Dryce

You are correct that you will not be able to buy tickets on line for just 2 people.

Well we managed to do just that last summer.

https://www.visitflam.com/en/sightseeing/aktiviteter/flamsbanaen/

It used to be the case that only groups of at least 10 could pre-book. That changed some time in the last couple of years.

When we went the printouts of the tickets were accepted on the train. So no need to queue at the ticket office.

As has been said elsewhere the station is just round the corner from the quay. When we went they marshalled the passengers into two queues on the platform for boarding - the 'official' tours were allocated to reserved carriages. The ordinary mortals were directed to unreserved carriages.

On the way up it was about 50% full in our section of the train. It filled up on the way back down.

As regards timing changes that's where you're on your own doing it DIY. You have to allow for the fact that even if the ship is one time that if originally booked to berth it may change to tendering (and vice versa).

My view when I saw the rebranding a while back was that it was a mistake.

P&O have a very distinctive if plain branding. Simple yellow funnels and white stand out against the colours of the likes of Cunard, Celebrity, Aida, and the others.

The branding has been as much about ths ships as the cruise line.

So now we lose the unique yellow funnels and have a me-too funnel branding that to my mind looks like Celebrity. We lose the clean cut white and its cluttered with the flag and branding.

At the same time the names of the ships seem to be secondary to the P&O branding with the new livery. When people talk about cruising with P&O they often refer to the ship and not the line. In the UK market at least the ships have strong identity. That seems to be weakened.

Now that what was proposed is turning into something real - looking at the pictures of Aurora in her new finery I think something special has been lost.

I can't see anything that has been gained.

Would P&O step in and fill the short fall in the staff wages or would they genuinely earn next to nothing for that week?

Interesting ...

I doubt that the company would step in for one week if this happened in isolation. But if this happened regularly I believe they would have a retention problem as staff wouldn't sign up for new contracts. Also if they lost the confidence of staff the service levels would fall.

So if it happened regularly some sort of action would have to be taken.

The problem isn't straightforward though. The likes of P&O are basically arbitraging disposable income in one region against the lower wage rates of another. The reality is that cruising might be seen in some quarters as something for the well to do but from what I see a lot of customers are price sensitive. So increasing prices by including tipping isn't a straightforward solution.

As long as a decent numbers of customers tip reasonably then the crew receiving those tips are in some ways protected from the risks associated with pricing.

It's worth bearing in mind that if P&O discount a cabin to just cover costs and overheads in order to fill it but the passengers still tip then P&O might be viewed as losing and those getting the tips 'win'.

Tipping is added automaticaly as British people have something against tipping.

I could not be a cheapskate and not tip.

Those that dont tip the wait staff and cabin stewards are very cheap.

So basically it's not a tip then as you seem to feel it must always be paid.

If that's the case include it in the price.

The general principle of tipping in the UK is that it is discretionary *not mandatory*. The culture in the US and Canada seems to be that the tips make up wages.

I take the UK view.

So far the service we've experienced on P&O is that I've always felt that the staff who have looked after us have deserved something extra because they have made a difference. I prefer to cancel the auto-tips and use the traditional envelope because it's personal and I don't like the employer have control over the allocation (and it's none of their business).

If other people choose not to to tip at all that's their business not mine.

If the auto tips are removed the crew members must hand in cash given to them, i.e. dining room waiter/cabin steward. If auto tips kept on they are allowed to keep the extra. Your MDR waiter and cabin steward are told by their supervisor if tips are taken off. Failure to hand in cash in such instances results in dismissal from the ship.

This is at odds with the company's statement then:

What you are suggesting is that there is no discretion if you attempt to exercise your own discretion and remove the auto-tip and then choose to use your discretion and hand over envelopes directly.

There would only be two forms of discretion - one which is absolute would be to remove the auto-tip and not tip separately - or the other which is limited and involves leaving the auto-tip and tipping additionally on top.

If what you say is the case then it would be more honest to simply incorporate the auto-tips into their pricing - pay the crew more - and allow customers at their discretion to tip directly.

The gate closes at T minus 20 and the aircraft should be ready to pushback at 5 mins to departure so that would leave a 15 minute window to load over 500 bags on an A380 - really?!

The timing depends on location, operator, and aircraft type. Many aircraft still don't use pallets. There are very few A380s in the world compared with other types.

The bottom line is ... if you have checked in your bags there is no magic guarantee that if you fail to meet the critical times for passsing through the initial security queues and reaching the gate that you will not be offloaded. The chances of a flight being held in the circumstances suggested are diminishing year on year.

If anyone reads my posts they will see I state 2 hours as being a sensible check in time, so I think we can all sleep safely tonight without too much concern.

That was NOT the only advice on offer.

Otherwise I would not have felt it was so important to respond so firmly.

Gate closes usually 20 mins prior to departure, by then the bags will be in a container and most likely onboard the aircraft.

You've missed the point of those 20 minutes.

It's often to allow the bags to be loaded.

Where possible the bags are increasingly reconciled with the passengers prior to the bags being loaded.

I will repeat. I think your advice is poor. I would be concerned that anybody might read your posts and make false assumptions about the likely risks and outcome.

