GirlyCruiser

I wonder if this will affect the share price? If so there could be a few moans from share holders, especially as they get extra OBS and that gets affected too.

Sam.

I'm opted in and I haven't received any at all!

Same here, I haven't had emails for at least a couple of years and I've opted in too and again with the recent data protection changes. P&O aren't the only company I don't get mails from. Boots is another I'd opted in to that I never receive. I only get emails from P&O regarding any cruises I've booked. Get lots in the post though.

Sam.

The last couple of cruise we've been on I sometimes think they don't put any alcohol in the "long cocktails" especially later in the evening perhaps they think we won't notice! I now stick to wine ha ha

I'm glad I'm not the only person who has noticed that. On Azura, just over a week ago, I had a Long Beach Iced Tea cocktail in the planet bar. The first one was fine. The second one, you could tell there was something missing. It tasted like my OH's mocktail! I sent it back though the woman who served me insisted it was what I'd asked for. I did ask her to try it herself but she said she couldn't, I guess it'd be like drinking "on the job" even though I'm sure there was little or no alcohol in it. Anyway she soon bought it back and it was much better :)

With reference to prices, most cocktails were about £6+, I didn't take any photos of drinks menus.

Sam.

Never had a service charge added in Limelight, Beach house or Epicurean. Possibly a space for extra tip for you to fill in?

If I remember rightly it was about £5.something. didn't see a space to fill in. I just noticed it as the waitress was going through what we'd had. I could have mistaken it for something else though.

I've not kept the receipt but I'm sure when we ate in The Glass House on Azura last week there was a service charge on the bill when my other half signed it. So maybe if you eat in select dining venues you may find that on your bill. Has anyone else noticed this? It may be a regular thing as it's not something we've done on other ships.

Sam.

We came back from Azura on Saturday so I've only just seen this updated thread. No way do we even spend £80 a day on drinks between 2 of us. We don't drink much alcohol, mainly a couple each on an evening. The rest of the day it's been mainly tea or coffee (in the buffet & with a Costa card) or water. A couple of days we bought a soft drink with lunch. As we were in mainly colder climates we preferd a hot drink. I hope the packages stay optional if they roll them out as it just wouldn't be worth it for us. A good thing I noticed on the link was that they reserve the right to not serve you if you're intoxicated.

Sam.

My mum and dad sail on Ventura today too. I won’t mention this to them as they had quite a stressful journey to their hotel yesterday with road closures etc and I think Dad was going to opt out and tip in cash as he’d seen some posts about AGs. I’ll leave it until they’re back and then ask them. We sail on Azura the day before they return so I think I’m going to reduce the amount of AGs and then tip in cash. See if we get a letter in the ‘pigeon hole’ from P&O asking why we’ve reduced them ;)

I hope everyone who sails today has a lovely cruise!

Sam.

I remember we had a champagne fountain on Artemis. The one and only time we ever saw them do one. Don't think it was too many years ago they stopped the chocoholics buffet but we only went once to have a look and then never bothered with them after that. After finding out about the Southampton sailaways I've advised my mum to head up to the top bars if she wants a glass of fizz. She always liked being on the prom deck as the ship left.

Sam

I think it must depend on the ship. Aurora & Oriana seem to have music at the aft decks, where there are a couple of bars, sometimes with some of the Ents Team. On the larger ships, most of the deck bars are on the upper decks. I do miss the sailaways of 'yesteryear', having enjoyed not just the quayside brass bands but also the streamers! They really made it feel like an occasion. It is a bit of a non-event now.

They’d need to be special biodegradable streamers now if they ever thought of bringing them back! I guess with so many ships departing from Southampton now the bands were probably deemed to be not cost effective.

Sam.

It’s such a shame they got rid of the band, it always used to add the atmosphere. I agree with Peter, it did make the holiday feel a bit more special. I remember the first cruise we went on and they gave us streamers to throw from the side. That was on Artemis. Wouldn’t want to do that now though, not very environmentally friendly and I imagine they probably had to send someone out in a boat to clean it up. Sounds like we will probably head up to the top then for a glass of sailaway fizz

Sam.

Good afternoon, I’ve been watching some videos on YouTube of Southampton sailaways and I’ve noticed on nearly all of them the prom decks always look deserted. The videos always capture the port side of the ships which always used to be packed out on previous cruises I’ve been on. Does everyone just go up to top decks now? You can always see people up there. The last cruise we went on we went up to a bar at the stern and we was the only ones there. Am interested to find out what other people have noticed at their sailaways. Is the prom deck for sailaway day not the ‘in’ place to be now? Don’t want to head there after muster when we go and there’s no one else there as that means there won’t be any champagne there either :')

Sam.

Oh my goodness! I'm really not sure what to do now, I want to remove AGs and tip in cash after all I've read on here but we're freedom dining and I don't want to have to carry cash about every night to tip waiters as we will probably dine in a few different places. I liked AGs as it was nice to think tips were taken care of for you. If removing them doesn't affect what they get then I'm tempted to lower the amount just a little and then tip the CS in cash so maybe that way everyone's still getting something (?). If I was club dining I'd def go back to cash fully but we like freedom dining. At the end of the day we all go on holiday to relax and wind down so don't want to be worrying about tipping every single night.

