bluedot2014

I don't think it makes any difference how you pay. It should go on the actual cost of the cruise, that's the amount that will get 'lodged' with Quidco.

You do have your pic taken as you go on board although I don't think these are exactly popular ones to purchase so certainly wouldn't dress up just for that.

Smart casual is certainly the way to go I reckon.

We ended up dragging the mattress off the pulldown bed and putting it on the floor as the bed itself was rattling and squeaking during the night and waking us up (typically daughter was just sleeping through!).

We had fun trying to explain it to our cabin steward but he was fine about it and just left us to it really.

Just for the record, we were on Azura and had twin beds due to the H&S issue already discussed.

To be honest, I never even thought of comparing prices at travel agents (to online prices) and trying for a discount through them. Something else I've learnt on here :)

Sorry, probably obvious but what does TA stand for ?

Just a heads up really for anyone that doesn't use Quidco that it really is worth opening an account before purchasing your cruise. Quidco is very easy to use, you just open an account and then go to the quidco site, search for P&O and then choose the offer you want, you then get redirected to the P&O website and carry on with your purchase, your purchase is tracked by a cookie.

At present you get 4% cashback for P&O cruises, so on a £3000 cruise that's £120 paid back direct into your bank account 8-12 weeks after your cruise. It's a no brainer really and I use quidco all the time.

I don't work for them and don't receive any affiliate payments if you use them (that's why I'm not even putting a link to the site).

I never thought in a million years I would wear a tuxedo in a posh restaurant but I bought one from Asda for around £50 got a clip on tie and got a formal shirt from a charity shop. My wife and I enjoyed it immensely it's only 3 or 4 nights on a 12 night cruise but really good and I certainly didn't feel out of place.

 

Exactly my feelings about the formal nights. I don't understand why people don't give them a try, even just once.

*But* each to their own and we all have our own opinion :)

There is a diagram on a wall by one of the doors (sorry I can't be more specific!) showing the length of a mile on the Promenade Deck.

More info here:

https://ask.pocruises.com/help/PO/fleet/deck-facilities/prom_distance

Thanks to all who replied. Sounds like a great solution.

 

This site never fails to amaze with with its usefulness and helpfulness.

Agreed, just don't ask whether you should tip the Cabin Steward for moving your belongings :D

Find the nearest McDonalds or follow the crew when in port and use Wi-Fi.

This did make me laugh during our recent cruise. You only need to have a quick look around to see the large group of crew & passengers all tapping away at their tablets and phones to realise there's a freebie wifi connection available just off the ship somewhere.

Just to add my tuppence worth to the on-going saga of P&O dress codes :)

Without a shadow of a doubt the formal nights played on our (mainly mine) minds before we went on our cruise (even the second one).

The first time we went I took my usual dark suit and it was no problem at all.

The second time we went I was reading this forum beforehand and the opinion seemed to be that the vast majority of men wore tuxedos now. This put me in a bit of a spin as I had never worn one and had no intention of wearing one. *but* we had a quick look on good old eBay and I got a brand new one (labels still on it) for £10.50...So the whole 'wasting money buying one just for the cruise' argument just isn't valid. Even a new one from George at Asda will probably cost less than £50 and you will not be able to tell the difference between that and a £500 one from wherever.

Dressing up (in our opinion) is well worth it, the pics they take are ones you keep forever and the whole occasion is all part of the cruise. Trust me, when you are all suited and booted in your cabin, a tiny part of you is thinking 'I hope its not just me wearing formal attire'!! But once you are out in the atrium, you will occasionally see people walking through in shorts, t-shirts etc feeling very out of place and you can see the looks on the womens faces wishing that they (as a couple) had made the effort to dress up.

As an aside, dark jeans in the restaurants are perfectly acceptable, plenty of people wear them on the non formal nights, including me.

We were tipping a couple of quid before we ran out of UK change (note to self, to take a pile of pound coins next time!), then we just used our Norwegian Krona for roughly the same amount.

Having just come back from the Norwegian Fjord cruise (on Azura) I'd really urge you to go a bit extra and get a balcony. The balcony for this particular cruise just makes the holiday, you wake up to breath-taking mountains and waterfalls slowly passing by just a hundred or so yards away, same again each evening as you set sail. Apart from the 2 days at sea there is very little time when you are looking out onto nothing but water.

We justified the cost of the balcony by not booking any excursions, would do exactly the same again.

We were in the 9:50 - 10:10 disembarkation time and waited in Sindhu. At 9:50 a member of staff came along and told us there was a delay of 10-15 mins. He then returned about 15 mins later and moved each section of the bar away, a few mins after each other.

We queued for probably about 5 mins max to get off the ship and our luggage was waiting in the hall.

I think what makes the whole process seem long winded is the having to be out of the cabin by 8, then even after having breakfast having to sit around for at least an hour or so before your allocated time. Not really sure there's an easy way of getting 3000 people off a ship although I think they definitely need more P&O staff on hand, you tend to feel a bit neglected.

On a slightly different topic, I'm surprised the long queue of cars upon embarkation hasn't been mentioned before, it took a ridiculously long time from entering the dock gate to get to the berth for the valet parking. We were lucky as we were in a taxi and managed to skirt round the end of the queue.

