Selbourne

Disney Dream, Sky Princess and Ventura are all in port on the day we go. We have used CPS countless times and usually not had an issue and have been directed straight into the terminal drop off lanes, but our last school summer holidays cruise on Britannia was very different, hence my question. With the size of Iona and the fact that a high proportion of passengers will be first time cruisers (who are more likely to arrive early as they won’t be aware of the naughty queue) I am just curious to know from those who have been on Iona or Arvia if my 30 minutes advice, particularly for our daughters, is sufficient time to ensure that they board on time.

I had rather assumed that Baltic, Ligurian and Suite passengers might have been given 11.30 or 11.45 boarding times, but would be interested to know. I thought the same as you but, as my wife has just said, she doubts that many Ligurian and Baltic cruisers (or Caribbean for that matter) will be daft enough to go on our cruise in the August school holidays! 😂

We are going on Iona for the first time in a few weeks time. As my wife and I are Caribbean loyalty tier we have been allocated 12pm embarkation. Our daughters and their partners have all been allocated 1pm, which I am very relieved about given how late the times are that some people get allocated. We are travelling separately so having different times doesn’t matter. Conscious that P&O now make those who arrive early stand outside the terminal in a naughty queue, I am thinking that we should all aim to arrive 30 minutes before our boarding times, in order to allow time for any minor wait, handing the car over to CPS and then depositing the suitcases. This should then put us pretty much on time for our respective embarkations. However, when we last went on a cruise in the summer school holidays, we were held in a CPS waiting stack for some time before we could pull up in front of the terminal to hand the car over, and this was Britannia which is obviously much smaller than Iona. My question (particularly for those who have cruised on either Iona or Arvia in school holidays) is this. Does arriving 30 minutes early sound reasonable, or should we build in more time to allow for CPS holding queues or delays, especially for our daughters with the 1pm time slots. Thanks in anticipation.

As P&O have a general policy of low prices with little or no OBC, or higher prices with sometimes large OBC, I tend to work on the Select fare less OBC to get to a ‘net’ price that I’m happy to pay. The Ventura cruise that I gave the figures for was booked at launch, so the price was the actual cruise price at the time for a Superior Deluxe, with no OBC deducted. The Britannia cruise that we’ve just returned from was booked just after balance due date and our March 24 Ventura cruise was booked in April this year, so neither of them at launch. Using my ‘net’ price calculation, both cruises are below my £100pppn target for a balcony cabin on a Select basis, with free parking. I guess that all I’m trying to understand is whether or not this upgrade system is resulting in bargain prices and, so far, I don’t think I’ve seen anything that has convinced me that it is. Quoting price differentials between cabin grades at the time of booking versus time of upgrade, whilst interesting, doesn’t in itself indicate that a bargain price for the total cruise has been achieved. For example, someone who successfully bids £50 for an upgrade on one of the cruises we have booked, thinking that’s a bargain because the difference when they booked was much more than that, may still be paying considerably more than we are paying having booked that grade in the first place, even though we booked on a Select basis and have our first pick of cabins. I may not be explaining myself clearly, but I know what I mean 😂

I’m pleased to hear that you are happy with your outcome. I guess the point I was trying to make is that whilst the price difference for the upgrade might be less than the price difference at the time that someone booked, the actual total price that people may end up paying, even after a successful upgrade, may still be more than the cruise had previously been on sale for. Hope that makes sense 😂

Out of interest (as we are looking to book a Saga cruise), what can you spend OBC on other than in the shops (which we rarely, if ever, use) or excursions (which we can’t use)? As I understand it, everything is included on Saga (drinks, speciality restaurants etc). I’m thinking of booking at launch (if the price is acceptable) and was wondering how the price match thing might work.

I only have Carnival shares with them, but on the basis that anyone would need your login details to do anything to your account (none of which is on the pdf) then personally I wouldn’t be bothered about it showing any other shareholdings, but I guess you could redact them either electronically or print off and redact with a marker and post to them if you were concerned about it.

Well done! If you have booked this morning am I correct in assuming that you are sailing on 12th August? If so, we are on the cruise after yours and our daughters would be keen to see either Gareth Gates or La Voix in the Limelight club. Hopefully it will be one or the other!

