P&O Flights to Australia

[GOQ]

P&O Flights to Australia.

 

I am considering taking a segment of a P&O world cruise from ether Sydney to Hong Kong or from Singapore to Sydney. Only the thought of a 23 hour flight from London to Sydney is a bit scary.

 

I made inquires from my local TA asking for details of the flights for these cruises and all she could tell me was that P&O only release flight details 6 months before the cruise.

 

I then went to the future cruise lady on an Aurora cruise and asked the same question. She told me the same but implied there might be a choice of flights/airlines within a set price range and outside this range there might be a choice for a supplement.

 

How might this work? Would P&O assign me a flight e.g.

London Dubai – Dubai Sydney without any choice and that’s final or a list of flight options, maybe some at an additional cost.

 

I have done some googling and found out there are at least 6 airlines doing the route London to Sydney at various stopover points and different flight duration e.g.:

 

Quantas: London Perth 16hr 35min – Perth Sydney 4hr 10min with 2hr 55 min stopover.

Emerates: London Dubai 7hrs – Dubai Sydney 13hr 30min with 1hr 20min stopover.

 

Etc.

 

Can anyone with experience of Australia based cruises offer any advise on the Airlines P&O use and, if there is a choice of flights/airline, which might be the best stopover choice.

 

Sorry if I am over-complicating this, but as I wrote 23 hours is a bit scary.

[kevcharben]

I think only 23hrs inclding layovers is pretty good.

 

We travelled with cunard on a segment some years ago, that was with Emirates, with a 25hr journey

[GOQ]

How did you find Emirates, and was your stopover in Dubai?

 

Yes 23hrs is maybe optimistic, but I am thinking the duration of the stopover will have some impact, a longer journey but more time for a break between flights.

[elmsliebev]

A travel agent will be able to modify the flight for you (flight deviation). We did Alaska to Miami 2 years ago with Cunard and our TA moved the flight home back 3 days and sorted a hotel in Miami for us. Maybe you could have a day or 2 somewhere en route? That would make the flight less onerous. 

We are doing Tokyo to Singapore later this year with Etihad and have a stopver each way in Doha. I've flown to Oz with Singapore Airlines, Quantas and BA and of those Singapore is my favourite carrier. 

[kevcharben]

Emirates Flight was very good, 4hr or so layover.

 

[Splice the mainbrace]

2 hours ago, GOQ said:

P&O Flights to Australia.

 

I am considering taking a segment of a P&O world cruise from ether Sydney to Hong Kong or from Singapore to Sydney. Only the thought of a 23 hour flight from London to Sydney is a bit scary.

 

I made inquires from my local TA asking for details of the flights for these cruises and all she could tell me was that P&O only release flight details 6 months before the cruise.

 

I then went to the future cruise lady on an Aurora cruise and asked the same question. She told me the same but implied there might be a choice of flights/airlines within a set price range and outside this range there might be a choice for a supplement.

 

How might this work? Would P&O assign me a flight e.g.

London Dubai – Dubai Sydney without any choice and that’s final or a list of flight options, maybe some at an additional cost.

 

I have done some googling and found out there are at least 6 airlines doing the route London to Sydney at various stopover points and different flight duration e.g.:

 

Quantas: London Perth 16hr 35min – Perth Sydney 4hr 10min with 2hr 55 min stopover.

Emerates: London Dubai 7hrs – Dubai Sydney 13hr 30min with 1hr 20min stopover.

 

Etc.

 

Can anyone with experience of Australia based cruises offer any advise on the Airlines P&O use and, if there is a choice of flights/airline, which might be the best stopover choice.

 

Sorry if I am over-complicating this, but as I wrote 23 hours is a bit scary.

I'm glad that you asked the question. We are on Arcadia from San Francisco to Sydney next Jan/Feb so will need flights. It's a bit early for flights to be arranged by our TA or P&O but I've started researching flight options so that I have info for our favoured options for when the time comes, we try and avoid 'crack of dawn' flights.

[Windsurfboy]

Our son lives in Australia.  This seems strange, most airlines open flights just under a year in advance. In our experience if you are buying your own tickets then cheapest flights are early on. So i dont know why P&O wait till 6 months, unless they want to know how many people and negotiate a block booking. If this is the case the P&O flight should be cheaper, but not necessarily the shortest or best most comfortable airline. By six months the other airlines will be at a premium. Similarly if you want to go earlier. 

