terrierjohn

5 minutes ago, janny444 said:

Are these two balcony cabins " blessed" with larger balconies....looking at the deck plans they appear to be....I am presuming the asterisk on the balcony deck plans indicates a sofa bed? ?...Any negatives to these 2 cabins....or even positives ! 🙂

 

All the end cabins where the inset areas start have these larger balconies, but they are overlooked by all the cabins on the inset. Which personally I would dislike, but probably others would prefer.

1 hour ago, Josy1953 said:

A complete change of weather over the last hour, the grey cloud has cleared and left us with this 

Guess where you're grey sky ended up!!!

If I knew how I would send it back.😋

4 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

I assume you booked the 20% reduced fare when it was on sale so your drinks became part of your fare.  

Not sure this helps, but on my recent booking my TA advised me that if  I did not take the 10% discount offer on booking, then I could not add it on later still with the discount.

54 minutes ago, Funboy said:

But you still have to register on arrival and departure.

Passengers already register on arrival at Southampton and your passport is recorded and certainly your Etias data should be attached to your passport. However I have read nothing about how the EU intends to handle the biometric checks for cruise ship passengers to satisfy the EES requirements.

1 hour ago, FangedRose said:

They do that if visiting USA on a cruise ship.

Let's hope the EU agree to allow the current ships passenger passport approval to also approve the Etias entry.

1 hour ago, room with a view said:

Unfortunately I booked our cruise when on a previous P& O cruise .

You can always transfer these to your favourite TA, and get any discount they offer as well.

30 minutes ago, david63 said:

Under normal circumstances they aim to have the ship clear of disembarking passengers for about 10:00 - 10:30. There is no way that you will still be eating breakfast at 11:00.

Well not on the ship anyway. You need to vacate your cabin by 8:00am and breakfast will be finished by 9:00.

12 minutes ago, Norwayfan1 said:

He might find that laundry strangely appealing.

 

At the moment he's very worried he might be roped into line dancing or exercise classes.

Since when did P&O give free laundry to top tier peninsular club members?

21 minutes ago, Sheila127 said:

My cabin will be on Deck 10 and according to the plan the Riviera Pool is showing on Deck 11 alongside a fitness room..  But looking elsewhere it states the Riviera Pool is on Deck 12. Can anyone advise.  Thank you!

It's shown as on both decks on the deck plans, probably because I think the pool itself takes up space on deck 11, but is only accessible from deck 12.

13 minutes ago, amurray88 said:

Thanks for your feedback. How about crowds? I think I might have read that Brittania allows swim nappies whilst Iona doesn't so for us, this may sway it this year too.

 

Thanks!

You need to check with P&O about swim nappies, I seem to think they are only allowed in the tiny children's pools on all the ships.

1 hour ago, amurray88 said:

Any comment on which one feels more crowded?

It's so strange - we were on Symphony of the seas a few years ago and felt we had so much space. On Azura we felt we had loads of space too.... where as on NCL Epic and MSC Virtuosa it felt so cramped.

 

Thanks!

There are a lot more passengers on Iona than Britannia, however IMO Britannia does seem a bit more crowded, possibly the lack of a promenade on Britannia could be the reason. 

2 minutes ago, amurray88 said:

Hi All,

I'm booking a Fjords cruise and wanted to sum up what we are negotiating in the hope that some of you kind folk would give me your opinions.

 

My wife and I are travelling with our 24month old. Both cruises leave Southampton. Britannia leaves on 27th June, Iona 6th July. My guess is Iona will have more kids on board. We will have a school aged kid in a few years but for the meantime we quite enjoy not having too many kids around so I think date wise it's 1-0 to Brittania.

 

Does Britannia feel more spacious? Used to be believers that bigger is better but starting to reconsider this after our Azura cruise - it just felt more space per person. Iona is bigger...but is it better if it's busy?

 

Ports -

Iona "ports"

Stavanger, Olden, Innvikfjord, Nordfjord, Hellesylt, Geiranger Fjord, 

Sunnylvsfjorden, Storfjorden, Haugesund

 

Brittania ports

Stavanger, Olden, Innvikfjord, Nordfjord, Ålesund, Haugesund

 

Any thoughts on these?

 

The price is pretty much identical so it really is a toss of a coin. 

 

Any comments or feedback is really appreciated.

If you're going for a balcony cabin then Iona balconies are almost twice the depth of Britannia's. If not and you like a big pool, then Britannia is best. Food menus will be the same in the included restaurants, but Iona has more choice of both included and Speciality restaurants. Theatre Entertainment will be the same In both ships, and both have impressive lighting and special effects, but Iona does have some ariel shows in the Sky Dome. 

2 hours ago, janny444 said:

Think the IOTS is a step or 2 up from the Anthem...price wise 🤔 

I think it is benefitting from a new ship burst of enthusiasm which will only last so long, then the prices will begin to drop to more realistic levels.

We watched the Icon of the seas documentary last night, and that is one impressive ship. I know it won't be to everyone's taste, but Arvia and Iona would certainly benefit from a few of those water slides, along with Indepenences splash away bay water park, if they really want to hold onto the new younger family cruisers.

