terrierjohn

Royal Princess based in Southampton???

Well it is if this thread is correct.

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1964909

Southampton is going to be crowded with big ships in 2015, as well as Britannia, Royal Princess and Anthem of the seas are all based there in 2015.

Hopefully they'll address this by offering more fly-cruises around Greece and Turkey, perhaps use a Greek Isle as a home port, the concentrate on the western Med with the Southampton itineraries.

Although we no longer fly I would have no objection to P&O basing another ship in the Med for fly cruises. However it has been pointed out on another thread that P&O are having to bribe TA's with lots of freebies to drum up bookings for Ventura this summer, so seems unlikely unless there is a last minute rush.

I would also like to see some alternative Western Med itineraries that did not include Rome & Venice and included some Balearic islands as well as different Spanish & French ports. But I imagine they will want to keep Rome and Florence, if only to attract new and infrequent repeat cruisers.

I thought there had been a discussion on these boards last year that about £100 pppn was about the right price. This would give you a starting price of at least £700 for a 7 night cruise.

Does anyone who wants to spend less than this amount ever stay in half decent hotels in the UK.,plus you normally have to pay for your food on top.

You have all your meals included on board , and drink prices are cheaper than ashore.

Also if you read these boards before booking you would know in advance that if you book one grade and wish to upgrade you will always be quoted the prices when booking, not what they are now.

If it is any help I had to contact customer services about something and was told the turnaround for queries was at least 20 days. Not really good these days, but if you are waiting for a reply that is the sort of timescale you are looking at.

And if you go for a superior room in a decent hotel, you expect to pay more...

and don't get any entertainment nor such a selection of bars nor an ever changing view .. .. . .. .etc

I despair of these typical P&O cruisers who despite seeing far more competitive offerings of much superior products continue to defend their "wonderful" cruise line.:confused::confused::confused:

Why not make the price more realistic in the first place and forget all the controversial discounting,

A week on Azura to the Fjords was advertised at around £1200 each for a standard balcony cabin which to be honest is more than we want to pay for a weeks break in Aril or May. Last year on Getaway we eventually paid £599 each and some people even less than that.

Why not just advertise it a £750 ish in the first place, then you get the early bookers and draw in the people with a smaller budget? without all the grief of discounting, adding OBD etc.

How ridiculous, stop being so sensible.:cool::rolleyes:

We have a vantage fare cruise booked for world cruise section. We booked early and vantage as itinerary matched our needs. We have to take on the chin fact that same cruise is now close to three thousand pounds less on getaway. However I noticed that the getaway difference between an outside and a balcony was only a £100 per person, so I contacted TA to get a quote to upgrade to balcony and the price was £700 each person. The ship is a balcony heavy one and this suggested to me that quite a surplus of balcony cabins available but even so the extra quoted was as if we had booked the balcony at original fare ; no concession at all.

 

I have e mailed customer services 10 days ago asking for clarification but so far no reply.

 

Anyone had any luck on similar .

 

Happy cruiser ( mostly)

 

Carol

Have you paid the balance yet? If not try to cancel and rebook at the lower price.

Also docking 22 April, 24 June, 22 September; so 4 stops in total for Gibraltar.

Gibralter is going to become a far more regular stop for all Med cruises, as it allows the cruise to keep its drink and shop prices VAT free. Now that most N African ports are being avoided there are fewer Med. ports that are no longer part of the EU.

Hi will travelling on emerald to Baltic in June stateroom E325 all the pictures I have seen show bed under window is it possible to have this changed Thankyou for your for comments .

All obstructed and even non obstructed cabins on E deck have exactly the same set up as standard balcony cabins with the bedhead against a side wall, as per this link.... http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/ep/deck_plans/?stateroom=E325

You can have the bed set up as a queen or as 2 singles with a bedside table between them.

If X will let you transfer the booking, including the deposit, and you can get your own flights cheaper then go with that.

If not you still have the best deal currently available.

41497655[/color]]Why on earth are you going on about this. We all know prices drop nearer to sail date. Yes the prices are cheaper' date=' but you get 2nd in line for dining choice,table size,chance of an upgrade etc.

You would have to be A very silly person in deed to think that vantage/select fares would remain until sailing date.

There are no price promise guarantees with select fares. Also if a cruise is selling well they may never issue early saver fares, you would just have the very cheap fares close to sailing date,with no choices.[/quote']

Not sure what your point is but Princess have have reduced my May cruise in line with their current much lower offer. I also understand that Royal Caribbean and Celebrity will honour price drops as well, and in all these cases the original reservation retains the same cabin and dining choice.

So why don't P&O?:mad:

Can someone advise on this please, does the sofa in a mini suite make up into a 2 person bed, or is there a pullman bunk above it?

All C deck balconies are now classed as premium balconies, so this is definitely a downgrade.

Our TA advises that they will match price drops for UK passerngers, in most instances. However, perhaps fortunately, as we book very early to guarantee an accessible cabin we have never seen the price for our grade of balcony bettered in the last 3 years. Sometimes the base price looks lower but on investigation our 2B grade is not.

As a result we are very happy to continue booking early, expecting that our price will be as low as it gets.

Tuscan :)

Totally agree if only for the view over the wake.

But on Celebrity some people get their drinks thrown in and some do not, so there is a difference there. This is just the same as some people getting extra OBC. You cannot get away from it.

