wowzz

The date of Easter varies, which has an impact on crowds. There is no such thing as a Spring Break in Europe, but cruises over the Easter school holidays will have more school children on board. US Spring Breakers appear to be in their late teens/early twenties. That vast majority of Europeans in that age group would not be seen dead on a cruise ship ! Cruise ships sail in the Mediterranean all year round.

So, what would you want ? If it is a relatively minor issue, giving everyone £30 or so obc immediately defuses the situation.

Never seen that. I point at, or ask for a specific type of roll, and the water serves it with tongs. No mauling involved !

Agreed. A US poster implied that if cruises were being offered for sale on a ship, that ship would be "safe". That is patently not the case.

Not a rubber duck ?

But P&O were still selling future cruises on her, right up until the day her sale was announced!

Yes, because at some stage the management team must have known it was going "Pete Tong", and should have taken pre-emptive action.

P&O certainly do that. They have a track record of selling cruises and then selling the ship only a week after taking bookings !

I agree, it is a balancing act. We were on Arcadia in April this year, when they had to flush the water system, so no water in the cabins. As we were in Cadiz, the suggestion was that we should go ashore for lunch. We were given, iirc, £30 obc per person compensation. Obviously the obc could not be spent ashore, but it did help towards our bar bill ! By offering the "compensation " in advance, the situation was defused. I am sure one or two individuals would still be unhappy, but everyone we talked to were perfectly happy with the way the situation was handled. Unfortunately it was a lovely day in Cadiz, and we spent far in excess of £60 on wine and tapas! Perhaps I should have asked for more compensation!

Drunken football fans manhandling fellow guests is just indefensible, nothing to do with Covid. If I was MB I would have called security and got the lout thrown off the ship. Trying to defend drunken behaviour of this type is wrong. I admit to being slightly inebriated at odd times, but all I do is tell my one joke (involves an elephant and a mouse ) and do my bird impressions.

I do wonder that if the Hotel Manager, Captain, or whoever, had publicly announced that they were experiencing problems, that they were doing their best, and that everyone would get £100 obc, the situation would have been defused. Obviously, like everyone else not on board, we only hear part of the story, but it does feel that P&O have lost the plot here . If they had given the onboard management team some more autonomy, this debacle might not have happened. By using some crisis management skills, the posts on social media might have read - "Lots of issues on Christmas Day, but we were kept informed, apologies were given, and we were given compensation. Well done P&O!" You turn a negative into a positive.

I asked a question about the Times article via the P&O official social media page. I received a very quick reply, obviously pre-prepared. I would imagine that the P&O PR team have been urgently recalled from their Christmas holidays.

You've met my wife then !

To quote Spock from another thread - "You're Right!"

Princess obviously think it makes sense, as they are pushing the package like mad.

Don't forget we are talking Princess prices here. So a couple of speciality coffees during the day, four or five bottles of water, a couple of lunch time drinks, perhaps an afternoon cocktail, and then some glasses of wine before, after, and during dinner. Very easy to hit the £100 a day mark without trying. The actual break even point for Princess Plus is around the three glasses of wine a day mark, so you don't have to be an alcoholic for it to make economic sense.

But they are not in the Caribbean at Christmas !

Well, we came back from Lanzarote in mid December, and most of the time we were there the temperature was arond 23c. But, we did have a couple of rainy days, and occasionally the wind made the temperature feel colder than it actually was. As long as you are not expecting Caribbean type weather, and are prepared to accept that you may not get wall to wall hot sunshine, I wouldn't let weather worries deter you. It will certainly be better weather than in the UK !

You seem to have neglected to take expenditure/overheads etc into account. Revenue itself is not the "bottom line".

Careful Sharon, don't confuse people with facts !

Our bar bill/coffee bill on Princess would be in the region of £2400 for a two week cruise, so for us the package is a fantastic deal.

Why should a "party ship" be safe ?

It will be the ship that is the most uneconomic.

If you mean the Princess Plus package, I reckon three glasses of wine a day is the break even point, depending on how much you value the wifi element.

When you strip out the autotips and the wifi, the actual drink element of the package works out at around £30. Makes P&O's £39.95 look poor value for money, especially as so many of the P&O drinks are priced over the package price ceiling.