shallwe

It'll be my first time with an 18 year old on Oriana on the 11th of this month. She always went to the kids clubs until about 15 and made good friends. When she was 16 she went on Oceana and came back saying that all the other girls were "plastic" (make up, drinking/smoking/teenyboppers etc) and she had nothing in common with them.

Fortunately we met a family onboard with a daughter her age with whom she has a lot in common; they are still friends. We cruised on the Azura with them the following year and they will be on Oriana so at least she will have a friend aboard. I think they are both a bit concerned that they will be the only 18 year olds though!

There will be lots aged 18 or around that sge,dont worry

Not on Oriana there won't!

....weird predatory type people... Seeing children go into a cabin on their own? ...

I don't think they'll escape very far, and with the amount of CCTV on board.......

Thank you warringtonian for the advice. After patches being mentioned I did look online for them but they only seemed to be available on prescription after being "consulted" by an online doctor. I will avoid them. Surprised about anti-histamines being helpful for sea sickness...just thought they were a treatment for allergies but certainly worth a try.

The anti-histamine type (they are actually for sea sickness rather than stings etc.) are usually for those who can't take the other type due to a medical condition, hence the reason why I take one type with me (the anti-histamine type) and my wife takes the more common type with her.

I didn't need them on my last very rough cruise, but I'm still going to take them on my next cruise as you never can tell.

I'm not, and never have been a serving member, retired member or any other member of the military services.

However, my respect for them is and always has been immense and as such I am thrilled that they have been given this extra credit.

It's a strange think this seasickness....I'm not actually sick at all but it completely takes my balance and I am unable to focus so that I can't seem to function at all...I just have to lie on the bed otherwise I would fall over. I have been through BOB when it has been extremely rough...ship listed....but felt OK and then sailed in relatively calm waters and felt terrible.It must be more to do with the actual ship's certain movement through water than the actual roughness of the seas.

And I think this sums it up. It may or may not happen, and the roughness of the sea may or may not have a causal effect. And the symptoms can change from person to person.

My newby advise? Take some tablets with you as it will be cheaper than using the medical facility on board, but only use a tablet if you need it.

Check out tomsportguides.com (http://www.tomsportguides.com/portguides.html and download the Livorno guide. He has a section for Lucca in there including maps etc. Very informative.

After reading loads of posts here concerning seasickness, we brought 2 packets for me (I can only have a certain sort), and 2 packets of another type for my wife for our first cruise.

The only tablet that was taken was by my wife on the first morning as the English Channel storm during that night was a bit of a belter. Neither of us took any more tablets for the rest of the cruise even though the BOB was very rough.

I'm still going to take them with us for our next cruise but its as a just-in-case remedy only, not necessarily because they will be needed.

Seasickness does not necessarily affect everyone or anyone.

Just a quick question concerning the port timetable linked to above, do I take it that the times are local times for that particular port?

No, just too far ahead, I think, shallwe, or at least I hope so, because we're on Britannia Dec. 2015 too and darling daughter is already planning wardrobe! Would hate to have to tell her it's not happening!!:eek:

I did notice quite a few other cruise ships were already showing up on the timetable, but not Britannia. It could be because it's not in service yet and they are waiting until then.

A cummerbund can also hide a belly quite well and even the trousers that no longer fasten with the button and need a safety pin can all be hidden behind a cummerbund - they have many uses.

I tried this, but the cummerbund lost :mad:

My, my, my. Don't you just love this forum.

Somebody says something that upsets the traditionalists and all hell lets loose.

Nothing different some of the other forums I subscribe to, but even the football club forum I'm part of is less vitriol than this one.

You guys/gals really know how to make new and old members welcome................

.............not.

This is the Oceana going through the BoB taken from the Ventura

.

 

This one is a compilation of short ship videos when things don't quite go to plan

there are lots on youtube.

But apart from that, BOB is fine :p

Great link, thanks. Got my Western Med port times sorted now.

The worry is, Britannia isn't showing up for my December 2015 Caribbean cruise. Do they know something I don't ;)

We missed the worst going down by about 12 hours and the ship missed La Coruna and went direct to the Canaries. Oriana a couple of days before had a hell of a time getting out of the same port.