 

I would seriously have a good search of all the options when the 12 month window opens and consider booking own flight.

[July morning]

When we went on an Australian Princess Cruise it was much cheaper to book our own flights.  We flew from Edinburgh to Dubia 3.5 hr  layover.  Dubai is such a busy and huge airport we were glad we didn't have the shorter one as I would have worried.  We didn't want a stopover enroute as we've been to Hong Kong etc a few times. We went a few days earlier to get the benefit of see more of Sydney which we loved. 

[terrierjohn]

14 minutes ago, July morning said:

When we went on an Australian Princess Cruise it was much cheaper to book our own flights.  We flew from Edinburgh to Dubia 3.5 hr  layover.  Dubai is such a busy and huge airport we were glad we didn't have the shorter one as I would have worried.  We didn't want a stopover enroute as we've been to Hong Kong etc a few times. We went a few days earlier to get the benefit of see more of Sydney which we loved. 

We found that we were able to get a cheaper and better deal ourselves than with Princess. Then also decided to add on several days before and after to take in the barrier reef, Uluru and a longer stay in Sydney pre cruise, as well as a few days in Auckland before we returned.

[Thejuggler]

All P&O will do is source your flights and book them as part of a package.

 

I'd make the flying part of the holiday and search out cheap flights with layovers and consider premium economy or business class with a less popular airline using a codeshare. 

 

If you want to fly to one airport and return from another after the cruise you will need an open jaw ticket.

 

Google flights is a good wesbite to play with, just change ticket from 'return' to 'multi city' to research open jaw fares.

[GOQ]

Thank you all for your advise:

 

@kevcharben for your experience with Emirates.

 

@elmsliebev I will ask a travel agent how and if they can modify any flights P&O might offer.

 

@julymorning for your experience on layover time, transferring between connections is something I had not considered.

 

@terrierjohn and @thejugger booking my own flights would not seem to be an option. Trying to do a dummy booking, when I get to flight options and select opt-out option the response is:

 

“Please note, there will be no change to your holiday price”, so it would seem quite an expensive option to book my own flights.

[terrierjohn]

47 minutes ago, GOQ said:

Thank you all for your advise:

 

@kevcharben for your experience with Emirates.

 

@elmsliebev I will ask a travel agent how and if they can modify any flights P&O might offer.

 

@julymorning for your experience on layover time, transferring between connections is something I had not considered.

 

@terrierjohn and @thejugger booking my own flights would not seem to be an option. Trying to do a dummy booking, when I get to flight options and select opt-out option the response is:

 

“Please note, there will be no change to your holiday price”, so it would seem quite an expensive option to book my own flights.

I think you will need to talk to P&O or with a TA, because I cannot believe that they don't offer a cruise only option, unless it's because it's a world sector, rather than a fly cruise.

[Windsurfboy]

If they don't offer cruise only they will be treating as a fly cruise  as for example Carribean. So they will be aiming to get a plane full to charter so don't want you buying own ticket

 

Good news it will be cheap. Bad news no stop over options or going early,  and may not be great airline doubt of the quality of  Emirates, Singapore etc

 

I'd  advise talking direct to P&O to find out what's going on before you book

Edited March 9 by Windsurfboy

[Bill Y]

I doubt that P&O would be using charters for world cruise segments, in the past we were on a block booking of 100 seats to Singapore according to BA but P&O did not inform BA of the names until very late on. Years ago segments used to be sold with or without flights, they don’t appear to advertise that now. They still sell cruises without flights to the trade who then add pre or post cruise extensions’ to the cruises as a package, i.e. Golden Triangle then cruise back. But as others have said speak to your TA or P&O

[sleepingcat]

its a while ago now... we boarded Arcadia in Auckland for half a world cruise (ie back to the UK). P and O booked and supplied the flights as a package, we flew to NZ a month before the cruise started and did a motorhome tour (which we arranged).  It was emirates, we chose a great flight time (8.30 pm from Birmingham), so it was breakfast in Dubai, and we had a 36 hour stopover at a hotel in Bangkok. because I agree, 23 hours straight is too much. 

 

I booked with a certain well known Derbyshire TA who were very helpful and efficient. 

 

as others have said above, it will be an individually booked scheduled flight, so you could choose to arrive in your cruise starting point a couple of days before your boarding date, a chance to rest up, and also explore a bit. Especially if you are boarding in Singapore I would recommend that, we loved Singapore and hope to return to see what we missed last time. And Sydney is one of the best places in the world to visit.