Ship visits?

[rubyandstella]

I had a card through the post today inviting me to book a ship visit.

 

They want £20 per person for a personal tour of the ship of your choice, you get lunch and a voucher off your next cruise. Has anyone been on one of these visits?

 

Thanks?

[supered]

Libralass (Sue) has been on a couple and no doubt will be along later to share her experiences :D

 

Eddie

[LibraLass41]

Here I am!:p

 

Yes! go for it! If there is a ship you fancy seeing in the fleet and you live not too far away to make it feasible do it!

 

I have done 2 - pando I chose Artemis, as I loved the child free Arcadia and wanted to see the alternative before booking a proper cruise.

You are taken on a tour of the ship and given a 3 course lunch similar to a dinner on board. The price sort of covers the lunch really so its not a bad deal.

 

The other ship visit I did was with Royal Caribbean to see the massive Independence of the Seas - took a few hours to see that ship, we were treated really well - a bag of goodies on arrival including a portable camera , bottle of water , RCI bag, nice hard back note books, pen etc. had a lengthy tour and a super lunch again with wine!! (PANDO water!) and this one was free. God Bless America !

 

Artemis ship visit photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/AuroraPartyCruiseSueV/ArtemisShipVisit30908?authkey=Gv1sRgCOCB3tWy5LSLNw#5251857140027209890

 

Any questions just ask.

[Cymro1953]

Thanks for the great pics Sue, that grouting in the shower looked a bit grubby.

Soesn't make me feel so bad about ours now :-)

[rubyandstella]

Great photos! It sounds like a nice day out!

 

We are from 'up north' but we are hoping to go to France in the summer so it we could fit one of these tours in on our way :p We have the choice of Ventura, Oriana or Aurora this summer or Oceana in October. We'll have to leave the child free ones for a couple of years.

 

I'd like to go to the Fjords next year and I am quite interested in an Azura itinerary I've seen so Ventura could be interesting. But... I'm not a big fan of big ships (we are on Indy next month with the kids :eek:) - on second thoughts maybe I should be looking at Artemis and leaving them at home!

 

I'd be quite happy on a smaller ship, all I need is a nice balcony and I'm happy :D but I need to keep the rest of my family happy too.

 

Which one would you recommend to bowl me (and them) over and make us book!

[tom_uk]

We did one of Oceana in 2006, I think.

[fastforward]

I had a card through the post today inviting me to book a ship visit.

 

They want £20 per person for a personal tour of the ship of your choice, you get lunch and a voucher off your next cruise. Has anyone been on one of these visits?

 

Thanks?

What do you have to do to recieve an invitation to book a ships visit,does the invite come from the T/A or P/O ?

[Britboys]

Hi there rubyandstella. If you are not too keen on big ships but will be taking the kids with you, I would recommend Aurora. She is smaller (by today's standards), has good children's facilities and the bonus of a pool with a sliding roof - ideal for the fjords if the weather is not so great.

 

She is a lovely mixture of tradition and modern facilities.

[rubyandstella]

What do you have to do to recieve an invitation to book a ships visit,does the invite come from the T/A or P/O ?

 

 

It's from P&O. I'm not sure why I was picked but I'm always sending off for information/brochures/entering competitions so it could be any of those.

 

You could try ringing P&O and asking them if you could go?

[LibraLass41]

It's from P&O. I'm not sure why I was picked but I'm always sending off for information/brochures/entering competitions so it could be any of those.

 

You could try ringing P&O and asking them if you could go?

 

Sorry that won't work. It is by INVITE ONLY! When I got mine, people asked me for contact phone numbers which I happily gave them and they were told NO SORRY, strictly invite only....

 

I don't know why I got mine, I think they thought I was a cruise virgin!:eek: As they asked if I would consider booking a cruise when I was onboard Artemis, and the literature sent and given to me at the time was all promoted towards a newbie cruising for the 1st time!

OOPS.

 

After this years cruises on Oriana and Oceana I will have sailed on all the fleet , so was pleased to have seen Artemis, I think I got the invite as I re-registered on the pando cruise chat site as I had trouble logging in, and they must of picked me up from there as a newbie.

[LibraLass41]

I had a card through the post today inviting me to book a ship visit.

 

They want £20 per person for a personal tour of the ship of your choice, you get lunch and a voucher off your next cruise. Has anyone been on one of these visits?

 

Thanks?

 

Are you a cruise virgin?

 

If not, have you cruised P&O before?

[fastforward]

[/b]

 

Sorry that won't work. It is by INVITE ONLY! When I got mine, people asked me for contact phone numbers which I happily gave them and they were told NO SORRY, strictly invite only....

 

I don't know why I got mine, I think they thought I was a cruise virgin!:eek: As they asked if I would consider booking a cruise when I was onboard Artemis, and the literature sent and given to me at the time was all promoted towards a newbie cruising for the 1st time!

