oleb84

I wish P&O would bring these ship visits back properly. They were great. We paid £25pp to do a ship visit on the Aurora in 2017. Prior to that we'd never sailed with P&O. A few months after our ship visit we booked a cruise on Azura and were pleasantly surprised to find that P&O had credited our account with £50 OBC as we had done a ship visit within 6onths prior to us booking. Incredible customer service! And as others have mentioned, lunch is included in the visit as well as seeing all the main areas and chatting to some of the staff. I'd very much like to repeat that!

You're a gent! Huge difference in selection Vs P&O which is welcome. Huge price difference though (Peroni is £5.95 on P&O for example). So around a 30% increase. Hmm... May have to splash out on a drinks package and not have to worry about it. My wife and I don't normally drink enough between the 2 of us to make it worthwhile.

Anyone got a pic of a drinks menu from the pub? Or a memory of all the beers available? Draught and bottled please.

I like this thinking of the premium package! We may have a winning solution here, thanks! True. I may have read somewhere the kids club opens at 7. I'm just going by my experience with P&O.

Good on ya! We will hopefully be joining you soon in booking MSC for the first time. Compared to the cost of other lines, it's worth a pint I'd say. Almost half the cost of one we have just done for the same time of year.

Very helpful, thank you! Interesting that Waves restaurant has a 10pm sitting but that's not available to book online. Thanks for the detailed answers to my questions. I'm still a little lost though. We would drop the kids off at 6ish and then pick them up at 10ish - they're only young so we wouldn't want to leave them later. Which doesn't leave room for seeing a show and eating dinner if service in the dining room is slow. Hence why we try to see the show first and then go to dinner. That may not be possible unless we have the anytime dining option it seems.

We'll be looking to sit down to eat at about 930/945 though, that's the concern. Eating any earlier than that and we'll miss the show as we can't go to the later one because of the kids. 🤔

Don't count on it! Plenty of parents will take their kids out one day early. The day before a half term is always just a movie day so there's no break in learning for one day. But if it's only a Welsh school holiday then I'd say you have virtually nothing to worry about. There will be kids, but not hundreds.

We are debating whether the Aurora upgrade is worth it for us. We don't use spa and aren't bothered about an exclusive area but we do tend to eat late - especially with kids in tow. Are night tends to be; kids eat at 5, drop them off at kids club at 6, go back to cabin to get changed then head out for a couple of drinks, then head to the 830 show then head straight to dinner and then either a nightcap and then pick up kids or go straight to pick up kids. We find it's the only way we can fit everything we want to do in as service is much slower at peak times in the school holidays. Booked dining is either 5:30-? Or 7:45. These won't work for us. We're happy to pay the extra but only if main dining room serves until 10pm.

I wouldn't blame MSC. We've just had a very similar experience on P&O Ventura. It's simply the school holidays. The whole country won't be off at the same time, it's staggered over a couple of weeks. Some schools even get 2 weeks in October.

Hi all, It's no secret that MSC are attacking the UK market and their prices are just too good to ignore any more. We first sailed with RC but their prices for kids are horrific and drove us away. Our last 4 cruises have been with P&O but we just find the ships dated and less interesting for the kids - even the newer ones. But the actual kids club (drop off day care) is phenomenal and no extra cost so we compromise because the kids are happy and looked after. But we miss being on a "fun" ship. MSC Virtuoso, Euribia and Preziosa seem a bit more action packed than P&O. So anyway, enough waffle, can anyone give some real life feedback on their kids facilities please? When we sail next the kids will be 7 and 3½. For comparison sales, P&O kids facilities I'll try to sum up below: * No extra cost * Open 9-12, 2-5 and 6-11 on sea days. * Open 2-5 and 6-11 port days * First come, first served. So there's always a risk they might not get in but we're happy to queue up for a while to get them in. * Standard kids activities, painting, games, movie time, outdoor time, soft play etc. Nothing crazy. * We just like it because we can get some alone time and it feels like a proper holiday. We're still young (ish) so want to enjoy a bit more of the adrenaline stuff without having the kids in tow.