terrierjohn

We are on Princess at present and the regulars have similar complaints. I appreciate both P&O and Princess are Carnival brands, but I bet Royal Caribbean, Cebrity, MSC, NCL, Saga, Fred etc are all saying the same thing. If cruise lines need to increase revenue to satisfy shareholders, then prices will need to rise, and we have the choice to accept the increase or not.

Until they ask you to drink it all just to check it is water.😯

All banks use an underwriter to provide the insurance and these cover the medical cond6itions. So fat the Nationwide medical excess has been quite reasonable.

Possibly, but US cruise passengers take far more short cruises than UK ones, and thse lend themselves to a much higher per diem spend as passengers try to cram in as much as they can in a short time.

Sorry, I must learn to read things more carefully.

You need a flex plus account, which has a monthly fee of £13, which then gives you worldwide travel insurance, but medical conditions are extra.

To be fair the smoke smell seems to be limited to the casino, I have not noticed it as a problem anywhere else. In fact the smoke around the deck 18 smoking area on Iona is far worse.

We have not been to the theatre or live lounge yet, but TBH we find the best evening entertainment is in the Piazza (Atrium to us), and the quality has been excellent. A duo playing violin and cello covering popular music from classical to pop, ans the violinist is one of the best I have heard. The party band, Asian soul with a philpino vocalist who is excellent, she hits all the high notes without any screeching, and they had the dancefloor heaving the other night Plus we have had a brass section from the orchestra doing New Orleans jazz and dance music, whose philpino trumpet player would have starred in any 30s, 40s or 50s big band. Then yesterday an ensemble of all three had the Piazza crowd enthralled with a wide selection of music, culminating with Bohemian rhapsody with asian sou'ls lead guitarist giving an excellent imitation of Brian May at his best. The quality of all these musicians is way ahead of anything we have seen on P&O recently, where the excellence of one of the Pulse singers can be let down by the other, and no real stand out performers among the instrumentalists.

Not if you are on plus.

Their medallion system is now so slick, that waiting for them to pick out your medallion takes the longest time, and of course security is still a pain.

In Southampton we were able to arrive at any time of our choosing, whether that was because we are elite I dont know?

There are enough cocktails available at under $15.00 to keep me happy, but I am no great connoisseur.

The question I was answering related to passengers preferring to only drink the ones they brought onboard.

Arvia is in the prime berth today with a short walk in to town. Sky Princess is in the industrial port and needs a 15 minute shuttle bus ride.

Since the majority of cruise line profits are made from onboard spend, I would have thought it was self evident.

Minibar set up still in place, and elite passengers do get priority in lots of things, but we dont have a tender port this cruise, and as wheelchair users we probably would not be able to use a tender anyway.

We have Princess plus so drinks are free, so the elite lounge get together with discounted drink prices is not a benefit, however we hope to take advantage of the free laundry for elite passengers.

????

Are you not interested in a comparison to enable you to decide if you would be interested in a different cruise line?

But maybe the app will still object to someone with reserve dining joining a table of plebs?

I guess if it's a problem, you could ask them to return your old threadbare carpet!!!

Cruise lines like mainstream pubs judge what to stock by customer demand. So one can only assume that demand for malt whisky is very limited, and cruise lines prefer to ensure they use their limited storage to hold stocks of drinks in higher demand.

I think we had a medical emergency last night, got back to our starboard cabin to find we could see the coast and were sailing ENE, then pilot boat pulled alongside us to guide us into port, no idea which. By 1:00am we were still some way out, but by 4:00am we were sailing south again. Fortunately it does not seem to have delayed us, and we are cruising at 17kts and just about to round the south western tip of Portugal. A beautiful sunny day at sea today, lots of waiters bringing drinks and food orders, and deck stewards bringing round chilled face cloths to keep passengers refreshed. Service standards on Princess are certainly higher than P&O.

Very true, on our first 3 MDR meals we have enjoyed very entertaining dinner companions which is giving the cruise a positive vibe.

Quoting one specific cruise as a general price comparison is extremely faulty. I would guess that this cruise was selling very badly for whatever reason, and your price was not truly comparable to the normal pricing of Azamara cruises. In fact you state that you do a lot of homework to find special offers, which is admirable but not very prevalent among the general cruising public.