Sam.

If the timing is right I book onboard to get the extra OBC and transfer it to my TA for their discount.

Thanks Sharon, I will see if anything is being offered onboard. TAs I enquire in now just don’t seem to offer any discounts any more.

Sam.

What are everyone’s opinions on booking onboard these days? Is it worth doing? We are looking at a cruise for next year and thought about booking onboard. I’ve used TAs in the past but just lately found they all seem to charge the same as P&O don’t seem to give discounts to the TAs to pass on to the customer. It’s mainly high street TAs I’ve looked at in the past and have used a Blackpool based specialist agent before. The last couple of cruises we have just gone direct to P&O.

Sam.

I hope everything's ok with Ventura, especially mechanical wise as my parents sail on her soon. Will be keeping an eye on here and the webcam. Will be gutted for them if anything goes wrong Hopefully everything is ok, they've had a while to try and fix things.

Sam.

Our next cruise is just over 3 weeks away but no longer bothered about check in time as we will be Caribbean level on this. However I am wondering whether we will be able to sneak our Canadian relatives, who are P&O virgins, on board at the same time.;)

My in-laws always cruise together (father, mother & son) and only one of them is Carribean tier but they always board together on priority check in and even go to the Peninsular luncheons. Sometimes they share a balcony cabin but not always. I guess its because its either done as one booking or linked bookings.

Sam.

Sorry bu this is a guaranteed booking, meaning that you cannot pick your cabin. You are allocated one by the company. These are generally offered near the end of the booking period when the cruise is well booked up. As reading the thread seems to be the case. Confirmed by the price which has been paid.

 

 

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Oh I see. I only wondered if it was select fare as a couple of people thought the price was quite high. I’ve never done a late booking as work kind of restricts that kind of thing for me so I wasn’t aware of guaranteed bookings as such, only those in saver fares. Thank you for clarifying that for me daiB :)

If you have booked a select fare with your travel agent then I would have thought they should have offered you a selection of cabin numbers (if I’m correct they are usually allocated a selection of each grade by P&O) which you could have then looked at the deck plans to find their location and possible layouts to pick the best cabin for you. That’s what has usually happened in the past when I’ve booked through a TA, this year I’ve gone direct but only because there’s not many discounts about nowadays. I really hope you get something sorted or at least some compensation and that you still have a lovely holiday.

Sam.

I agree - it's made very interesting reading and been quite a talking point between us and our friends. As you say people will come to their own decisions - some will continue to do as they have always done but there has been a lot of food for thought recently. I do think I have a better insight now although some may question whether we are any the wiser but I feel I am and we will definitely weigh all that up in making our decision in the future.

And I agree with you, it’s definitely given me an insight into tipping. My other half’s parents have just sailed on Arcadia yesterday and I’m very tempted to ask them how they tipped when they get back as they are doing freedom dining like we will be. Tipping is one of those subjects that will always pop up again and I will continue to be interested in everyone’s views.

Sam.

As one or two others on here have previously said, at the end of the day, how and what we tip is personal choice. Despite all the discussion (which I do find interesting) we will all go about it in our own way whether that will be sticking with the AG right through to not tipping at all. I have to say reading these posts has made me think about how I will tip in July. I’ve got a plan A and a plan B, (FYI neither of them involves not tipping at all as a minority sometimes suggests on here) just got to decide on which way to do it.

Sam.

We had a tour on waitlist for our Iceland cruise, after just a week we had an email confirming we had got places :) Just shows sometimes its worth going on a waitlist.

Sam.

I was going to show my other half that post (about where auto grats really goes) but noticed it’d been removed. Has made me think seriously about removing auto grats totally now instead of just reducing them a touch like i was originally thinking of doing. The thing is, we are doing freedom dining so the only person we would see daily is the cabin steward. As we tend to eat in the buffet and a couple of other places onboard it’ll make it difficult to tip the waiters. How do you get round this? I can’t just tip the cabin steward and no one else, I’d feel really guilty. I know the buffet area usually has a tips box out at the end so I guess that’d save part of it.

Sam.

Thank you for the reply. Thats good to know. As we’re on freedom dining we will probably have a night or 3 eating there :)

Sam.

Good evening :) I was just wondering if anyone has used the Glasshouse on Azura recently? We haven’t sailed on her for a few years so just wondered if it’s still as good as the first time we ate there. We had our pre cruise information book arrive today, after not having one sent to us for a few cruises it was nice to get one today. Has anyone else had cruises where they didn’t get one?

Sam.

We always arrive at the terminal earlier than our alloted time. Would rather arrive too early than too late!! With some people having to travel quite a long way, some probably leave home quite early allowing for traffic holdups (I know we always do) and get to the terminal early. I am more than happy to sit and wait for our slot with a book or magazine. There is always a bar/cafe open if you fancy a little something before you get on board. I know some people arrive early, get rid of the luggage and the car and even wander in to Southampton as I believe there is a pub not far away that does good food.

Sam.