OMG - What have I done?

[Megabear2]

54 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

What a great saving Selborne, plus your £4500 saving on your travel insurance, that is one heck of a saving you have made on this cruise.👍

Don't forget the car parking John!  Magnificent savings all round, great to hear it.

[Beckett]

@Selbourne Absolutely delighted for you both. It just shows that those little niggles can be worth exploring. Result! Jane xx

[lancashire_cruisers]

Over the moon for you and your wife and this has cheered me up after having to cancel my upcoming cruise on Iona due to not being recovered enough to travel.

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, lancashire_cruisers said:

Over the moon for you and your wife and this has cheered me up after having to cancel my upcoming cruise on Iona due to not being recovered enough to travel.

That’s extremely kind of you and I am so sorry to hear that you have had to cancel your cruise. Wishing you a speedy recovery. 

[DamianG]

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

There has been an absolutely staggering development that I must share, as full marks are due to both our TA and P&O for this.

 

To briefly re-cap, when we booked this 65 night cruise at the end of last week, the price we paid for a ‘late saver’ (for two in a Balcony cabin) was £11,998 (prior to TA discount). This was against a Select price of £19,998 (with £1,190 OBC) and a ‘Saver’ price of £16,400 (as per P&O website), so we thought we had a great deal, especially as we were told that the price was going up the next day. Anyway, within 12 hours of booking, rather than go up, the late saver price appeared on the P&O website and had dropped to ‘from £9,998’. I resigned myself to the fact that we were still getting the cruise at a great price and we had secured an accessible balcony cabin (that hadn’t been available prior to balance due date).

 

However, something had been niggling away at me - where had the £11,998 price come from? On the day we booked, the Saver price was £16,400 which was presumably a normal saver, not a late one. Thanks to excellent advice from @Megabear2 (who had said that late savers for that cruise wouldn’t normally kick in until the day after we booked - being balance due date plus 7 days) I had looked again the next day and, sure enough, whilst not promoted as a ‘late’ saver, the saver price had dropped from £16,400 to £9,998 overnight. That was clearly the ‘late saver’ kicking in. So why had we been charged £11,998? Surely it should have been £16,400 as a standard Saver or £9,998 as a late saver, there being no other prices having been advertised. 
 

My wife had suggested that I just forget about it as we were happy with the price, but this question was niggling away at me, so I decided to call our TA to try to understand it. They could see my point entirely, so said they would call P&O to discuss. Knowing from previous encounters how belligerent P&O can be about things, I fully expected the response to be a lecture on how fluid pricing worked. You can imagine my utter amazement when I got a call an hour or two later to say that P&O could see my point and were going to honour the newly advertised price of £9,998 on our booking and would be issuing me with a £2,000 refund!

 

So, after TA discount, we are now paying £9,500 for 65 nights on Aurora, with our accessible balcony cabin assigned (very happy with it as we’ve used it before). The deposit from our now cancelled Ventura cruise is being further deducted from this £9,500 and we get £150 shareholder OBC as well. I’m still in shock and, credit where credit is due, I have to give both our TA and P&O full marks for this. Good job that I didn’t heed my wife’s advice 😂 

 

As previously mentioned, it is worth @TigerB @terrierjohn and others who need accessible cabins being aware that if you need an accessible cabin and you book a late saver, P&O will only charge you for the lowest grade balcony cabin, but will instantly assign you a specific accessible cabin even if it is a number of grades higher (as ours was). Others may already know this, but it’s the first time we have ever booked a late saver, so it’s all new to us. 

Wow! Just wow! Forget what I said then! 
 

Well done you, an even better deal and peace of mind!

 

Fancy a commission as a travel agent? 😉

[DamianG]

By the way, how much is that per person per night? £77?

 

You’d struggle to find a room at a Premier Inn or Travelodge for that these days.

[Selbourne]

On 10/15/2023 at 9:05 PM, 9265359 said:

 

Are you?

