Selbourne

That’s good to hear. I really enjoyed the sail out of Amsterdam at night and found the sea lock fascinating. Thank you for taking us along with you and for a very interesting live blog. We are on Ventura in 8 weeks time.

I haven’t looked at Fred since I found out that they allow smoking on balconies, as that makes them a ‘no go’ for us. However, am I right in thinking that their prices are quite a bit more than P&O, yet their ships are quite dated and they don’t offer a particular premium experience in the way that, say, Saga does? If so, with the extra capacity that P&O now has and the keen pricing that they are selling some cruises at, I should imagine that Fred Olsen might be the operator needing to review their pricing the most. This might be a way of doing that with less hit to the bottom line and giving them a point of difference over P&O. Also, they will be competing directly with Ambassador cruises, who do offers on drinks packages.

I agree that it doesn’t look good, but I guess that the higher value / more high risk cars aren’t left right at the front (given that’s the only cars a thief could get to)? I’m more concerned about how closely the cars are to each other! It would be very interesting to see a comparable aerial photo of how CPS park their cars. I’ve used CPS far more times than P4C but have had damage to vehicles twice, and both times were CPS.

All the speciality restaurants, including Epicurean, work more like shoreside restaurants. I guess that technically you could share, but the restaurant manager would need to know in advance so as to ensure that a correctly sized table is set up. However, in reality, I doubt very much that you’d find anyone else willing to share. The sharing concept is pretty much reserved for the MDRs. The only exception that I’ve heard of is when people on sharing tables from the fixed dining MDR dine together in a Select dining restaurant but, again, that’s through a pre-booking.

Glad to hear that you are having a great time. I really enjoyed the cruise out of Amsterdam when we went there on Ventura. I thought they had banned cruise ships from going there, but that must be from a future date, so you’ll be glad to have done it. Quick question. Is it still the case that Ventura is not using the MyHoliday App for MDR bookings? Thanks.

Yes we were very surprised at how close together the tables for 2 were in both PG and QG. With the older passenger profile on Saga I guess that they still have a sizeable number of passengers who are happy sharing? We have done more cruises on Aurora than any other P&O ship and when we started needing a table for 2 they would often give us a 4 top just for the 2 of us.

We used to always share as well, but times they are a changin’ 😂 Traditional cruisers who have no issues to worry about when it comes to sharing may well continue to do so, but will probably become a smaller and smaller percentage of the passenger base as each year passes. Looking at the photo’s posted in this thread it seems that you don’t necessarily get more space by paying a much higher price!

Yet on QM2 (PG) plus Iona, Britannia, Ventura and Aurora MDRs we have always managed to get ‘proper’ tables for 2 that aren’t just inches apart from other tables and in Epicurean we have often been given a 4 top set for just 2. It could, of course, be partly down to the fact that my wife is in a wheelchair.

That’s a rather crass comment. There are a number of us on this forum who, for various health reasons, could not really entertain shared tables. Furthermore, many others just do not wish to share a table with complete strangers and that is their right. Those who are new to cruising (P&Os new target market) would probably find the concept of sharing with strangers to be very odd concept indeed. I would never consider anyone who wishes to dine solely with their travel companion(s) to be anti-social. Whether it’s a need or purely a matter of personal preference, it should be achievable without being judged.

Interesting. Thanks. Bit of a joke calling those tables for 2 as they are really tables for 4.

‘Coming Soon’ means that bookings will open 14 days before sailing. ‘Enquire on board’ means that you won’t be able to book before you board.

That sounds fabulous. Enjoy.

Pleased to hear that you enjoyed reading the blog. No, there were no theme nights. There seemed to be quite low participation in the Celebration night as well, when it came to dress code, not that this bothers me as much as it does some others. We went to the 710 Club after dinner on Celebration night and I was the only gent in a dinner suit and there was only 1 in a lounge suit.

Not my thread Dai and I can’t say I’ve followed it thoroughly, but I believe that it’s Arcadia and Aurora only. We don’t have any cruises booked on either. I priced up a few cruises on both ships yesterday and they didn’t seem that cheap to me, but maybe they are cheaper than they were?

I wasn’t suggesting not to do as Victoria2 suggested. Far from it - we have already done that through our TA in fact who have confirmed that they have communicated our needs to Cunard.