But when passengers are late to the gate, there is always a decision by the airline as to off load a bag from a container, maybe 30 mins delay, or wait 10 mins for the passenger to show up and give them a ticking off.

 

They will always go for the latter and only off load bags as a last resort.

You might note the security cutoff at T5 is applied *after* checkin. And that the gate closure times are more rigorously enforced.

The airlines are a lot better at (a) not loading the bags until as a late as possible and (b) tracking that passengers have made it through the queue into security and © holding to the gate closure times.

Over 10 years ago your 'advice' would have pretty much stood. Increasingly these days the gate closes on time and you don't get on if you don't make it. And chances are increasingly that if that happens your bags didn't get offloaded because they were never loaded.

You won't miss your flight if you have hold luggage as CharleyBen correctly states.

This is terrible advice.

It might have worked to some extent 10 or more years ago.

It will not work at T5.

Indeed it has, and it's about time the Government did something about it.

As long as there is competition (and no collusion) then it's not simple profiteering.

Moreover having government intervention might have some unexpected consequences as the companies selling travel services would have to adjust their economics and yield management.

Yes which is the BA minimum check in time then we ADD 15/20 minutes to that minimum check in time.

I certainly wouldn't regard a 15/20 minute buffer as safe for T5. That would be a last resort contingency after all other contingency time had been used up getting to the airport.

Really? BA is 45 mins for long and short haul at T5.

That's a cutoff - not advice as to when you should check in.

The Flam train can get very busy - particularly in the morning. There can be more than one cruise ship in port.

You can prebook a return up and down on the same train at http://www.visitflam.com:

https://www.visitflam.com/en/sightseeing/attractions/flamsbana-the-flam-railway/

If you buy your ticket onlline then you just use the printout to get on the train - you don't have to queue at the ticket office to exchange it.

P&O appear to be taking somewhat of a beating in the reviews at the moment. I'm on Oriana over Christmas, and to be honest it's got me a little concerned.

 

I wonder if it's a case of those who are unhappy making it known, and those who are happy not doing so, or is there some systemic downward trend in the P&O service?

I was on board for two weeks in August and would go back and do it again.

Like you I was rather concerned about the reviews beforehand.

She was fine. I would happily go back again. I would add that I particularly like the layout and style of Oriana and Aurora - and the cabin and service were as expected. So I'm biased becase my expectations were satified. It may be people used to other ships and with different tastes will be disappointed.

As regards her age - well she is getting older. While we were on board bannisters and rails were being sanded and polished. There was painting going on. The decks looked good to my eye. Our cabin was OK though the bathroom looked a bit worn and there was corrosion on one of the bath panels. Regardless of th wear and tear - it was clean.

The only two comments I'd make about standards slipping is that the food is still OK but has dropped a notch from say 10 years ago. And the Al Fresco restaurant had shabby fabric chairs that I'm surprised hadn't been replaced.

I noticed a review that implied the crew were unfriendly. That certainly was not the case when we on board. The atmosphere we experienced was good all round - from the stewards (not just our own), the waiters, bar staff, entertainment staff, library, reception, the officers and crew, and even some of the engineering staff who were helping out on the tenders.

Maybe we just got lucky? Or maybe just easily pleased? Or maybe some of the reviews just don't accurately reflect reality? Maybe on the day it's as much down to the personality of the passengers as it is the personality of the ship ....

Unscientific as it gets but I'm still betting my last dollar that Oriana is the worst culprit in the fleet.

I tried a similar sort of strategy prior to booking Oriana earlier this year.

My rough and ready conclusion was that the results were skewed to some extent by the amount over coverage of the December 2012 outbreak. Actually poking and prodding round the results showed roughly the same number of outbreaks. The difference was the level coverage.

Part of the problem with using Google for this sort of thing is that it uses page ranking mechanisms which rank pages in the results higher if there are more references to them. So Oriana gets whacked again disproportionately in the search results because the extensive coverage of the December 2012 outbreak is referenced by reports of other outbreaks on P&O.

We figure it will take us about 5 hours to get there and back. That will put us back in Alesund at about 2pm. We can then wander around the town, climb the 418 steps and be back on the ship by 430.

Depends on your level of fitness.

I'd allow about 90 minutes if you're pace is reasonable - about 20 minutes to get to the steps from the port, 20 minutes up, 10 minutes at the top, 20 minutes back down, and 20 minutes to walk to the port.

Not used Cruise Connect - but last month travelling down on Eavesway the Cruise Connect buses at the final comfort stop were noticeably quite a mix of different companies.

Eavesway on the other hand have a well defined and established product - you know what you're getting.

My personal inclination would be to choose Eavesway unless there was a major difference in price or pickup/dropoff convenience.

If you leave the auto tips on the company do not want to know about any other tips you give out.

 

If you take off the tips the company will ask the above people to hand over the tips given to them by cruisers who have done this. These tips are then put into the pot as above and shared out.

 

The staff have to know who has stopped the auto tip so they know who to expect tips from so it can be accounted for.

If this is true then it rather makes a joke of the tips being discretionary if they are controlled in this fashion. It also means that a customer who removes the auto-gratuity and pays the staff directly is being deceived as to where their money is going.