 

 

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Great video of it here http://

I've never been seasick yet, but I've heard it can affect anyone at anytime at sea. Hopefully I resist the urge!

Both the English Channel and the BOB were rough as hell last February.

It was brilliant! :eek:

I am paying less than £100 per day on most of my cruises, so I think its excellent.

This.

Loads of things went wrong on my one and only cruise on Oriana in February, but it didn't stop me from rebooking two more cruises (you have to take into account that one of these was 'free' due to the last one being a bit of a flop.)

It may have gone totally wrong but the wife and I are very forgiving and absolutely loved the experience.

So is breaking the speed limit but 4 out of 5 drivers admit to doing it.

 

If you brought your 200 duty free cigarettes back from your cruise then sold them to your neighbour then went to the local Police Station to admit your crime, you would either be laughed out of the station or arrested for wasting Police time!

They should be hung, drawn & quartered.

What do you mean you can't do that nowadays?

Dammit!

I took a cummerbund with me that goes with one of the bow ties I took and wore it the once that I wore the tie in question. But I wouldn't have felt out of place had I not had a cummerbund as the majority didn't wear them.

There's one in the cabin in Oriana that the wife found fine.

Can't say I remember where it was as I didn't use it myself due to being follicly challenged :(

A bit of a meaningless post here but here goes: -

If I bought the requisite 100 shares today, could I then claim the £150 OBC for my October cruise, wait for the confirmation email, then resell the shares straight away?

Like I say, it's a bit of a meaningless post because I appreciate that you would lose money because of the quick trade except, if the price goes drastically higher within a couple or so days. Although, the £150 OBC would probably outweigh the trading costs and buy/sell differential.

It's a 'just out of interest' post.

My wife loves paper photos so on our last (and first) cruise we ended up spending about £70+ on photos and a frame. To be fair, some of the formal poses did come out quite nice, except that they could have been taken anywhere.

I've already primed the OH that we now have all the photos that we need and therefore our October cruise will be photo free.

Somehow, sadly I don't think that may be the case :mad:

With two months to go to our Western Med cruise, prices have suddenly gone up by £300 for an inside cabin. The saver fare is only £50 less than we paid per person and doesn't have our £300 OBC and free parking, so even though there may be some last minutes, very glad we booked early.

We got exactly the same deal for the same cruise as you Jean. The main difference is we bought ours on board Oriana in February and ended up with £440 OBC!

So it doesn't always pay to wait, sometimes you just need a little bit of luck on your side. Although to be fair, the early saver fare did drop on this cruise at one short point to give a saving of about £200pp.

It shows how fluid the prices are though, our Britannia cruise in December 2015 has already gone up by £100pp, and there's still 17 months to go.

There is no right or wrong answer its always a gamble its just a case of if you are happy with price book it. There is a chance that the price might go further down or up just check your cruise on P&Os website for up to date prices and if you are happy book it. A recent cruise on Azura to Baltics was reduced to £599 as a Saver fare but it soon went up and never came back down to that price prior to sailing.

I go along with majortom on this. We booked our first cruise for last February back in October/November 2013 and it turned out that that was the cheapest it ever got to.

It was a complete gamble and I paid the price I was happy with.

My Britannia cruise next year was booked very early on a Select fare which I know will be bettered on a saver fare later on. To me it was the price I wanted to pay (and I got the special offer at the time of 5% off for previous cruisers even though we still don't qualify for a penisular tier.

ITV have been on her for a look around this week - http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2014-07-31/uks-biggest-cruise-ship-built-in-southampton/

 

I think the link is misnamed but its worth a watch.

Great link, thank you.

Being a cruise newby, I thought I was only suited to mid-sized ships like Oriana, however my wife and I were impressed by the literature and took the plunge to book a sunny cruise on her for next December.

The more updates P&O give out, the more excited we are both getting. And we've still got Oriana to get through first (if it doesn't break down this time!)

Another idea is if you are with Virgin Media, you can download their Smartcall app on to your smartphone. Then when in port, find free wi-fi and you can then make calls using your Virgin domestic call plan. If this includes mobiles then these would be free calls as well as landline calls.

I'm on an anytime call plan so all calls are included 24/7/365

And it works, because I've tried it.