Selbourne

True, but we took our two daughters on Arcadia when they were in their early to mid 20s and they described it as a floating nursing home 😂

You are quite right that P&O don’t target mature cruisers any more, but isn’t the issue more about the fact that Aurora and Arcadia don’t appeal to the target market that you so accurately describe, whereas Iona and Arvia don’t appear to a lot of the older traditional cruisers? Generalisations, I know, and there are plenty of exceptions (including some forum members) both ways, but more accurate than not overall I suspect. Whilst the average age of P&O cruisers may well be 42, that isn’t universal across all ships. In fact it varies enormously. We’ve done quite a few cruises on Aurora where the average age has been around 75, whereas we’ve been on many cruises on the larger ships where the average age has been 30 years lower. These aren’t my guesstimations, but facts quoted by the Captains in the welcome addresses. The new generation of cruisers want all the bells and whistles that the new ships have (entertainment, dining choices etc etc) and would find Aurora and Arcadia to be severely lacking in that regard. Equally, many of those who have been on countless cruises will find the very limited and repetitive itineraries of the behemoths to be unappealing and will prefer the more port intensive (and smaller ports) itineraries that Aurora and Arcadia do. Very different markets but obviously the latter is a declining market whereas the former is expanding, hence P&Os market re-positioning. As you say, interesting times ahead.

I think that I might, as a point of principle. They do need to get their act together with things as important as this, especially as I believe that 40+ people were denied boarding at Southampton last year and had to fly out to join the cruise - an situation which is simply not viable for us. It’s both annoying and odd that other forum participants can point to information buried within the P&O website that says that what we had was acceptable, yet when asked the question directly P&O say that it isn’t. Sadly, it further confirms my long held belief that whilst P&Os ship based crew are, in the main, excellent, their shoreside staff aren’t even remotely up to the same standard. Very pleasant, but often clueless.

Update - We now have the exemption letter from the GP and are £30 poorer as a result. As I’ve said previously, I’m sure that this letter is completely unnecessary as my wife already has the official yellow fever exemption certificate, but given the misleading (and, I believe, incorrect) info that we were given by P&O when questioning this, we cannot afford to risk it. My intention is to just show the official exemption certificate at check-in and then see if they accept it (as they should). If there’s a problem then we can produce the GP letter as well.

All ships have a limited lifespan and these two ships are no different, but I don’t accept the premise that the future is bleak for them. Admittedly, they don’t really fit with P&Os current direction of travel, or target market, but these ships can command hefty price premiums as they offer an adult only environment and tend to have far more interesting itineraries than the repetitive and limited schedules of the larger ships. They also cater for large numbers of passengers who would move to other lines, rather than move to bigger ships with P&O. I don’t think that P&O would replace them when they go, but for as long as the ships can keep going making a profit that exceeds their resale value, I feel that they have a future.

No difference really. The Celebration night is usually when you get a free glass of cheap and unpleasant fizz and a few words from the Captain. Both are essentially black tie / formal nights which usually have a slightly better menu

You raise some excellent points. One thing though. Although my wife is a full time wheelchair user, we don’t expect priority access to lifts, just access. As stated previously, the issue that wheelchair etc users have that those with hidden disabilities don’t is space. This is often overlooked in these debates. Most of the time, it is possible for an able bodied person or someone with a hidden disability, to join an already quite full lift. That is simply not an option for us. My wife’s wheelchair is not big, but we take up around one third of a lift on most ships and half a lift on Iona (which has smaller lifts). On disembarkation morning, when almost everyone is using the lifts within a narrow time window, mostly with hand luggage of varying sizes, trying to get a lift that is at least one-third empty can be very difficult. Due to this, I sometimes have to do exactly as you suggest. If we have been waiting for some time with lift after lift being too full to accommodate us, as a lift arrives I will politely explain to those inside that there are wheelchair and scooter users waiting, and have been waiting for some time, and if anyone is able to continue their journey via the stairs we would be immensely grateful. Usually it just results in vacant looks or an avoidance of eye contact, but very occasionally kind hearted people will vacate. I only ever resort to this on disembarkation morning, but on Iona I had to do this mid-cruise on occasions.