OOPS.

 

After this years cruises on Oriana and Oceana I will have sailed on all the fleet , so was pleased to have seen Artemis, I think I got the invite as I re-registered on the pando cruise chat site as I had trouble logging in, and they must of picked me up from there as a newbie.

It seems a bit cheeky to describe it as an ivitation, when they charge £20 for the invite. I would think that not everybody they contact would want to pay or would live close enough to go. Therefore having a waiting list of interested holidaymakers you think would be of benefit to P/O.

L/L How did you blag the Independence of the Seas visit ?

[rubyandstella]

Hi there rubyandstella. If you are not too keen on big ships but will be taking the kids with you, I would recommend Aurora. She is smaller (by today's standards), has good children's facilities and the bonus of a pool with a sliding roof - ideal for the fjords if the weather is not so great.

 

She is a lovely mixture of tradition and modern facilities.

 

Yes, she does look nice I think I will either try for Aurora or Ventura. I need to ring P&O, the card says there are only limited places so I'd better get a move on.

 

 

Are you a cruise virgin?

 

If not, have you cruised P&O before?

 

No, not sailed P&O before. We've sailed on RCI and Celebrity for the past couple of years from the Med but I'm fed up of the travelling down there and think it's time I tried something different closer to home.

 

It seems a bit cheeky to describe it as an ivitation, when they charge £20 for the invite. I would think that not everybody they contact would want to pay or would live close enough to go. Therefore having a waiting list of interested holidaymakers you think would be of benefit to P/O.

 

As we are going to be heading down south anyway it'll only be a slight detour. I don't mind the £20, it's cheaper than a day at Alton Towers plus lunch is included :D but wouldn't have gone out of my way to get there. Yes, I think if someone has expressed an interest P&O might benefit in inviting them.

 

I remember answering online questionaires about my cruising habits ie am I a first time cruiser and what other cruislines have I sailed with and when was I next thinking of cruising etc etc... so I think I must have ticked all the right boxes :p

 

Mmmm... must try that with RCI. Who else does these visits? I'd never heard of it before.

[fastforward]

Apart from LibraLass your the only one I have heard of that has had a chance of a ships visit. Bit of a sweeping statement I guess a few more may say that they have been on them as well. I thought at first it would depend how close you live, but as you have an invite that can't make any difference ether.

[tom_uk]

I'm trying to remember the events that lead up to our invite.

 

We'd certainly done our first cruise - 1 week fly/cruise in the Med with MSC - and had enjoyed it very much. Then we must have seen something about a P&O evening at one of the local hotels, and we got an invitation to that. What I don't remember is where we saw that; most likely on a TA website, but possibly on the P&O website. Either way, we went to the P&O evening, liked what we saw, and decided we would like to cruise with P&O at some point. This was in autumn 2005, I think, and by this time we'd made a booking for summer 2006 with Celebrity. We did this through the late lamented (?) 'Cruise Control' on-line TA, so it might well have been through them that we heard about the P&O evening.

 

Anyway somewhere in there we gave our address to someone and the fact that we hadn't cruised with P&O, and in the early spring of 2006 we got an invite from P&O for a ship visit. The invite listed a number of ships/dates, and we selected a Saturday in high summer to visit Oceana, paid our £20 each or whatever it was, and had a good day out: we spent the morning on the ship, had a good lunch on board, and then visited Avebury on the way home.

 

Thinking about it now, it was clearly a part of P&O's marketing effort. Not necessarily to absolute cruise virgins, but I have a feeling that hey were targeting P&O virgins. The upshot for us was we did indeed cruise with P&O, but not until 2008 - by the time of our ship visit we'd been on Galaxy in 2006, and had decided we wanted to cruise on her again the following year (2007).

 

But you'd have to say that the visit worked - we've enjoyed our two P&O cruises, we now have another booked, and tomorrow we should have yet another booking confirmed.

[uktraveller]

Hi,

I got one of these "invites" through my letterbox last week and have decided to take the tour/lunch on Arcadia in September. We have only sailed on RCCl up to now, but I recently requested a P&O brochure and entered an online competition to win a cruise which asked for info on which cruiselines we had previously sailed, so I would think that's the source of our invite.

Looking forward to seeing what P&O have to offer!:)

[LibraLass41]

It seems a bit cheeky to describe it as an ivitation, when they charge £20 for the invite. I would think that not everybody they contact would want to pay or would live close enough to go. Therefore having a waiting list of interested holidaymakers you think would be of benefit to P/O.

L/L How did you blag the Independence of the Seas visit ?

 

It is still a invite as in only the people who get the invite have the chance to go!

No, not everyone who gets one will go I agree, but I expect they sent out 2 or 3 times as many invites as places available (each tour only had 60 or so places on it), and some ships only had one or 2 dates with one tour per date.

