only been advertised since the change of itinerary on Iona. You wondered why they were not popular? An odd remark as they had only been released a few weeks ago. I know all about the changes made.