terrierjohn

It seems that trying to cater for veggies and vegans has reduced the choice for the majority of passengers who are neither, which would seem an even more stupid business choice.

There were lots of portrait photographers on Iona last week, they had a great offer of 10 photos for only £100!!!!!!

My Holiday says the table will be held for 15 minutes, whether it be a regular booking or the virtual queue, I have no idea whether the hosts follow this rigidly or not. However IMO the main problem is that anyone having a regular booking before 7:00 causes that table to be left empty, because they cannot guarantee that an early diner will have vacated the table in time for it to be be reset. Similarly the same situation applies to passengers who have an 8:30pm reservation, if the table is not ready by 6:30, then it will have to remain out of use. Again, only IMO, pre booking should be abandoned and emphasis put on the virtual queue, although walk ups for those who can't or won't use the My Holidat system are a much better option than pre booking.

If you are talking about a Princess cruise, then unless you are Elite in their loyalty scheme, then you can only book dining reservations once the final balance has been paid. However they also allow walk ups and this does not seem to lead to long delays.

I honestly don't think an App would improve the tech, there is nothing in an App that a website cannot provide equally as well. However the website could certainly be improved, currently it shows restaurants and entertainment as being fully booked, when experience tells us that this is clearly untrue. I think that this Is definitely a website where AI could create a massive improvement.

Are ice cream, cakes, cheese and biscuits acceptable vegan foods?

I agree that the World Market Place buffet on Sky Princess is far better than any P&O ships buffet. The serveries are maintained to a far higher standard both in content and appearance, and the choice is way beyond anything we have experienced on any P&O ship.

We found that the latest times we could book a sharing table in DMW, was before 7:00pm, and quite often this was too early for us, and no later times were available on the app to switch ot to. So we had to join the non booking queue, which was a variable experience.

I dont think Princess is any better at all, with dine my way you need to book well before you cruise otherwise there is very little choice. This of course means that you will have difficulty with changing times. So far less flexibility that P&Os virtual queue, which in our experience settles down after the first couple of days and operates really well, or at least it does except for the main school holiday times.

This is the reason why I prefer the fresh disembarkation labels that are coloured and have a time code on them. If you then disembark as they announce your colour the luggage is all in the same place, and since the earliest disembarkation luggage is at the luggage hall entrance, then the hall empties towards the exit avoiding the rugby scrum that is the P&O experience.

I wondered if everyone had set off for their easter break on Friday or Saturday, we have never seen the main routes as quiet for the last 20 years.

We were also on this cruise and agree with some of your comments. We thought the food quality was reasonably good, but the choice was limited for for non veggies, which is probably 90% of passengers. Disembarkation was poor, not helped by the 90 minute delay in arrival time, I have given my views on this elsewhere. We did not experience your problems with finding a seat, possibly helped because my wife sits in her wheelchair, but the reluctance of most people to share with others leaves lots of empty single chairs. Despite the poor weather we really enjoyed the cruise, and met many interesting dinner companions.

The inset cabins on deck 15 will be more shaded from the overhanging deck above than those on deck 14.

Probably not, because like most guest entertainers, his availability will not be known until a few months before sailing. But the precedent was set when Barlow did his first show on board, and I understand the proceeds go to charity and not to Barliw or P&O.

I agree with you regarding the lifts Michelle, and I have no idea why they are so small, if you check the gap between lifts, there must be ample room to fit lifts about 50%+ wider than the current ones.

I doubt that which charter airline is to be used is a high priority for the majority of P&O cruisers, I know it figures highly on here but we are a tiny fraction of the total number of Caribbean fly cruise passengers, most of whom are more than happy that P&O offer such a good service at way below schedule flight prices.

You may miss out on the lottery as well and not get a ticket.

I was highlighting that maybe seeing an AB passenger using an accessible cabin, might not be because they are cheating the system. Because P&O do their best to ensure that only genuinely disabled passengers are allowed to book them. Although how rigorously they check the disability level of scooter users needing an accessible cabin is another matter.

I have never measured cruise ship toilet heights, but certainly our Iona accessible cabin toilet was definitely higher than ouir standard toilet at home.

There are always likely to be able bodied passengers allocated to an accessible cabin, if one is available, especially on fly cruises. We dined with a couple last week on Iona who were in a deluxe accessible cabin, these are probably last minute cancellations, and the cruise had no wait list for accessible cabins, or they had no takers.

You do not appear to understand the effect that having timed labels has on the way the luggage hall empties from front to back, rather than the haphazard way it empties when passengers disembark by deck. This leads to the hall emptying in progression rather than passengers swarming all over creating chaos and slowing down the queues. In addition most cruise lines using this system do not request you attend a venue, but they make regular announcements calling for the next coloured group to disembark, and strangely this seems to reduce the crowding that is always apparent with P&O.

As the husband of a severely disabled wheelchair user, I would not be happy to see anti discrimination legislation trump safety issues when it comes to cruising or flying. On our recent cruise in addition to accessible cabin users, there were many hundreds of passengers who it seemed would have required significant help, in an emergency, to use stairs or to board any survival craft other than the large lifeboats. It is becoming increasingly concerning to me that if we were ever involved in an ultimate emergency, we would struggle to survive.

Apologies for the long delay @TigerB, no we didn't venture out at Tenerife, it was cloudy quite cold for the Canaries, and showers were forecast, which duly arrived with regularity. But I will keep your map for any future Canaries cruise

Why do we have to wait for Easter to be happy?

But you can take milk from the buffet, use a coffe mug or a plastic water glass, then keep it in your fridge. Also less fiddly than the plastic tubes.