Questions re sailing out of UK

[trinitygirl]

Just now, sailing canary said:

Thanks for this.  Another question (sorry!!)

Did you use a UK or Australian based travel agent, or did you book direct with Princess? I can't figure out what's the best thing to do. I did book my last cruise through an agent, but the only advantage to that was that she could get me the exact cabin I wanted.There were no other perks, so if I hadn't been fussy about location, I could have done it myself.

I booked everything myself but only because Princess killed off the Australian vacation planning department for about six months last year and the wonderful PVP I had been using previously was no longer available.  They seem to have reinstated it this year but I haven’t found the responses to questions I have sent to the new guy either timely or helpful so I am not convinced that it’s a good replacement.   In Australia, travel agents don’t seem to offer all the perks they do in America to attract clients, and during the pandemic I think I did better with refunds by having booked direct with Princess than my friends did who were dealing with external agents.
 

 It seems to be definitely a matter of personal preference.  However I will also note that the quality of assistance available on the Princess call lines has dropped dramatically over the past year and at times I would have paid really good money to have my old PVP available to deal with problems for me. 

[Korimako]

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here, but I'd like to know if you've sailed recently from a UK port, are there kettles? I know further up this thread someone said they had kettles on their last 2 cruises, but there was no indication as to how recent that was. And if not, is it permissable to bring a small travel kettle?

TIA

[Crystaltipps67]

11 minutes ago, Korimako said:

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here, but I'd like to know if you've sailed recently from a UK port, are there kettles? I know further up this thread someone said they had kettles on their last 2 cruises, but there was no indication as to how recent that was. And if not, is it permissable to bring a small travel kettle?

TIA

We were on Sky Princess in July 2023 sailing out of Southampton and yes, a kettle was in our cabin (standard balcony). HTH.

[sailing canary]

Yet another question! When sailing out of the UK, are prices of drinks, food etc listed in GBP or USD?

[wolfie11]

If I was going to do the Baltic out of Southampton, I’d look at P&O as well.

[sailing canary]

30 minutes ago, wolfie11 said:

If I was going to do the Baltic out of Southampton, I’d look at P&O as well.

I did, but the dates don't suit.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, sailing canary said:

Yet another question! When sailing out of the UK, are prices of drinks, food etc listed in GBP or USD?

USD from all European ports.  Only AU departures are in other currency.