17 minutes ago, indiana123 said:

Happy Sunday everyone.

 

Can you help.  I don't like showers  but obviously have to have them now. Occasionally I would love a bath.  Has anyone got a relative/friend who has one of those  mechanised bath lowerer/lifter that you kind of slide onto.  If so, are they good, are they worth it   The ones I have seen range from about £200 to £500.  Thanks

 

Also  if you get a message saying    "Patient Knows Best" has an important document for you.  "Patient knows best" is a silly named NHS Dept.  I thought it was a joke or a scam.  I found out it wasn't.  It took ages to get in and there was an appointment I have been waiting  nearly a year for. I could have missed it and so could others.  So far I have had no postal or text confirmation.

My wife uses an Aquajoy bath lift, because of her incapacity. It's basically a board with a back rest, that you sit on and can lower yourself into the bath, and of course back up when you're ready to get out. She has used it regularly for 14 years without any problems.

Moleys not wrong  when Valencia shuttles tok you to the old town, then it was quite a nice place to visit, however for those who just enjoy a wander around, then Cartagena is a great place to visit.

If you have made a big mistake, then countless thousands of others with future bookings must have done the same, so you will be in good company with plenty of others to moan to about your big mistake.😉😇

39 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

???.

You were not there John so how do you know??.

The Lake district view and fruit Scones are posted for others to enjoy not to criticise.

Regards Graham 

Not a criticism Graham, just a personal opinion.

1 hour ago, grapau27 said:

I like your scone Style Sue.

Butter.

Jam

Cream is what we do.

This was ours at the Inn on the Lake on Lake Ullswater a couple of weeks ago.

It is 13°C and clouding up now after sunshine earlier.

 

 

That is not clotted cream!!

1 hour ago, david63 said:

Never seen that on any travel insurance policy that I have had and unless the insurance company was to ask the specific question about an alternative port then it is highly unlikely that they would know anyway.

 

I would still contend that even if a port is substituted that there is a claim for missed port - unless the cruise states that it will visit six unnamed ports.

I thought that all cruise line T&Cs state that the itinerary is subject to change, which  is why you don't receive any compensation for "minor" changes, only for major ones and the cruise lines rarely make major ones, so they say.

2 hours ago, Ardennais said:

Just shows that Princess can also be inconsistent. I don’t think there can ever be a perfect system! 

You are correct, but having done several cruises on both lines I can categorically state that on average the Princess system(s) are far superior to P&O. In fact we haven't experienced a bad embarkation experience on a Princess cruise when sailing from the UK, and only one when sailing from Fort Lauderdale, which was due to a deep clean following a Noro outbreak.

46 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

It’s not P&O policy, it’s Carnival U.K. policy…. Being P&O, Cunard, and, U.K. homeported Princess ships.

 

I’ve not yet managed to find the change in legislation that has brought this in.

 

And certainly don’t understand the apparently heavy implementation by Carnival U.K.

We did not require a pre booked evacuation chair for our May Princess cruise from Southampton.

1 hour ago, Ardennais said:

To be honest, it wasn’t a poor experience as such, just some waiting (sitting down inside) and as I had my Kindle, I was already in holiday mode and switched off! 
If it hadn’t been for some comments on here saying that the Princess embarkation was superior, I don’t think actually we would have gone there so early. I was just curious to see how it would work. I mean common sense tells me that if everyone turns up at the earlier times, then there’s going to be waiting. So how does it work then if there’s ‘open’ embarkation? 

We are in the top Elite tier of the Princess Captains circle and are supposed to get some sort of priority boarding, but then so are the majority of our fellow passengers, we also receive wheelchair assistance which might also give us a slight advantage. But whatever the reason we sailed through boarding on both occasions, and were on Sky Princess in about 15 minutes from entering the terminal.

6 hours ago, Ardennais said:

Well my last cruise was with Princess and we were allowed to turn up any time after 11am. I was wondering how that would work and turned out that we took ages to embark. So not such a good system after all. Much prefer being given a time with P&O which has worked so well recently with speedy embarkation. Late embarkation doesn’t bother me. 

We have had 2 cruises with Princess in 2023 and 2024, and not had any problem at all with the embarkation procedure. However I can imagine that if the previous cruise had a delayed disembarkation, then the following cruise could well be affected, which might have been the reason you had such a poor experience.  And of course such a situation would equally impact the P&O procedure, so I still feel that the Princess, RC, Celebrity, MSC etc system is light years better than P&O, and they really need to fine tune their procedures and join the rest of the cruise industry in the 21st century.

5 hours ago, molecrochip said:

I would expect the embarkation time to update nearer the time.

 

Unless it’s a short voyage where embarkation lunches aren’t offered, I would turn up around 12:30, your boarding pass will show priority boarding, and I don’t expect a problem.

 

The call centre will always tell you that t your boarding is the time and it can’t be changed as so many people ask to change however your suite benefits go give you that embarkation lunch benefit.

If you do have direct contact with P&O Moley, perhaps you should advise them to ensure their agents are fully trained and understand all the benefits that apply to their passengers bookings, just like their better TAs. Just saying......