 

 

 

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How, it is when you are wrong you have a go at me. If the facts are correct then accept them. Celebrity do exactly what P&O and Princess and NCL and everyone else does try to fill cabins by offering discounts in one way or the other.

 

You persist in knocking P&O, I am only pointing out that they all do the same thing.

 

But you keep on having a go at me and then I know I am winning and right.

Dai

Dai, Dai, Dai, You really must stop assuming that everyone who makes a critical comment about P&O is wrong, and you as champion cheerleader are always right.

I'm not sure why you think Celebrities free drinks package is a pointer in your favour, but even with that and $300 OBC as my 2 items from their 123go offer, it would not compensate me for the extra £805pp that my September cruise currently costs vs the price I paid last April.

Contrast that with most of P&O's current extra OBC offers, where the majority of current prices remain the same as the early booking offers, leaving most early bookers out of pocket by the new OBC, and paying considerably more than the best getaway or equivalent deals

However I shall reserve judgement until all the new summer 2015 brochures are out, and if P&O are offering a cruise I fancy at a competitive price, then I might be interested. But I am not holding my breath.

But on Celebrity some people get their drinks thrown and some do not, so there is a difference there. This is just the same as some people getting extra OBC. You cannot get away from it.

 

 

 

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You really are scraping the bottom of the barrel now Dai to keep up your P&O cheerleading.

I thought RCI were also building a 3rd Oasis class, as well as the new Quantum's?

If I ever begin discussing how much I paid for any cruise or holiday, I will be highly concerned at my skills of small talk.

Interesting comment, however, as a Yorkshireman, I think we all like to grab a bargain if we can, and I suspect that a lot of the comments about avoiding any discussions on how much or how little you paid for your cruise is to avoid the angst you would feel when you discovered you had overpaid on your P&O Vantage or select fare vs a late getaway or similar deal.

Unfortunately I doubt I will be on board any P&O ship in the immediate future to participate in such a discussion.

Because we need to book early to guarantee we get an accessible cabin, we have jumped ship to ensure that we are able to benefit from any price drops as a reduction in our booking cost, no excess OBC that we struggle to spend, and no subtle differences in the type of offer to avoid giving a reduction.

So our dinner discussions on Princess and Celebrity can avoid the topic altogether since everyone can have paid at most the last advertised price prior to final payment.

Simples.

Again this is true. We have had price drops on cruises with FCC and retained OBC as it was still applicable at the time. You would only lose deposits if it were within 180 days and FCC are only small anyway. Salad Muncher might also be within the 180 days and liable for a lost deposit

Our second price drop was well within the 180 days but our TA was still able to keep the original booking ref., all the FCC perks and we lost no deposits but we did lose the free parking we had opted for as part of the 1st price drop offer.

It is very true that some TA's are much better than others.

Interesting this issue of changing to higher quality fuel oil. We went to an engineering presentation on Celebrity Eclipse in which they were proud to tell us that they had already changed and how clean their emissions were. Two days later all the sunbeds on the top deck were covered in soot spots. Clearly burning any hydrocarbon can result in sooty emissions sometimes.

We had great difficulty in getting a price drop honoured. We booked via a travel agent using our Princess Future cruise credit. Price had dropped by more than £1,500 in total. The travel agent offered a reduction of £50 each. Or the option to cancel and rebook (which would lose the OBC and deposit of the FCC). Neither were tempting.

 

We ended up moving the booking to a transatlantic later in the year.

 

 

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You also were given the wrong info., our booking is also against a FCC and we have retained the OBC and the lower deposit and still have the same booking ref. Clearly you need to think about changing your TA, try the major one near Chesterfield in future.

Thanks for your response. We are travelling early July 2014. Surprisingly I have just received a call from my TA. I have been told they will change the booking if I require with a total reduction of only £160 BUT they would take away my OBC of $285 and reduce it to $100 but would also include a framed photo ! I think they are actually telling me that I should cancel and re-book under different T&Cs rather than just passing the reduction on to my current booking. So much for their Price Promise....this price reduction was offered on the Princess Website for the cabin almost next door to ours!

If the current offer from Princess for your cabin grade would equate to a reduction of more than the £160 your TA quotes, then you are being given the wrong info.

We have a cruise booked in May last year for May this year and Princess has met 2 price drops via our TA, reducing our total cost by over 40% (our booking includes 3 children where the current offer is only £99 each which is why the reduction is so high). However you might lose out on OBC if the current offer is not as generous as the original.

Check the current offer again and get back to your TA if you think you are being short changed.

Getting back to the original comment by the OP, I am amazed at the level of criticism of Celebrity, even if most is fairly minor. As a penance I think all those who have complained should be forced to take an over priced early booked cruise on P&O, after 24 hours on board you will all be desperate to get back to Celebrity.

There is no on/off switch, at least i did not find it on my last two cruises (S-Class).

We went to an environment lecture on Eclipse last year, the environment officer stated that A/C controls in the cabin cannot be switched off, and setting them at max or min just fouls up the room. His recommendation was to make minor changes to the thermostat, this is the most effective way to control your room temp.

Titanic had buff funnels. Costa funnels are more yellow with a massive C printed on them.

 

The correct colour name was always buff.

 

As I said earlier the P&O house flag represents Spain and Portugal so why they think Britain is the main country to be represented is beyond me. All their past ship names were a multicultural reflection on the destinations they could reach to.

Why mention Titanic's funnel colour in relation to the new P&O livery?