qm2lover

Spoke to our waiters on last night and they knew we had pre-paid our tips. Others have also had the same from their stewards. So I am convinced that all the stewards are well aware of who has tipped and how has not.

Thanks.

I know there has been a great deal of fuss over P&O's decision to try to make passengers adhere to the check in time noted on e tickets.

Are Cunard being just as strict?

We will probably arrive earlier than our given time, (just to allow for any situations en route) and will be quite happy to wait. But wondered if this was necessary.

What are your recent experiences with check in at Southampton?

TIA

Thanks everyone for your input - but it no longer matters as P&O are not bothering with any tours for Colon on their partial transit!

But looking forward to going back through the lock from the other direction!

But I think the new timings will be enforced from November ?

So previous experiences are not now relevant.

Great information - thank you.

If you are on a partial transit and go through Gatun locks early in the morning and back through the locks some time in the afternoon, what happens inbetween?

Does the ship just stop? Or does it go a little way round the lake? Does it anchor/hold position? Or just turns around?

I would be particularly interested in any tour information on P&O from Colon.

Do you get off the ship (by tender/local boat?) whilst ship is in the lake? Or do you have to wait until the ship is berthed in Colon?

TIA

Free ice cream always used to be available. They didnt advertise it and you had to ask (years ago they would walk round the open decks giving it out - New Forest ice cream in tubs).

In recent years it was available in the buffet at approximately 10.30 am. You had to 'be in the know' and ask. Often the staff would say no, but others would provide it. Often the staff would say available at 11 am, or 10.30 am or 10 am. We have not cruised with P&O for over 3 years now, so I dont know what their policy is now. I guess that by keeping free ice cream quiet and putting people off P&O have managed to get rid of another aspect of the cruise.

But I would really like to know if anyone has managed to get a free ice cream recently.

Had a great day in Brugge last Friday off the Celebrity Eclipse! No problems at all. But we had pre-booked a taxi by email before we left.

Got off the ship and found the free shuttle bus to the port gates and easily found our taxi (Rony's Taxis) into the centre of Brugge. We were picked up at the agreed time for return to the ship.

I believe that it is down to the port authority that passengers cannot walk through the port and that it is the port authority that provides the free shuttle bus. I also believe (But not certain) that the 12 euro shuttle bus is probably provided by the local area and not by Celebrity. (Surely, if Celebrity provided the shuttle they would charge in $s to your onboard account?? - also this same service is used by Princess, a Carnival cruise line)

Much of this information I found from using CruiseCritic.

And again thank you all for all the information here. Especially Magortom, Brilliant

And I think some of our roll call are also benefiting.

But please, if any one has some more details on these ports, I should be really grateful to hear.

Thanks major tom,

Dont suppose there is a water bus/ferry from Oceankaj berth is there? Any one know?

(Just wishful thinking!!)

Really pleased with all this information. Thank you all so much.

I am thinking (having checked a few port schedules and we seem to berth along way from the cities this time) that we may be better off using the Princess shuttles to save time and for peace of mind.

Please keep the ideas, information and advice coming.

TIA

Getting some great information here. Please keep it going!!!

Tony 1878, are you on the roll call? There is one for the June and one for the August one. Which trip are you on? There is lots of information. Also on the roll calls for last year's cruises. But not much about shuttle buses!!

I would be really grateful for some information on the shuttle buses at the Baltic ports.

Can anyone remember which ports have free shuttle buses (if any) and where/how far they go? Which ports have Princess shuttle buses into the cities and how much the fare was? Are taxis available at the ports as with other itineraries? Guess taxis would be expensive.

The ports are Zeebrugge, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki,Talin and Gdynia.

We have an expensive tour at St.Petersburg and need to DIY at the other ports!

Not keen on HOHO, unless you can recommend otherwise!!

Any other ideas or recommendations for the Baltic ports would be very welcome.

Many thanks.

Thanks everyone, that's great info.

Please could you give me some information on Celebrity's shuttle bus policy - availability, cost, booking, etc.

(In particular for the ports of Cherbourg, Le Havre, and Zeebugge. And if anyone has any recommendations for things to do in these ports, it would be appreciated.)

TIA

Please could someone tell me if you have to purchase a drink to be able to have any of the food offerings here. TIA

Not sure if this is relevant to the OP, but recent Princes cruises (nights) do not now count towards the P&O loyalty scheme which is totally different to the Captain's Circle Loyalty Scheme.

I did wonder if I could get my daughter's wedding dress dry cleaned!! Lol

Hope it all works out for you.

But even if it does you will have had the 'worry' of it for weeks/months until you are actually on board and can find out if you are sat together.

There could be some unhappy passengers!!! Imagine being on a table with others who had been split up from the rest of their family/friends. Would not make for a happy atmosphere. So it would not only be the passengers on the saver type fare who would be affected by this policy.

I think this is terrible, but unfortunately typical of P&O's attitude at the present time which is such a shame as we were very long term loyal P&O passengers.

We prefer club dining and I know how upset we would be (in fact my husband would be livid). But as P&O have p'ed us off so much already, this will not affect us as at the present time we would not even consider another cruise with P&O!!

I agree with the above post and really suggest you put this on Twitter and Facebook and any other sites you can think of. P&O seem to think they can get away with all sorts of things at the moment and no one will mind.

Yes, we have lost faith with P&O. And so too have our family and friends.

We dont even bother looking to P&O nowadays. (After nearly 30 years)

There is a world out there and we have found much better options and wish we had 'jumped ship' a few years earlier instead of staying doggedly loyal to P&O.

But not everything suits everyone. (We like Indy, even though we didnt expect to!) We also like other lines just like P&O used to be only better.

If and when P&O come up with a particular itinerary we want to do (so long as we look at the brochure that year and dont miss it!) we will of course give them another go..........

We had an all day tour with AP Tours last week on the recommendations from Cruisecritics. They were excellent and our guide Giovanni(84) was brilliant. We did the tour from Naples to the Amalfi coast. If we had known that they did tours in Rome, we would have booked them for that port as well.

We have just returned from Crown Princess and had an all day tour with AP Tours and they were excellent. There were four of us in a very smart mini bus and the price was very competitive with the ships tours, but much more personal and we felt much better. We had a wonderful day.