 

Indy visit came from my Travel agent. If you use the same good agent for each cruise, tell him/her you are interested in a ship visit.....The TA's get invites all the time and have to decide who to give them too (after having a few for themselves I expect for training purposes no doubt!) IF THEY DON'T KNOW YOU ARE INTERESTED YOU WON'T GET THE CHANCE TO GO!;)

[LibraLass41]

Hi,

I got one of these "invites" through my letterbox last week and have decided to take the tour/lunch on Arcadia in September. We have only sailed on RCCl up to now, but I recently requested a P&O brochure and entered an online competition to win a cruise which asked for info on which cruiselines we had previously sailed, so I would think that's the source of our invite.

Looking forward to seeing what P&O have to offer!:)

 

Its a good day out, or if you live quite far away a weekend away. On the Independence visit I booked a Holiday inn hotel for the night in Poole by harbour, after the ship visit, finishes about 2.30pm we drove to Poole and enjoyed the rest of the day, and went onto Swanage after breakfast on the Sunday, it was great weather and just happened to be festival weekend we even saw the red arrows fly past display on the beach.

Did you see the Artemis ship visit album photos? - link mentioned on post at begining of thread? Photos of the lunch meal on there, it was very nice.

[CASPALL]

If I had been on a ship's visit on Artemis I reckon I would never have cruised on her because of the shabby condition she was in.

It takes a few days to get the real feel of a ship I suppose as I ended up enjoying our cruise - mainly because of the friendly, intimate atmosphere.

 

£20 is certainly a good deal if you live nearby. No chance of me doing that as I am 500+ miles away!

 

Caryl

[LibraLass41]

If I had been on a ship's visit on Artemis I reckon I would never have cruised on her because of the shabby condition she was in.

It takes a few days to get the real feel of a ship I suppose as I ended up enjoying our cruise - mainly because of the friendly, intimate atmosphere.

 

£20 is certainly a good deal if you live nearby. No chance of me doing that as I am 500+ miles away!

 

Caryl

 

I was surprised by the state of that penthouse suite bathroom, and balcony -see photos - the faded balcony furniture, chipped hand rail, and shabby shower - I would want a refund.

The other cabins were very nice, and I passed loads on the visit, all cabin doors were open on the deck corridors so saw a lot.

I haven't sailed on Artemis since the visit and may or may not sail on her in the future, but is was good to see her. I was surprised by her width, when you boarded the other side of the ship seemed very close, but then she is a small ship compared to Independence!

[uktraveller]

Its a good day out, or if you live quite far away a weekend away. On the Independence visit I booked a Holiday inn hotel for the night in Poole by harbour, after the ship visit, finishes about 2.30pm we drove to Poole and enjoyed the rest of the day, and went onto Swanage after breakfast on the Sunday, it was great weather and just happened to be festival weekend we even saw the red arrows fly past display on the beach.

Did you see the Artemis ship visit album photos? - link mentioned on post at begining of thread? Photos of the lunch meal on there, it was very nice.

Yes, I looked at the photos...thanks. If the lunch is as nice as that I'll be very pleased....shame they're not allowed to serve wine!!:o

We can easily go for the day from Bristol...(unless it's a saturday in the summer..lol). Bournemouth / Poole / Swanage is one of our favourite areas though so I might have to consider making it a weekend!

[tom_uk]

For our Oceana visit we stayed at Chieveley Travelodge on the M4 the night before - it's less than an hour from Southampton (M27 allowing). IIRC, we got a very low cost room - £19? - and didn't leave home until after we'd had dinner, so we didn't have to buy a meal. Then there was the visit, the lunch, and slow drive home across country, including a couple of hours exploring Avebury. All in all, an excellent day out.

[LibraLass41]

UK Traveller - we are from the same part of the country I see - Yes we can do Southampton in 2 and 1/4 hours , but we made a weekend of it for the 'fun of it' The visit was in July and we made a weekend away -kids left home now - and why not.

 

Are you in the city or outskirts I am nr C-Sodbury

[uktraveller]

UK Traveller - we are from the same part of the country I see - Yes we can do Southampton in 2 and 1/4 hours , but we made a weekend of it for the 'fun of it' The visit was in July and we made a weekend away -kids left home now - and why not.

 

Are you in the city or outskirts I am nr C-Sodbury

Hi,

Well I just got my letter of confirmation from P&O and it came from Clevedon!!...about 3 miles away from where we live in Nailsea.:)

I've been looking at your Arcadia photos..she looks great! As we usually sail with our youngest son we have been sticking with RCCL up to now but he is fast approaching Uni age so we will be branching out in the not so distant future and seeing what else is out there (already booked Celeb Solstice for just the 2 of us next Feb:))

[tom_uk]

about 3 miles away from where we live in Nailsea.

 

It's a small world... many many years ago I lived in Long Ashton. I was a weekend Mod; I had a Lambretta, and used to drive out to Weston & sometimes Clevedon on Sundays.