 

This is what the policy for my home insurance says (with my bolding)- 

 

"Unoccupied – By unoccupied, we mean that your home hasn’t been or won’t be lived in for more than 60 days in a row, or doesn’t contain enough furniture to be lived in normally. Regular visits to the home, or occasional overnight stays, would not count as your home being lived in or as a break in this period. You must tell us if you are planning on being away from your home for more than 60 days in a row or if your home is going to be unfurnished for any amount of time.

 

Just to be clear, wherever we use the word ‘unoccupied’ under ‘What’s not covered’; this means if your property is ‘unoccupied’ there is no cover under those parts of the policy from the first day you leave your home. The only time this will change is if you are away from your home due to unforeseen circumstances and it is not possible to contact us. If this happens, normal cover will apply for up to a maximum of 60 days but will end as soon as it would have been possible for you to contact us."

 

 

 

Having now sorted out travel insurance, ESTAs (authorised today) and yellow fever jabs (booked for 13th Nov), the last big thing that I need to sort is home insurance. I decided to contact my insurer and was quite surprised at their response, as it was very different to your insurance company.  
 

The biggest differences are that my policy gives me full cover for the first 60 days of any unoccupied period, with no exceptions or conditions. Even though they informed me of that in writing, I doubted them and asked them to confirm that I hadn’t read it incorrectly. I hadn’t. After 60 unoccupied days we are not covered for burglary or water damage, but all other cover remains in place. Finally, their definition of unoccupied was similar to the one you quoted, but only seems to exclude someone staying for one night. The actual wording they quoted was;

 

For a property to be considered 'lived in' you must be carrying out of normal, everyday activities there - these would include regular cooking, eating, bathing, cleaning, and sleeping at the property. Staying in the property for one night within the 60-day period does not constitute 'lived in' and does not therefore negate the policy exclusions.

 

To me, that means that if one of our daughters stays at our house for a week (as opposed to one night), during which time she would naturally cook, eat, bathe, clean and sleep, that would be our 65 days sorted. However, I’m going to price up some stand alone unoccupied insurance as a possible ‘belt and braces’ approach. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Selbourne

[Purdey16]

I’m absolutely very happy for you and mrs Selbourne and this is going to be a cruise of a life time, can’t wait to hear all about it once it’s here but no pressure to do a daily blog or anything but just popping in now and again when you get free Wi-Fi at the ports , not unless you can wiggle a Wi-Fi plan now😂😂 

[Selbourne]

8 minutes ago, Purdey16 said:

I’m absolutely very happy for you and mrs Selbourne and this is going to be a cruise of a life time, can’t wait to hear all about it once it’s here but no pressure to do a daily blog or anything but just popping in now and again when you get free Wi-Fi at the ports , not unless you can wiggle a Wi-Fi plan now😂😂 

Thank you. I don’t think I’ll push my luck any further 😂. Besides, I like the tip given earlier in the thread about just buying the odd day during sea days and starting it during the afternoon so that you can use it the next day as well. Assuming that I can get some free WiFi in each port (which I appreciate might be a challenge in some places) then I reckon that half a dozen 24 hour periods on the ship should hopefully suffice. I’d get the package if it wasn’t so ridiculously expensive. 

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

Thank you. I don’t think I’ll push my luck any further 😂. Besides, I like the tip given earlier in the thread about just buying the odd day during sea days and starting it during the afternoon so that you can use it the next day as well. Assuming that I can get some free WiFi in each port (which I appreciate might be a challenge in some places) then I reckon that half a dozen 24 hour periods on the ship should hopefully suffice. I’d get the package if it wasn’t so ridiculously expensive. 

If you have a roaming passport (£2/day on Sky mobile)  and available on most networks, this includes USA and EU Caribbean Islands eg Dutch ABC islands, Martinique, Guadaloupe and Sint Maarten.

If you use this you need to ensure your minimum charge is set high enough to cover your likely number of days you will use it.

Edited October 19, 2023 by terrierjohn

[Selbourne]

9 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

If you have a roaming passport (£2/day on Sky mobile)  and available on most networks, this includes USA and EU Caribbean Islands eg Dutch ABC islands, Martinique, Guadaloupe and Sint Maarten.

