wowzz

But with P&O's draconian quarantine arrangements, plus lack of financial recompense, it is easy to understand why passengers would act in this way.

You aren't helping P&O return to profit, are you !😁

You are correct, it is a "sunk cost" as accountants say. But that doesn't really help if you have spent £5000+ on a cruise.

Why on earth would you try and pay a taxi driver with foreign currency?

So what should they have done ? Stayed at home and lost all the money they paid for their holiday ?

Thanks for the information. Every day is a school day !

That's a very good comparison. I can drive to Southampton and do a seven day Norwegian fjord cruise from there for not much more than the cost of flying to Seattle from the UK.

I don't think you can criticise P&O alone. No major cruise line requires testing at present, unless required to do so by certain destinations. (Happy to be corrected)

Probably true on Cunard. At current fx rates, the Princess obc if $250 is about 40% higher than P&O's £160 ($175). I don't find Princess prices to be 40% higher than P&O.

Thank goodness for clearing that up ! Even 12% seems awful in tea. Doesn't it curdle ? We use skimmed milk at 0.1% fat - means the taste of the tea comes through.

Thanks - the video was more like the Alaska I was hoping for. An Akaskan cruise plus land tour is on our bucket list, but I'm not sure that 14 expensive days in miserable weather is making my wallet sing ! I'm as cheapo as you are !

I'm not sure that they actually start cruises from Belfast, but will be happy to be proved wrong.

Cream ? Just no, no, no and again No ! Surely proper high fat cream coagulates when you mix it with hot tea, leaving fat globules floating on the surface ?

Harry - good photos (again!) I have to ask - did you have any blue skies at all during your cruise? The weather looks remarkably like November in the UK !

John - you have lost me ! $250 on Princess in 2020 is the same as $250 on Princess today.

I think that is the route P&O want everyone to go down. Don't get tested, and don't take up a quarantine cabin. P&O ( and other cruise lines are no different) are basically treating Covid the same way as flu. They are only providing quarantine cabins because they need to be seen to be doing the right thing, but that is all. And, I have to say, I have no problem with Covid being, basically, ignored.

My sort of holiday ! We had a weekend break in Seville (we lived in Spain at the time). Had dinner in the city, about 10pm, and walked back to our hotel about midnight. Came across a local bar, where all the locals were drinking and chatting. We got a table, bottle of wine, and spent two hours just absorbing the atmosphere. We remember that evening more than any museum, tourist attraction etc.

Unlike the Caribbean, for example, there are fewer tour guides touting for business in European ports. If, for example, you want to see the Alhambra in Grenada, there is no point looking for a tour when you get off the ship in Malaga. You need to do some research in advance, decide what you want to do, and then look for tours, and pre-book. However, nothing wrong with just wandering around Malaga, Seville, Marseilles etc, getting a little lost, having a drink in a pavement cafe, and just relaxing. It is not compulsory to visit as many tourist sights as possible!

But the water in the buffet is only hot, not boiling. No good for tea making.

Correct - someone at HQ decided what a British sausage roll looked like. The chefs on board cooked the sausage roll as per the brief. The fact that the end result looked like something made by a five year old, and didn't contain sausage, was not their fault. I was wrong in my earlier post to blame the onboard chefs - the onus lies directly with the on shore catering team.

Definite No No..

You never know when those Somalian pirates might appear !

I'm confused - $250 obc goes as far now as it did a year ago !

The problem is that most insurers, including the one recommended by P&O, now make it almost impossible to claim back the cost of your holiday if you are denied boarding. If P&O were to reinstate the offer of FCC if you were unable to sail due to Covid, there would no longer be an incentive to lie.

I believe so. You can, I think, cancel the purchase prior to the cruise if you wish.