terrierjohn

But you dont get cash back, its either an upgrade or OBC.

Do they have any crew cabins below the water line?

What if your plus was a special 50% off deal, do you not get free Ocean now and room service, and when does kick in?

Sounds just like my covid symptoms. .

You can and we did on our recent cruise, but the DR staff always wanted to push us onto a table for 2, and never seemed to have a sharing table open, and dragged their feet about starting a new one.

That's the best thing about what used to be Anytime Dining, you usually had different table mates every night, which meant we had a variety of table mates that the old fixed dining did not provide.

When trying to reserve a (general) sharing table in Dine My Way, it seems I have to eat early before 6:20, anything after that it needs to be a private table for 2, or at least it does if I want a time around 7:30. My holiday is 10 months away so I assume the dining rooms are not getting booked up just yet, so what is the problem?

That cuuld make you very unpopular in some quarters!!!!!!

But you think the old muster drill was good practise for a real emergency? I dont know if the cabin TV video will be watched by everyone, but the most important bit IMHO is the recomendation to go back to your cabin, put on warm clothing and ensure you have all your medication with you. You probably dont even need to take your lifehacker, never ming know how to put it on, all that could be sorted once you're in the muster station. But hopefully none of us will ever be required to put it into practice.

Yes.

So you're asked to go to your muster station in an emergency, which may result in you abandoning ship, leaving behind all your holiday clothing and personal possessions and possibly being tossed around in a small unheated lifeboat for several hours, or even in the sea or a smaller life raft if you're unlucky, and you have no idea what you should take with you???? If that's the case then maybe you should not be taking a cruise holiday.

If you remember these took place in hot overcrowded lounges with lots of people with frayed tempers wishing they were somewhere else. Not the best scenario for absorbing crucial safety information, much better to watch and listen to the video repeating the same info several times as you unpack your luggage before a leisurely stroll around the ship to find a tempting bar to start your holiday cruise.

I thought this galley and dining room staff leaflet from Sky Princess might interest a few of you. I haven't totalled them up, but there are several hundred crew needed to keep us all fed when we go cruising.

The P&O maps are fairly useless, and dont seem to be anywhere near as good as the local tourist maps. In fact I often wonder if they are for the same ports!

I am over the worst now, no idea how I managed to drive back on Saturday, must have been adrenaline overdrive. Not unexpectedly I have passed it on to Mrs TJ and she is now going through the sore throat, headache, high temp, shivering and shaking symptoms, which has reduced her impaired mobility to nearly zero. So I hope she will be over the worst by tomorrow.

Yes they seem to have at least 2, one was 2024 the other 2022, so maybe I only have half covid, however the test line was so dark it was almost purple!!

Unfortunately the P&O app does not have a location monitor like the Princess medallion system.

Wowzz has been AWOL since early May, which is a long time for a normal suspension from CC, I believe Kalos said he was still posting on other SM sites, but it is worrying that he has been absent so long.

If you are sociable, and like to get involved in activities on the many sea days that a Caribbean round trip has, then you may not want to be in your cabin for much of the day anyway. So the £2000 will cover most of the shore excursions you will want to take, as well as most of the drinks you might want, with a bit left over as well.

One extra feature I seem to have brought home from the cruise is covid, tested positive this morning, after feeling fairly ropey over the weekend. Thought it might be the vicious strain of tonsillitis doing the rounds, as I have a sore throat, and of course i have no idea if the old test kits are still accurate.

Just adding a few more comments about Sky Princess. The disembarkation went very smoothly and ahead of schedule, we were given a time of 8;25 which is our favoured time. We were a little later and found that most Yellow 2 cases had been collected, and our 3 were together and looking very lonely. Clearly this system is much better than P&Os one of keeping the old embarkation labels by deck, and why is it that they cannot keep passengers luggage together, Princess, Celebrity and RCI all manage it. Cabin toiletries are Lotus Spa, with handwash and body lotion on the wash basin, and shower gel and shampoo and conditioner in the shower. We had 2 facecloths which were changed daily, however the bath towels were much smaller than those on P&O, but still adequate. We had turndown service every evening, but no pillow chocs. Overall we had a thoroughly enjoyable cruise on Sky Princess, and we are looking forward now to next May's Med cruise on her, but before that we have a March Canaries cruise on Iona, which I am sure we wil equallyl enjoy.

We do the same, mainly because we only go ashore for 2 or 3 hours, and never feel hungry enough to want to eat before mid afternoon at the earliest.

I think that only applies to a lower priced offer that you see advertised in the first 48 hrs after booking. The price matching that provides a large discount is usually given as a special deal to loyal cruisers, you're right that these are normally given to US passengers, but as I indicated, we did get a very generous 40% reduction on a Southampton Princess sailing, mainly because they introduced big discounts for children, and we were taking 3 under 10s.

COMPARING PRINCESS WITH P&O. We are just coming to the end of our 14 night Sky Princess cruise to the Baltic and these are my views about the current comparison of the 2 lines on similar ships. Ship decor:- Princess wins this hands down if like us you appreciate glitz. This is most noticeable in the Atrium which is where in the Piazza, as Princess call deck 5, there is live music every night from the party band and other on board entertainers, with lots of dancing to pop music mainly from the 60s through to the 90s. In comparison Britannia's Atrium resembles a John Lewis store, although probably less exciting. Food, choice and standard; again a win for Princess all the way from the buffet, with far wider choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, through to the MDR dinner menus, not forgetting Alfredos included pizza restaurant and the free room service menu. Service standards; here again Princess are the winners. The reason for this I would attribute to the way the senior hotel staff manage their teams, and are not afraid to get stuck in themselves. But even more apparent is the friendly approach they give to their work, as a wheelchair user's carer, there is always someone to help you remove a chair or push the wheelchair, and when talking to the staff they all seem to want to go out of their way to make your holiday special. Entertainment; we did not go to any theatre shows or even the Vista lounge entertainment, but from listening to other passengers, the standard and variety is probably on a par with P&O. We tended to eat around 7:30 and spent the rest of the evening in the Piazza listening to the music and enjoying watching a full dance floor. Here again Princess excel, in addition to the party band, they have 3 or 4 groups of other musicians who also perform in the Piazza, and the standard of these musicians is on a par with the very best we have seen on P&O, and far better than the average. Trying to find areas where P&O are better is not easy, however the Princess "Dine my way" pre booking system is, IMO, an even bigger disaster than P&Os app system. I probably left it too late to pre-book our dining times and could not find anything later than 6:20 for any night. As a result we were never ready in time, and could not change to any later time, so we gave up trying and just went when we were ready. But this proved problematic, we prefer a sharing table, but the dining room hosts only wanted to offer tables for 2, we had to insist on them opening a new sharing table, however this often meant delays in filling the table, and frequently a less than full table. Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our Princess cruise, but it was helped that we had excellent weather, very little rain, it was never too hot and had lots of sunshine. Of course Princess prices are much higher than P&O and we would probably not book with them unless it was a special offer deal, and even then we probably paid about 15-20% more, although we did have the plus package which also includes specially coffees, all soft drinks and water, and free wi fi. In addition as Elite Captains circle members we get free laundry and 10% discount on all shopping on board, and that discount does extend to any OBC.

So they intend to replace the ship emissions with another 30,000 trucks travelling over the cheaper bridge they intend to build. Seems a very sensible arrangement for a city council to make.🤣😇