If you use this you need to ensure your minimum charge is set high enough to cover your likely number of days you will use it.

That’s interesting John. Sadly, whilst my current provider (GiffGaff) is absolutely brilliant within the EU and many other European countries (as usage there is at no extra cost whatsoever), they don’t appear to have a roaming passport. There are just (expensive) fees per country. When we did our USA and Canada cruise some years ago we managed to get free WiFi very easily in every port. I suspect that might be more challenging in the Caribbean and Central America.

[Gettingwarmer]

6 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

That’s interesting John. Sadly, whilst my current provider (GiffGaff) is absolutely brilliant within the EU and many other European countries (as usage there is at no extra cost whatsoever), they don’t appear to have a roaming passport. There are just (expensive) fees per country. When we did our USA and Canada cruise some years ago we managed to get free WiFi very easily in every port. I suspect that might be more challenging in the Caribbean and Central America.

Seems that your roaming works in the French Caribbean islands but not in the Dutch Caribbean islands. See below

https://www.giffgaff.com/boiler-plate/using-your-mobile-abroad

 

[Selbourne]

Well I’ve had a good laugh this morning. I’ve received the ‘bid to upgrade’ email. I’m rather surprised that I’ve received the email as we booked a late saver (presumed they’d be exempt?) and we already have the highest grade accessible cabin on the ship, so they physically couldn’t upgrade us if we wanted to! Anyway, if we were both able bodied then we could attempt to trade our £9,500 balcony cabin for these cheap as chips minimum upgrade costs;

 

Mini-suite - an additional £12,920 minimum bid

Aft Suite - an additional £24,360 minimum bid

Midships Suite - an additional £26,600 minimum bid

Penthouse Suite - an additional £39,180 minimum bid

 

I can’t imagine that there will be many takers at those prices 😂 In all honesty, I hope that those who have paid the Select fare end up with complimentary upgrades, especially if they booked early. 

 

[9265359]

12 hours ago, Selbourne said:

The biggest differences are that my policy gives me full cover for the first 60 days of any unoccupied period, with no exceptions or conditions.

 

That seems very fair.

12 hours ago, Selbourne said:

To me, that means that if one of our daughters stays at our house for a week (as opposed to one night), during which time she would naturally cook, eat, bathe, clean and sleep, that would be our 65 days sorted. However, I’m going to price up some stand alone unoccupied insurance as a possible ‘belt and braces’ approach. 

 

Why not ask one of your daughters to stay the final week - that way you both tick the cover box and it would likely reduce the risk of burglary or water damage that may or may not be covered.

 

10 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

If you have a roaming passport (£2/day on Sky mobile)  and available on most networks, this includes USA and EU Caribbean Islands eg Dutch ABC islands, Martinique, Guadaloupe and Sint Maarten.

 

Another alternative if you have a dual sim phone that accepts e-sims (i.e. most recent iPhones - no idea about Android) then there are a whole bunch of companies out there where using a pre-installed app you can buy an e-sim and a data bundle.

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

That’s interesting John. Sadly, whilst my current provider (GiffGaff) is absolutely brilliant within the EU and many other European countries (as usage there is at no extra cost whatsoever), they don’t appear to have a roaming passport. There are just (expensive) fees per country. When we did our USA and Canada cruise some years ago we managed to get free WiFi very easily in every port. I suspect that might be more challenging in the Caribbean and Central America.

Can't speak for the Central American ports but virtually all of your Caribbean ports have very good free WiFi available.  They are very conscious of the cruise ship crew needs. Obviously the US ports and the islands nearby are excellent.  Ironically it is more likely the WiFi won't work here at home than out in the Caribbean!

[solentsam]

Having just had a water pipe burst and repaired yesterday the plumber said to me as we were chatting about our upcoming cruise only 14 days with me saying glad it happen now and not when we are away, he said his best advice was to turn off water supply at the stopcock  if you go on holiday for a period of time. and you can keep the central heating on low( to keep house slight warm to prevent frost) and it does not need  the supply on. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by solentsam

[Megabear2]

Turning off the water is great advice. A work colleague went to Thailand to get married over Christmas but unfortunately got caught up in the tsunami disaster, arriving back after a traumatic three weeks to find her house completely flooded and ending up spending 6 months in temporary accommodation as a result.  Luckily her insurer was kind but a dreadful start to her married life.