Yes, that’s when I first became aware of them. They were the only sure fire way of stopping your glasses steam up 😂

I could list a couple of dozen things, but in the scheme of things they are (individually) quite minor and the vast majority didn’t have a particularly adverse effect on our cruise experience. The one that has impacted us most is the cut backs on guest lecturers - both numbers and quality of them. They were the only things that we looked forward to on sea days and on all our post Covid cruises they’ve been few and far between and the few we’ve had were boring subjects. I agree with pretty much everything else in your post, with the exception of disembarkation. I think that P&O make a meal out of it and other cruise lines do it far better. I always felt that they also made a meal of tender operations pre Covid, so I will be interested to see if that’s improved on our next cruise, as our 3 cruises since Covid haven’t required them.

But then it wouldn't be hidden 😂

The hidden disabilities issue comes up every single time that challenges with lifts are raised. I absolutely agree that everyone (including fully able bodied people) have every bit as much right to use a lift as anyone else at any time that they like. We are all on holiday after all. However, the point that people often miss is that those with hidden disabilities have one big advantage over those who are in wheelchairs or scooters, and that is that they can presumably stand (or the disability wouldn’t be hidden?) and can therefore get into lifts that are already quite full. The problem that wheelchair & scooter users have is that they cannot do this. The lift has to be around one third empty (or 50% empty on Iona) in order to get in, so at peak times (which embarkation morning is always the worst) is a massive challenge.

I’d like to think that this might result in less port calls to Lisbon, as we’ve been so many times, but as it’s so small I doubt that it will make any difference.

To be clear, nobody has asked me directly what I paid before, but several have offered what they paid, hoping to have their egos massaged by me recoiling in horror and saying how much more we have paid 😂

You are lucky. We’ve had quite a few mention it. To me, it’s as insensitive a discussion over dinner as asking people who they vote for! Usually people raise it in a way to brag about how little they’ve paid and what great value they are getting, but these folk always conveniently fail to mention that they are in an inside cabin! I hope, for their sakes, that nobody grills us on our 65 nighter, as if I gave them the details of what we are paying for our balcony cabin they would soon have the wind taken out of their sails!

This is great to hear. We stopped doing P&O excursions once my wife became a full time wheelchair user and tend to DIY. My wife is just happy to spend a couple of hours ashore to see the port and then return to the ship. However, for our upcoming Caribbean cruise I am doing quite a few half day P&O tours on my own, as I want to see more of each island than just the port, and we shall take a look around the port together for the other half day. We contemplated taxi tours etc but my wife wasn’t keen. I’m not interested in beaches or water activities, so my trips are more sightseeing ones.

I’m amazed Jean. That’s always been the most challenging time of the whole cruise for us to get lifts!

Sorry to hear that. Sounds a bit like Covid or similar? We don’t know what our dining arrangement will be yet. On the one hand sharing can be fun but on the other hand I have caught colds from guests who decided to share when they were suffering! I suspect that there will be multiple things doing the rounds on our 65 nighter and we are taking a medicine cabinet full of things with this in mind! We went on Britannia, Iona and Ventura with low expectations regarding the MDR and were pleasantly surprised, so we shall go with equally low expectations on Aurora and hope for the best!

Thanks. Yes, just checked and now appeared. We have 11 “Black Tie” nights (as they are described - thought they were now Celebration or Formal nights) which out of 65 nights seems manageable. Two a week would have been too much. All sea days.