The cruises that you have quoted all seem to be at very high prices, presumably because they are all within 12 months of sail date, and I certainly wouldn’t pay that much for any of them. I strongly suspect that they have all been on sale for considerably less at some stage. One example has already been given where someone is paying significantly less for one of those cruises and I can give another. We are booked on Ventura N332 which your figures show is currently on sale for £4,698 (£335.57 per night) for a standard balcony cabin on a guarantee basis (no cabin choice). We have booked a Superior Deluxe balcony cabin (which obviously costs more than a standard balcony cabin) on a Select basis, where we picked and secured our first choice cabin, and paid £2,714 (£193.86 per night). We haven’t got OBC with that (other than my shareholder benefit) but we do get free parking on top of that. My point is not that you can’t pay considerably more for cruises, because you obviously can, but that if you book at the right time you could get a far better price than relying on the upgrade system, with the risks of a poor cabin location that comes with it. Someone booking our Ventura cruise today at £4,698 and ‘successfully’ bidding £100 each to secure a Superior Deluxe cabin may feel that they have secured a bargain if the price differential between the two cabin grades is usually more than that, but their £4,898 will compare against our £2,714 🤔

I’ve yet to see any convincing examples of where these upgrades represent genuine bargains. To take a recent example of an inside booked for £499pp which was upgraded to a balcony for £160pp. That comes to £649pp which is £93pppn. I have recently booked 3 P&O cruises in balcony cabins on a Select basis, where I have been able to select our cabin (rather than have what’s left allocated by P&O), for that price or less. These bookings were on Britannia and Ventura, but Iona and Arvia can be even cheaper and, being Select booking, they came with free parking and other benefits. What am I missing? Are there genuine bargains to be had or is it all kidology, making people think that they are getting a bargain when they aren’t?

With respect, that’s an entirely different issue. We weren’t particularly bothered about missing Skagen as we had been there before and knew that we wouldn’t have been ashore for much more than an hour. The issue is purely a financial consideration between different insurance policies. If there were two identical insurance policies costing the same and one would pay out 2 x £100 for a missed port and one wouldn’t pay a penny, then IMHO it would indeed be daft not to buy the one with missed port cover. Whether people are bothered or not about the port that is missed is completely irrelevant, as you get the payment regardless!

Many thanks. I was hoping that you would respond, as I know that you have expertise in this area, but I didn’t want to put you under pressure to do so by asking directly! As you say, it boils down to a financial calculation. If, for example, in an average year we are only likely to miss one port and receive, say, £200 compensation, then if I can get a comparable policy for £100 more than I’m paying currently then it’s definitely worth doing. However, if the policy would be £200 or more extra then it probably wouldn’t be. As you have demonstrated in your examples, the cost of some policies, especially with pre-existing conditions, can be eye watering. We used to have free cover with our bank, but when we needed to add my wife’s health condition the weighting cost more than a separate stand alone policy which included it!

Missed port cover is not about any losses that you may have incurred (that’s a separate issue), it’s a cash payment purely for having missed the port - nothing more. We were issued with letters to provide to insurers but, in my case, I can’t claim anything. Therefore, if we’d had that cover we might have got £150 or whatever. Whether you were bothered about missing the port or not, it’s obviously preferable to receive something rather than nothing in recognition, especially as P&O don’t make any gesture as a result. Therefore it’s purely a financial consideration. There’s a calculation to be made about how much more cruise insurance with missed port cover would cost me per year, versus how much I would get back through missed ports, on the basis that we probably miss one port per year.

No idea John. It was tongue in cheek - hence the emoji.

Thanks Andy. Sounds similar to ours. I don’t suppose that you can recall roughly how much extra it was for the missed port cover and what the level of compensation was? I presume that you decided that it wasn’t worth adding?

That’s my understanding too. Port holes are only in crew cabins (other than those whose cabins are below the water line 😂)

On our recent Britannia cruise we missed a port call (Skagen). It seems that we miss a port on around 1 in every 3 cruises. We have an annual travel insurance policy with Aviva, which is excellent value at £166 given that it covers 4 of us (including our adult children who no longer live with us) and my wife’s medical condition. Aviva consider cruises to be a normal holiday, so it’s not a specific cruise policy, but it does cover all cruise eventualities, such as medical evacuation, on board treatment etc. I am aware that cruise specific policies provide compensation for missed ports and this is the one thing that our Aviva policy doesn’t cover, but I am also aware that some of these policies, especially for people with pre-existing medical conditions, can be very expensive. So my question is this. Can anyone recommend an insurer that is likely to provide annual cover, including pre-existing medical conditions, that will include missed port compensation, that is unlikely to be vastly more expensive than our current policy? Thanks.

Hot Chocolate and Horlicks handed out from the buffet last week on Britannia from (I think) 11pm.

I’ve never even heard of that port Andrew, but looking it up I see that it’s a diversion off the fjord that you traverse on the way to Olden. I hadn’t heard of Skjolden either before our recent cruise went there and that’s further along the fjord that you traverse on the way to Flaam. I was surprised that we went there on Britannia, as it’s the longest fjord, so you’d assume that it would be the preserve of Aurora and Arcadia.