[Selbourne]

12 minutes ago, solentsam said:

Having just had a water pipe burst and repaired yesterday the plumber said to me as we were chatting about our upcoming cruise only 14 days with me saying glad it happen now and not when we are away, he said his best advice was to turn off water supply at the stopcock  if you go on holiday for a period of time. and you can keep the central heating on low( to keep house slight warm to prevent frost) and it does not need  the supply on. 

I’m definitely going to keep the heating on low, not just to prevent the risk of pipes freezing but also to minimise damp. I had wondered about turning the water off, but presumed that you might need it left on for the Combi boiler? Also (and this might be a daft idea) but I had also thought of asking our daughters to run the hot taps for a bit each time they visit to put some warmth through the pipes? I suppose there’s a danger that could bring about a problem? It is a worry because, even though we are insured, the damage could be horrendous. 

[solentsam]

29 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I had wondered about turning the water off, but presumed that you might need it left on for the Combi boiler? Also (and this might be a daft idea) but I had also thought of asking our daughters to run the hot taps for a bit each time they visit to put some warmth through the pipes? I suppose there’s a danger that could bring about a problem? It is a worry because, even though we are insured, the damage could be horrendous.

HI best not to take my word on it, perhaps speak to your plumber or water company to make sure.

[gsmt47471015]

5 minutes ago, solentsam said:

HI best not to take my word on it, perhaps speak to your plumber or water company to make sure.

I believe combi boilers work on mains pressure ,if the water is turned off will the system maintain water pressure over a long period of time or will the boiler shut down?

[Selbourne]

29 minutes ago, gsmt47471015 said:

I believe combi boilers work on mains pressure ,if the water is turned off will the system maintain water pressure over a long period of time or will the boiler shut down?

That’s my worry. If the boiler shuts down and the heating goes off, we potentially have an even greater risk of a problems! Besides, our daughters will be checking on the house regularly and will need water for the loo etc. I guess that nothing is without a degree of risk and that’s why we have insurance. 

[TigerB]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

I’m definitely going to keep the heating on low, not just to prevent the risk of pipes freezing but also to minimise damp. I had wondered about turning the water off, but presumed that you might need it left on for the Combi boiler? Also (and this might be a daft idea) but I had also thought of asking our daughters to run the hot taps for a bit each time they visit to put some warmth through the pipes? I suppose there’s a danger that could bring about a problem? It is a worry because, even though we are insured, the damage could be horrendous. 

 

I've always thought that, as we also have a combi boiler, that the mains supply needed to be kept on. But, a plumber I am not! 🙄

[Cruiserjules]

Congratulations on your cruise bargain and hope you have a wonderful time..

Just to add to the praise for the NW Insurance, as I've always been told to judge a company by how helpful they are if you have  to claim.

My husband had an accident whilst on Ventura a few years ago, so we contacted NW on our return home. They were unbelievably helpful, and within a week, our claim was settled and the money back in our account. His accident meant we had to purchase a walking stick, and to our surprise, they even covered that cost too. 

[nosapphire]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

That’s my worry. If the boiler shuts down and the heating goes off, we potentially have an even greater risk of a problems! Besides, our daughters will be checking on the house regularly and will need water for the loo etc. I guess that nothing is without a degree of risk and that’s why we have insurance. 

Perfectly safe to turn the water off if you want to - won't affect the heating side at all, as this is a sealed system, water does not enter (or need to enter) unless you manually turn on the filling loop - which normally is only done when the system has been drained for work, extra radiators, etc..

We have had a combi for years, and usually turn off the water but leave the heating on low if we go away in winter (have to leave the water on in summer so neighbour can water the plants).

 

 

 

[solentsam]

Exactly what I thought but did not what to give bad advice in case i was wrong, not being a plumber.🥴