terrierjohn

Much easier to do when you only have a population of just over 5 million, as opposed to almost 70 million.

I wonder if the same people that complain about the buffet being a breading ground for germs, also use the ships library, but don't worry about whose dirty hands last read the book?

The lack of a cohesive response from P&O customer service staff is a major issue that crops up repeatedly. This must come from a lack of leadership and seems to be worrying a great many forum members.

I doubt they do 3000-5000 tests over a 4 hour period, otherwise there would be long queues.

You press the little + at the side of the quote button, rather than the quote button, once you have +'d all the posts you want you press the pop up box.

But the P&O test system caused significant delays and everyone had a time slot, so why would your proposal not cause the same chaos?

Presumably there is nothing to stop you taking them back to your cabin?

Even if they have them, they may well be disabled, because the on board system uses its functionality.

I thought someone said it had usb sockets on the base of the table lamps?

Doesn't the metadata stay with the photo when you send it to Randox, or any other provider?

If, like us, you undertake 2 or 3 cruises a year, mostly with Carnival brands, then whatever the purchase price you very quickly recoup your investment in OBC, and in our case we also received a decent amount of dividend over the last 10 years.

I would have expected Iona to be far more manoeverable than Britannia due to having azipods. However any high sided cruise ship will have problems in strong cross winds, including Azura and Ventura.

I thought wowzz said the breakfast was the special luxury breakfast that costs an arm and a leg, not the common one that you book on the hanging card?

That is way more glitzy than Britannias atrium.

It's not just the speed of response from P&O that has caused me problems Pete, it's the quality of their response vs the service I get from my TA, that colours my judgement.

Nope Pete I read Moley's post it explained the current problems, which I am sure will be resolved, eventually, and fortunately don't affect me at present. Although I use a TA, I do also have occasional contacts with P&O, which enables me to make a comparison of the service they both provide, and I can certainly state from these experiences that P&O fall well short of the service standards that my wel known TA provides. Equally I accept that some TAs do appear to give very poor service, but some of this is either second hand or anecdotal. But whilst I would be open to considering booking direct if I felt P&O could provide better service than my TA, I somehow doubt that the P&O defenders would so open minded.

The wow with Iona is supposed to be the exterior windows, which many other ships do not have, we have not been on her yet so I will reserve judgement until I see if Iona's sea views compensate for the lack of a wow factor. But honestly the only wow factor P&O ships have ever had were the 2 Sun ships which she received from Princess. Azura and Ventura don't have any glitz, and Arcadia and Aurora have even less.

If P&O were always available by phone, and if busy would arrange a ring back; and if all their agents were well trained, and gave accurate information, and responded immediately to any queries or problems, and they gave me a discount like my TA; then I might consider booking direct, until then I will stay with my TA.

Not very patriotic of P&O, but perhaps not surprising.

Our walls are painted in a very pale matt cream, almost white in some light, but nothing ostentatious. However I would willingly swap a Princess glitzy Royal class atrium, for the John Lewis department store decor of Britannia.

You can understand their stance since most current cancellations are still resulting from covid, whether its quarantine cabins causing the cancellation, crew shortages due to covid outbreaks, or sudden changes to drybock arrangements, and of course the cruise lines have deeper pockets than most TAs.

You mean like that rather pointless hanging chandelier thingy on Britannia?

But not at the last minute, you need to give at least a full days notice.

....and very thin and runny if I remember correctly.