Selbourne

Your review on your Saga experience was extremely informative and, having hovered in the ‘do we, don’t we’ bracket for some years re Saga, we decided against booking with them partly due to your feedback - so I think I owe you one! Happy to answer any questions that you have. The advertised Britannia Club dining was the deciding factor for us so, rest assured, I shall be all over it! We have another 2 weeks in Britannia Club on Queen Anne at the end of the year, so we can compare the two cruises, just in case our cruise in a few weeks time is blighted by a few teething problems as the crew bed themselves in (as seems to be the case on board at present, judging by the feedback so far).

Do you still have to adhere to the formal dress code or do they relax it as it’s in the buffet? I could see the attraction if the dress code doesn’t apply.

Thankfully they don’t need to do it on the smaller ships as the MDRs have enough capacity to accommodate all those who wish to dine there on formal nights.

The ‘silent’ disco on Iona was in the atrium, so silent that we could hear it in our cabin 2 decks up. As I said at the time, never before have so many tone deaf people been gathered together in one place, ‘singing’ their hearts out 😂

Thankfully this wouldn’t affect us as the drinks packages wouldn’t be cost effective for us even before the price increase, and we never take alcohol on board with us. However, I note that spirits cannot be taken on board during embarkation, so presumably those who like a tipple in their cabin could buy a bottle at the first port? Alternatively pack a bottle carefully in their main luggage as this isn’t checked. I appreciate that’s a risk, but we always bring our freebie bottle of champagne home in our luggage (carefully wrapped) and, touch wood, it’s never smashed.

I’m sorry to hear that service, for both food and drinks, has been unacceptably slow so far. Let’s hope that this was first night troubles (presumably being the first time that everything has been tested at capacity?) and that by the end of the week everything will be as it should. At least I hope that’s the case, as we are on QA in 3 weeks time and with the price we are paying (for Britannia Club) I would not be accepting of some of the wait times being reported 🤔

Do you mean me? I’d never be invited on a freebie as my live blogs are too honest and ‘warts and all’, whereas the video bloggers are over the top positive, so as to ensure that the freebies and upgrades keep on coming 😂. We are on Queen Anne in 3 weeks time for the Round Britain (and naming ceremony) cruise, but as I’m not known on the Cunard pages I’m going to give myself a break. I’ve only just recovered from my daily blog on all 65 days of our Grand Tour on Aurora and the pressure I felt to keep it going when views went well over 200,000 😂

If it’s going to be a Royal, I’d hope for The Queen (Camilla). Sadly The Princess of Wales is out of the equation and it would be odd for it to be The Princess Royal as she’s called Anne but isn’t a Queen! If not The Queen, I’ve always liked The Duchess of Edinburgh.

It didn’t appeal to us, so we didn’t book it when we were on Iona I’m afraid. I believe that there may be some small additions to the menu over the MDR, but we avoid the buffet like the plague and a tablecloth wasn’t enough to make us change that stance 😂. We prefer the ambiance, table configuration and seating in the MDRs, especially if we are going to the trouble of dressing up in our finery for a formal night. It does come with one advantage though, the fact that you have a guaranteed dining time which, if you dine later (as we do), can apparently be a challenge on Arvia. There are no options to book tables in the MDR other than very early (far too early for us) and quite a few people have reported long waits for tables on Arvia as it has less MDR capacity than Iona. If we were on a 2 week Arvia cruise I’d give it a go, just to see what it’s like.

Welcome home Andy. Delighted to hear that you enjoyed the cruise and in particular that your MDR experience was far better than last year. I wish you could persuade Hyacinth to write a review as well 😂

Which ship? Chefs Table means different things on different ships. On Aurora, it’s an officer hosted fine dining event, for a dozen or so people, at a cost of around £75 per person. This includes the cost of paired wines with each course. On Arvia and Iona it’s a sectioned off area of the buffet where the main dining room formal menu is provided. It was created to alleviate pressure in the main dining rooms (Arvia, in particular, doesn’t have enough capacity in the main dining rooms for all those who wish to dine there on formal nights). As a result it’s no cost and the wines are just recommended, but not included, so in reality it’s no different to the main dining rooms in that you can have some, all or none of the wines and pay for those that you have.

Prior to changing my insurance provider to Nationwide, I had a stand alone annual travel insurance policy direct with Aviva. They didn’t offer separate cruise cover on my policy, as they considered a cruise to be a normal holiday so, as a result, there was no missed port cover. I guess they are only offering it now as they are taking over an established scheme that already included it.

It’s all down to the peculiarities of cabins versus beds. To take made up numbers to illustrate the point; Let’s say a ship has 1,000 cabins and they all have two lower beds. The ships normal capacity will show as 2,000 passengers. Out of school holidays, let’s say that 900 cabins are occupied with couples and 100 with solos. The ship will sail with 1,900 passengers and yet will be deemed ‘sold out’, as all cabins are occupied, even though capacity is 95%. In peak school holidays there might be 500 children on board, all in upper berths or sofa beds. These beds are not included in the stated capacity, so all of a sudden, with the same mix of couples and solos, you have 2,400 passengers. All cabins remain sold, but the ship is now sailing at 120% capacity. It’s a bit like when people say that they sailed on Iona or Arvia and the cruise was ‘sold out’ yet the ship didn’t feel busy. There may have ‘only’ been just under 5,000 passengers on board, but as all cabins were occupied the ship is technically sold out. However, when we went on Iona (peak school holidays) there were 5,750 people on board and these ships can (and do) go up to around 6,250. Both the 5,000 passenger cruise (at 95% capacity) and the 6,250 passenger cruise (at 119% capacity) will be termed ‘sold out’ yet one has 25% more passengers and will be a completely different experience!

I don’t think anything has changed. It’s simply a case of supply and demand. P&O want all cruises to sail with almost all cabins occupied. Where that is achieved by balance due date there will be no late deals, as they aren’t needed. Where there are still plenty of cabins to fill you can bet your boots that, in spite of Paul Ludlow comments (no doubt deliberately made to pull many people back to booking early) there will be late offers. As I say, it will vary by cruise, time of year, itinerary etc etc

This is interesting. The wording seems to imply that they are now trying to push people towards self (‘express’) disembarkation. Standard disembarkation, which is used by the vast majority, is now prefaced with “if you are unable to carry your own luggage……”. I can see the advantage for P&O of this but, as someone who usually dreads disembarkation morning due to the challenges of getting my wife into a lift with her wheelchair - even when only competing with those with hand luggage - it will be interesting to see if this more relaxed approach to self disembarkation makes this problem worse. Glad to hear that you had a great cruise Andy. I’d wish you a safe journey home but I know that you are a local lad so will probably be home by the time you read this!