terrierjohn

You will still need to unload your luggage and wheel it to the drop off location, then drive round to P4C in the short stay car park. But we use them because they are usually cheaper than CPS, although if you are select that may no longer apply.

It's not too complex really, on our last 2 Iona cruises, on one I booked nothing in advance, and on the second I did book one or two shows before the cruise. Both cruises went smoothly and other than the first night we encountered very little queueing for dinner, and the MDR virtual queue system worked fairly smoothly and we received confirmation that our table was ready within 10-20 minutes. However the host stations don't seem to operate as efficiently as they could, we were directed to join some tables where others had already ordered, as well as having to sometimes wait for the table to fill up. I would have expected that when I say I am prepared to share a table, that the app would wait for all 6, 8 Or 10 passengers to be available before declaring our table is ready. Tables for 2 of course won't have this problem.

I agree with ICF, if indeed people are not turning up for a booking, and had not cancelled it, then there should be a charge applied. That should ensure that the app only has genuine bookings, leaving spaces available for others to book. Maybe cancelled slots should open up at a specific time, so passenger know when to check for availability.

Yes it does, but not sure about embarkation day.

I dont think that the Olive grove opens for pre booking, but once on board you can book it for anytime and not just early times like the MDR,it also sometimes opens up a virtual queue, and you can go to the desk to see if it's available.

The current M3 roadworks do make Winchester less attractive as an overnight stay, probably better to find somewhere south of the M3/M27 junction.

Would that be his Just Deserts?

You may need to be out of your room by 10:30, but most hotels will allow you to use their lounge facilities for as long as you need.

Really enjoying your blog ICF, and agreeing with much of your comments. However we were disappointed with most of the Headliners shows on Iona, despite the high tech gizmos which they seem to rely on over song and dance content. Although I did enjoy the Chinese dragon dancing, which I think was part of The Skys The Limit. I also disagree with your suggestion that walking further into the buffet you will find lots of empty tables. We are always late into the buffet around 9:30-10:00, which seems the busiest time for breakfast, and at that time it is generally very full, and certainly we have great difficulty finding a free table with wheelchair access, but we always manage in the end.

Although our accessible cabin TV on Aurora did have a flat screen TV it was an older model and probably no more than a 24" screen. When I queried why we did not have a bigger wall mounted 32" TV, it was because they thought the older TV would be adequate. Poor thinking by P&O as most disabled passenger tend to spend more time in their cabins, and watch more TV than average.

But you can wait until you are on board, if you have more OBC than you could possibly spend on normal cruise costs.

What about Kusadasi for Ephesus, and Aqaba for Petra, to name but 2 of many hundreds.

How can pre purchase ever be cheaper than paying with free OBC?

I will be quite happy with either of them, both seem to fill their away allocation, and we have similar recent records against them both.

That is the way P4C recomend you operate, otherwise you will have to carry all your luggage back to the drop off point.

I hope Leeds encounter the real West Ham today, the one that made last season one of their best ever. As an HTFC fan I want to be playing against Leeds next season.

I just dont understand how P&O can be so inept in the way they handle a simple thing like boarding, all they have to do is pop down to City terminal and see how RCI operate the Royal caribbean and Celebrity boarding. Of course they do need to dock earlier than 6:30 on turnround day, so they can unload all the luggage in time to commence standard disembarcation no later than 7:30. In that way they dont need to bother with having passengers assemble in specific lounges, they just open up the gangway and let passengers turn up at their designated time, or earlier or later as they see fit. That way there is little queuing and a speedy throughput of passengers, and the same policy then applies to boarding, you open it up at 10:30 - 11:00, and you get a steady throughput of passengers without any long queues.

It does seem generous at current share prices, but Carnival do not make any money on share purchases whatever the price is. So it seems unlikely they would discontinue the shareholder benefit based solely on share price. However if they feel the offer is too generous, or they need to bolster their profits, then they might look at adjusting the amount of OBC. But I doubt we are talking about enough money to make either option attractive to Carnival.

I think you must right, got home today and diesel at our local Esso filling station, ( it was BP last Friday when we left, ) is now 151.9p per litre, just a shame I could only squeeze 20 litres in to fill up the tank.

Harry all your observations are second hand for post covid cruises, and whilst there have been plenty of posts which do raise complaints, there are equally as many that are more than happy with the current P&O standard.

It was a Tesco filing station, and just done about 10 miles back to the holiday cottage without so much as a stutter, so I assume it was the pukka stuff. I paid 155.9 p per litre just over a week ago back in Huddersfield, and not seen anything on the news about a sudden drop. Could it be tractor juice they sell over here.

I have just paid 135.9p for diesel in Mablethorpe which was 8p per litre cheaper than petrol. Is this just local or is this price now UK wide?

City terminal also has security first which seems to flow much better than either Ocean or Mayflower, and like MSC, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity start boarding much earlier than P&O, however their ships do tend to arrive in Southampton earlier as well, Celebrity normally dock about 04:30, but I am sure P&O could do the same if they wanted.

As far back as I remember there have always been 6 categories in each cabin grade, and each grade represents a different cabin type, there are possibly more types of cabin now on the bigger ships, where they added Conservatory mini suites, but most ships have all the other grades.

He would also likely be arrested.😥