Looks like 15738 and 15739 are in the splash zone! There was a ‘silent’ disco in the atrium on Iona when we were on her in August. It drowned out the 710 Club performance that we were watching and it was so silent we could still hear it when we returned to our midships cabin on deck 10. As I said at the time, never have so many tone deaf people been gathered together in one place 😂

Jean, with respect, you are missing the point. The issue is not about disembarkation times, it’s about cabin vacation time. Like others, we are in no rush to get off, but we do have to use a lift to get to breakfast. As the latest time to vacate cabins is 8am, the period between 7.45 and 8am is always going to be a time of peak demand for lifts. Thats why P&O want those who self disembark to be off the ship by 7.45am at the absolute latest, so that they (and their cases) are out of the way for this. You are perfectly within your rights to use self disembarkation (one of our daughters did it last time and was full of praise about it) but to opt for it and then not be off the ship very early and be taking up lift space with cases when those of us who have not opted for that facility are trying to use it is unfair IMHO. Most of our cruises have been on Aurora and getting a lift on the morning of disembarkation has always been a nightmare for us as, with the wheelchair, we need considerably more room than you do. I hadn’t ever considered that one of the reasons that we struggle is that those who opted for self disembarkation might be getting off later than the designated time window.

Thanks. We paid extra to up the cover to 71 days (as it’s the same price as 65 days, which is what the cruise is). The cruise cover was just £40, which seems incredibly cheap given that just 1 missed port will result in us receiving £150 each compensation (I believe). House insurance was an odd one. Ours is 60 days max unoccupied and, if you deduct the day we go and the day we get back (as the house is not unoccupied on those days) we are just 4 days over that. I had assumed that we would be uncovered for the whole trip on that basis, but our insurers have confirmed (in writing) that we are fully covered for the first full 60 days that we are away. They don’t consider regular visits by family, or one overnight stay, as sufficient, so one of our daughters is going to stay here for a week and work from home during our cruise so that it comfortably ‘breaks’ the 60 days. I looked at separate unoccupied property insurance, but they had so many conditions and exemptions that our standard house insurance doesn’t have I considered that to be more of a risk!

As you know, we had some issues on Iona. None of them was caused by children. If anything, the children and young adults were the only ones to show us an ounce of consideration at the lifts, whilst to many of their parents and grandparents generation we were invisible. Also, as I have already stated, our experiences and preferences about the different ships and cruise experiences are the polar opposite of what this sole lady has told you. I follow the news and politics quite a bit. One thing that you often hear is that any poll of just a few thousand people carries a high degree of risk as to how that will be reflected across the population at large. Knowing that, to generalise about everything based on just one or two options, whether that be this infamous lady, your own personal opinion, or mine for that matter, is futile. All opinions are equally valid, but opinions are all that they are.

Yes, I think that’s a sensible compromise. Whilst I think that the best place for football shirts is on the terraces, when a football match is being shown in Brodies it would seem churlish not to allow fans of each team to show their allegiance. I also agree that they are not suitable attire for evening wear though, even on casual nights, and I’m glad that P&O state that.

Sorry to hear this and hope that you recover quickly. Why was it a very sick cruise? Norovirus?

My understanding is that when you make an upgrade bid and it is accepted you cannot back out of it, so I don’t think that’s an option for you. People often overlook the fact that upgrades are always allocated and there is going to be a risk that you might end up with a cabin that has some issues. However, getting that out of the way, I would be happy with the outcome in your case. A balcony cabin absolutely transforms a cruise experience for the better (for countless reasons) and aft cabins are usually quite desirable as the outlook is lovely and you don’t tend to get noise from other guests walking past your cabin late at night. You may hear noise from the Sunset bar, but up on deck 15 it will be less problematic than lower decks. It sounds as though it doesn’t go on until the early hours. Being higher up you will also be less affected by the Sun canopies on the Sunset bar deck that can affect the outlook from lower aft cabins. I can’t advise on the infinity pool issue and I know that’s a problem that many have reported but, frankly, I’d rather have a shower of water on my balcony from time to time than have an inside cabin. Depending on when you go, the new ships can feel quite busy and crowded compared to the older ships and you might be very glad to have the private outdoor space.