terrierjohn

We have tried a couple of the different varieties, but IMHO the original is still by far the best.

I would, and I still enjoy an occasional Mars or Snickers bar.

I agree with your final points, we find the PI beds to be too low and the P&O beds to be too high for easy access, an average of the two would probably be ideal.

I was beginning to think I must be in a minority at not having come across many feral kids or loutish parents on our cruises. But like you we no longer want to be sitting near the pools, never mind trying to swim in them. We do notice the occasional noisy child, but not frequently enough to be bothered by them. However when we do notice well mannered children, we do like to let the parents know, if we find the opportunity. So maybe it is the areas of the ship that we frequent, that are not popular with these poorly patented children and ill mannered parents.

It does have to sail from Southampton and back to get to the warm weather however, and the sea days in the Atjantic in May can be pretty chilly.

Re the fridge position, I wonder just how many solo wheelchair users there are cruising, my guess would be not many at all, so possibly rarely a problem.

It depends which ship you are on, the obstructed cabins on E deck on Ventura and Azura are exactly the same size and layout as the inside of the balcony cabins, and you get some daylight.

No that's wrong, we only have a manual folding wheelchair and always have an adapted cabin. However motorised scooter and chair users do have to book an adapted cabin, even if their chair can be folded, which does seem way too pedantic on P&Os part.

Cadbury says that Dairy milk no longer contains palm oil, as of march 2023. I am into Toblerone at present, sainsbury are selling the big bars at £3.50 with a nectar card. Toblerone is also owned by Mondelez, and also says it does not contain palm oil .

I think it is only motorised scooters or wheelchairs where you have to book an adapted cabin. A folding manual wheelchair is OK in a standard cabin.

How many years ago was this Kalos, surely they e-mail, WhatsApp or messenger documents nowadays. Although having said that for her hospital appointments my wife gets an appointment card, then a follow up patient portal letter, and sometimes a further copy by post.

I generally tick the box about requiring assistance for boarding and disembarking, but always push Pauline's wheelchair myself. That is because we are always directed to the assistance area, and if you have not ticked the box you are not on their list, which does cause quite a bit of confusion. On disembarking we tend to follow Selbourne"s policy of avoiding the assistance assembly point and walking straight to the gangway, so far that's been 100% successful.

It's always better to have a lower price rather than extra OBC, but the cruise lines would prefer to give you OBC, which means they are guaranteed to win.

Why indeed? A somewhat dubious marketing ploy from P&O.

The lifts are quite small when compared to Azura, Ventura and Britannia, and positively minuscule when compared to RCI and Celebrity lifts, which could almost double as ballrooms! .

You have a great deal more faith in the hotel staff having the time or inclination to check the mobility of the passengers in their cabin list, or for any other staff to identify struggling passengers, know their cabin numbers, and be able to note it all down, and keep up to date with their routine jobs.

Your Carnival cruise was presumably a fly cruise, only Azura does Med fly cruises, and these have 2 sea days per 7 day cruise, which is 4 on a 14 nt cruise, as opposed to normally 7 on a 14 nt roundtrip Southampton med cruise on P&O, although this can be reduced to 4 or 5 on some Princess or RCI cruises.

How will the crew have a clear idea of who will require help when there is currently no emergency drill. At least on the old system the stairway guides could have identified those needing help, by the numbers that required the lifts. Now that no longer exists I wonder why you think that having a form filled in up to two years before the cruise will give staff any clue as to how many passengers will need help, nor will they know how this might impact the speed at which passengers progress to their muster stations.

I have not checked the deck plans but there may be no outside cabins with a sofa or Pullman bunk, which means that normally these cabins could not take 3 passengers. Just a pity that their agents are not bright enough to realise that a 6 month baby does not need a bed.

But if you follow your theory, then P&O will need to double the numbers of staff, just to ensure they have enough staff to assist all the walking stick passengers using the stairs in an emergency.

Probably the Blue Peter breakfast!😄

Not if his phone was out action?

But to be fair to ICF the Skydome pool area even when full will only hold a couple of hundred or so people, and clearly they cannot be representative of the entire 5500 passengers.

For those who have already filled in the old ones, I read it that you only need to complete a new questionnaire if circumstances have changed.

It's a question of whether you go by gross tonnage (volume) or passenger capacity. However RCIs current 5 Oasis class ships, with a 6th on order, are currently way ahead of the rest on both tonnage and passenger capacity, and their next generation Icon of the seas due to launch next year will be even bigger. So despite Carnival's planned 9 excel class ships, RCI is still way ahead in both volume and passenger capacity.