I completely agree that it is far better to have a lower headline price with low (or no) OBC than a high headline price with high OBC, especially as I get 10% loyalty discount on on-board spend. However, P&O use double OBC (etc) offers to encourage bookings making people think that they are getting a bargain when, in reality, they have simply increased the headline price to pay for it (or sometimes by even more than the extra OBC, as in my Britannia example). Nothing dishonest about that, it’s just clever marketing. However, I can only recall one cruise out of over 20 where we had OBC left at the end of the cruise and had to buy some perfume in the shop to use up the last bit. I tend to work more on a total net price though and have a price limit with P&O that I won’t go over, unless it’s an exceptional / unique itinerary, which are as rare as hens teeth these days.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the fact that a number of tables have been allocated as sharing tables, because they could all quite easily be occupied by folk who actually want to share. When travelling with friends and family we might have 2 or 3 cabins but all wish to dine together. I appreciate that I don’t have the experience with Cunard that you do, and I know what your Cunard contact told you, but I just can’t see them forcing Club passengers who specifically want a table for 2 to share against their will. Hopefully this won’t be famous last words, but I’m confident that we will both get tables for 2, the only challenge potentially being a ‘proper’ table for 2 rather than one that is just inches apart from the next ‘table for 2’ 😂

No. You just get a message to say that you have to call P&O to check availability. Cunard work off exactly the same IT system, yet when you tick that you need an accessible cabin it first of all asks you to confirm that you meet the criteria for one (and explains that your booking will be cancelled if you don’t) and then you can see further on whether or not there are any accessible cabins available. Daft that P&O works differently.

I find it frustrating with P&O that in order to check whether there are any accessible cabins available you have to phone them or ask the TA to check, whereas with Cunard (which uses the same IT system) you can check this yourself. What is the situation with Princess? Thanks.

I had a detailed plough through all the future P&O cruises that we might possibly be interested in yesterday. I always work out a ‘net’ price as being the quoted fare less OBC. I did the same back in March, so compared the net prices now to the net prices then. Of the 5 that we had on the shortlist (1 in 2024 on Aurora and 2 on Britannia and 1 on Aurora in 2025) the net price was broadly the same for 4 of them. The outlier was the Oct 2025 Britannia cruise where although the OBC had shot up to £750, the quoted fare had increased by more than £1,000 so the net price had actually increased. Having found this year that we were able to secure a booking at a very keen price after balance due date (even for an accessible balcony cabin on a Select basis), we have decided not to make any more bookings at this stage.

The issue being discussed here is not about getting a ‘better located’ table than has been allocated (such as by a window), but getting a table for 2 that is also preferably more discrete and not just a hands width from the next ‘table for 2’. @Megabear2 has a specific need due to a medical issue with her husband and I have the same challenge due to my wife’s disability, where I sometimes have to cut some of her food up for her and she would find this extremely embarrassing if we were sat next to people. We cruised with Cunard for the first time this year on the Coronation cruise on QM2 and we were in Princess Grill. The cruise was sold out (it sold out within an hour of being released). When we arrived in the PG for lunch just after we boarded, the MD showed me to a table that was quite close to the window but very close to another table. I said that this wouldn’t be suitable. He offered me another but that had the same issue. In the end the 3rd table offered was one that possibly nobody else would have wanted, as it was out on a limb by the entrance and had no views whatsoever. It was perfect for us. Complete privacy should I need to assist my wife and it also had the benefit of being much quieter (the main body of the dining room was quite noisy). I appreciate that some people possibly make up ‘issues’ to justify why they need a better table (or even bribe), but those of us with genuine needs are often happy to have tables that would be deemed unpopular for others. Who knows, the couple who had originally been allocated the table that we ended up with may have been delighted to find that they had been swapped and were seated near a window? We are very much hoping that we can find a similar table when we are in Britannia Club for two 14 nighters on Queen Anne next year.

That makes sense, but wouldn’t it be the case that, breaks aside, you would always have the same waiters in Club?

Wouldn’t it always be the case in Club that you have the same waiters all the time? That was certainly the case when we were in Princess Grill and has also always been the case when we have been on fixed dining with P&O. The only times that we have ever had different waiters is with freedom dining, as you end up using different tables most times.

I asked about having a car for sole use and the price premium was horrendous. Can’t remember the cost now but it was several hundred pounds 😱 We never touch the buffet, so that wouldn’t work for us. We enjoyed our MDR meals on both Britannia and Iona recently and the tables for 2 were mostly well spaced. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the tables for 2 on Saga ships would be so poor. That would be an example of where I would be hugely disappointed if I had paid more than double the P&O price expecting a better experience and ending up with a worse one. You may well end up saving me a lot of money. I was very keen to try Saga but would have gone with sky high expectations which, by the sound of it, may fall short. Conversely, we went on our recent P&O cruises thinking that the deterioration post Covid that we had read so much about (particularly in the MDRs) would mean that our P&O days would be coming to an end. However, we were pleasantly surprised that it was still a perfectly acceptable experience. The app doesn’t work well on Britannia and we had major problems with lifts on Iona (due to my wife’s wheelchair), but the overall product is still great value for money.