Also back today from the Norwegian fjord cruise on Azura. This was only our second cruise (both with P&O) and we weren't disappointed, we enjoyed pretty much every minute.

We had a balcony for this trip and it was worth every penny for the views that the fjords offered, the weather was also very kind to us with blue skies greeting us most days.

The service was second to none as far as we were concerned with the waiters in the peninsular always extremely friendly and helpful. We dined in the peninsular sometimes 3 times a day and were on Freedom Dining. Incidentally why do some people choose to share a table and then not utter a word or make any attempt at conversation? I would say 20% of the time we had those 'awkward' meals where the conversation just didn't flow. On the plus side, we met some great people whilst dining and some real characters, it really made the holiday for us.

Drinks prices seemed pretty fair to us, nothing to steep.

We did seem to struggle to find somewhere to sit and have a drink or two after dinner each evening though, the Manhatton, Malabar, Brodies, Blue Bar etc all seemed to be full to bursting.

The shows all seemed popular, my wife and daughter enjoyed them and we also saw the comedian Tucker a couple of times.

We found the price of photos staggering though, £18 for 10x8 image with little or no incentive to buy 5 or 6 of them for say £50. The quality of them was excellent though and the queues proved the popularity of them, hence the high price I suppose.

The shops were ok, definitely geared up for women, how about a 'blokey' electronics shop with cameras, gadgets, kindles etc ?

Embarkation was fine, disembarkation was also ok although the pickup/drop off did become a little chaotic.

I'll write more as I remember. All in all a great trip, we're already looking at what's available for next year :)

Your question is answered, direct from the BBC!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33510550

Five places that still demand ties, and five that ban them

2. Formal dinners on a P&O Cruise. A lounge suit and tie is the minimum, but "James Bond style dinner jackets bring a real sense of occasion to the evening", adds the company.

 

Formal night still makes me suck my teeth like a builder... lol

 

Not long to go now and I think the part I am finding so exciting is sailing from Southampton, I've heard it is a lovely place to sail out of. :)

 

Sophie

I think you'll find the view is better when you turn left as you enter the Solent and look across to the Spinnaker Tower and Southsea Seafront, maybe I'm a little biased though ;)

Do keep an open mind about the formal nights. This is our second cruise, the first one was 5 years ago and I wore a dark suit, didn't feel out of place at all. I've gone the whole hog this time and purchased a tuxedo, now can anyone beat this, £10.50 off of eBay?!! And it still had the labels on so it is unworn, hey it maybe from George at Asda but it looks fine and with a decent shirt and shoes it'll do me for a couple of nights! :D

We had an inside cabin on Oceana 5 years ago. There were 3 of us and I don't think space was really an issue. The thing that puts me off inside cabins and I probably wouldn't choose one again (unless it was an amazing deal!) was that you have no concept of time, when the lights are off - it's pitch black no matter what time of the day it is. Take an led clock with you so you can see the time instantly, it saves you faffing around trying to find your mobile etc only to see it's 3am :)

Apologies if you know all that, it's just my experience on an onside cabin.

Many thanks for the helpful replies.

Managed to sort tickets this morning for the funicular, seem very reasonably priced as well :)

Will be there in two weeks exactly!

Thanks again

I can help with Bergen as we got back from our cruise today.

 

Pre book the fennicular railway tickets before you go. Otherwise you will queue in 2 long queues. If you have pre bought and printed your tickets online you can by pass the very long ticket queue and join the main tram queue. They only have a date on them not a time so you don't have to worry about a timed slot.

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Excellent advice thankyou!

Just tried to book our funicular tickets and get an Error! when trying to checkout, will try again later. Hopefully a small glitch on their web site.

Thanks for the reply, very helpful!

Another question just came to us. With our first cruise we had club dining and ate at the same table with the same guests at the same time. each day This time we have opted for freedom dining. I take it the dress code (I'm thinking really about the formal black tie nights) is the same for the Meridian Restaurant (the freedom dining restaurant) ?

ok, this is our second cruise. The first was five years ago on Oceana around Ireland, Northern Spain & France. This time we're off for the 7 night trip to the Norwegian Fjords (can't wait!).

We can't remember to much about life on board our first cruise so we have a number of trivial questions that I wonder if someone could answer for us:

1. Alcoholic drinks for consumption in the room look very reasonably priced so we will order a couple for the trip. Is there somewhere on board though that sells large bottles of lemonade or coke ?

2. Is there somewhere on board that sells milk ? There'll be 3 of us in the room and plenty of coffee will be drunk each morning as we sit on our balcony!

3. Daft question, are the products listed on the room service menu with no price, just basically all part of the package ? Sorry, I can't get my head around that I could order a roast beef baguette to my cabin at 11pm for no charge :)

4. For our trip to Bergen we want to do either the funicular railway or cable car, it looks like the railway is the easiest to get to. Is it worth pre-booking for say late morning to allow plenty of time to disembark and make our way there ? Is there a shuttle bus to the centre of town or near where the railway departs from ?

There's probably some other questions we'll remember as soon as we press submit so will post them when we remember them :)