I hope that you will like Aurora. We find her very different to Arcadia. Whilst we liked our (albeit dated) aft corner suite on Arcadia, we disliked a number of other aspects of the ship. By contrast we have had 8 enjoyable cruises in balcony cabins on Aurora and she is one of our favourite P&O ships. My wife and I also thought that our P&O days were numbered based on everything that we had read about all the cutbacks etc but our recent 14 nighter on Britannia has reassured us that P&O still has a place in our cruise plans. It’s fair to say that we have now capped what we will spend per night with P&O to a level that we feel still provides good value and our more expensive cruises will now be with Cunard and (hopefully) Saga. Our price cap will probably rule out most of the Aurora cruises, but we hope to sneak the odd one in! I hope that you may feel the same after your Aurora cruise.

I would assume the same, but as there are only a dozen full suites on Aurora I guess it may be possible? Our P&O insider confirmed that this is possible on Iona and Arvia due to the capacity of Epicurean being much greater than is required for the number of suite passengers. I enquired about this on Britannia the other week and the Epicurean manager gave me the same answer when explaining why it wasn’t possible on that ship, although I believe that one poster on this forum has managed it. I believe that some passengers who dine in Epicurean every night have also been invited to have breakfast in Epicurean, even though they weren’t in a suite. Obviously the restaurant managers must have a degree of discretion. I tend to agree with you that this does somewhat undermine the only meaningful perk of having a suite (other than priority embarkation, which many get anyway due to loyalty status) but, hypocrite that I am, I may enquire about it when we are on Iona next month 😂 I wouldn’t pay to breakfast in Sindhu on Aurora though. It’s the poorest Sindhu in the fleet IMHO and is merely an extension of the coffee shop in the atrium, lacking any ambiance. Whilst we didn’t like Arcadia, the Sindhu on that ship is at least out of the way and we enjoyed having breakfast there every morning.

As others have said, which side of the ship you are on doesn’t make a huge difference, as fjords are dead ends, so you see one side on the way in and the other on the way out (although, in reality, most people are still in bed for the vast majority of the transit in). What is far more significant than the side of the ship you are on is the itinerary. Whilst sold as Fjord cruises, it is worth noting that there are only 3 proper fjords with spectacular scenery that P&O visit. The ports for these fjords are Olden, Flaam, Hellesylt, Geiranger and Skjolden, of which, as far as I know, Iona only ever visits 2 of the first 3 of these on any 7 night cruise, and on some cruises only 1 of them. Locations such as Allesund, Stavanger and Haugesund do not involve transiting the scenic fjords, so are effectively more like coastal ports. So the itinerary determines whether you spend 1 or 2 days out of the 7 in the scenery that you will associate as the proper fjords.

We were surprised Andy, as we have always gone to the 10.30pm shows in the past and rarely have they been full. However, on this cruise, it was very different. We only went to just over half the shows, but we sat at the very back in the wheelchair spot so could see the whole auditorium and it was always full with, in some cases, people standing behind us as well!

Views will always be polarised on this issue. I’m in the camp that would prefer not to cruise at all than cruise in an inside cabin, but that’s because we spend a lot of time in our cabin, especially on sea days if the ship is busy. We actually spend very little time at all on the balcony, but it’s nice to pop out to see things and to have the ever changing views from within the cabin. The balcony price is £155 per day, which doesn’t sound too bad to me for a solo occupancy. More importantly, it’s £57 a night more than an inside. Again, for all the benefits that a balcony cabin offers, an extra £57 a night sounds reasonable to me. Personally, £3.4k to cruise in an inside cabin would be £3.4k wasted, as I wouldn’t enjoy it, whereas £5.4k could be money well spent! Ultimately, if you know that you would prefer a balcony cabin and the only issue is the price difference, then it simply boils down to how affordable the extra £2k is for you. If it’s a stretch and leaves you short then, if you know that you are OK with inside cabins, you might as well book an inside cabin. If the extra £2k doesn’t make a big material difference to your finances, then I’d treat yourself and remember that there are no pockets in a shroud!

Yes there will be over 6,000 passengers on board as the 5,200 quoted figure is lower berths only. In school holidays, there will be a lot of children in the Pullman berths etc. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the ship will feel overrun with children. A very large proportion will use the self contained kids clubs and associated areas and the rest will be in pool areas etc. There will still be areas around the ship which will be virtually child free at any given time. The fact that you have paid for a balcony cabin also means that you can always enjoy your own private space away from people, should you wish. We spend quite a bit of time in our balcony cabin, something that you wouldn’t wish to do with an inside cabin. As for decent food, I appreciate that all the ships are different and standards vary, but having just returned from 2 weeks on Britannia I can honestly say that the quality of food in the main dining room was very good indeed. Had there been no options to dine elsewhere we would have still enjoyed the food aspect of our cruise (and the dining is a massive part of the cruise experience for us). If you are prepared to share and eat fairly early, I don’t think you’ll have any problems at all with getting seated quickly. The challenges can come with tables for 2 (sometimes) and later dining. Book as many of the shows as you can before you go. You can always cancel once on board. On our Britannia cruise, the 10.30pm shows were all full houses. As others have suggested, best to take drinks on as hand luggage. Enjoy your cruise. Your first is always your best!