Harters

And some wake up looking to make the most stupid of remarks. You take first prize today. Congratulations.

Yes (as detailed by Globaliser). We were actually recently looking at an Oceania cruise from/to Portsmouth but, in the end, the dates didnt suit. Looking at the Dover port website, it's visited by quite a number of cruise lines in the next couple of months with Seabourn, Saga, Hurtigruten, HAL and Carnival having turnround calls. Of course, most folk will know the town as a ferry, rather than cruise, port, which I've use dit for several times.

You'll also find it easy to get from Heathrow to Portsmouth and Tilbury so you can widen your options. And Dover would be only a little further.

Hopefully not. Norwegian's military discounts are restricted to American serving personnel and veterans, so is inherently very discriminatory against military personnel amongst the company's customers from other countries. I think my late father in law, an avid cruiser and a veteran British Army regular soldier would have been offended by such a crass policy. And he'd have been right to be offended.

Presumably a techie issue with their website. The work-round would be to email them and ask the question. Although wouldnt the docking time on the port database be the same as your cruise company is stating? At least,as far as can be predicted.

Very sound suggestion, IMO. I used to contribute to a particular Tripadvisor forum but, with the passage of time since I had last visited the resort, any information that I had about, say, hotels and restaurants became less relevent and/or reliable. Also, there was another contributor who was very knowledgable about the area who would post regularly, contributing to most threads. So, I stopped contributing.

I think that this is generally true across most of Europe for people in the tourist industry. Many people will have learned English as a second language whilst they were at school. It's not always the case, of course. I visit Spain annually, staying in a resort area, but know restaurants there which only have a menu in Spanish and the staff don't speak English. Away from tourist areas, in Spain & France (which I know best), it's fairly unlikely that you will come across anyone who will speak English. But, yes, do think about a British Isles cruise. So many North Americans visit London and never venture out to see to see where most of us live. It's the same as though a Briton had visited the theme park areas of Florida and say they've visited the States.

There is an extensive Barca hotel thread "sticky" at the top of the page

Knowing how wrecked I've been, from jetlag, returning from the States, I can only echo John Bull's advice not to bother with London touristing until you can devote a decent amount of time to it. If you do decide to go straight to Southampton, check what time your hotel check-in opens and, if necessary, book the previous night as well, so you can get straight to your room (something I did a couple of years back travelling to South Africa). You want to board your cruise as fresh and rested as possible and ready to enjoy it.

Basor - I seem to be having one of my stupid days. Yes, of course, only a deposit has been paid on board so, presumably, the TA would only lose commission on that proportion of the full price. It must suit O to reassign the contract to a TA even though they'd have to pay the commission. Good point, LHT28. The UK cruise specialists, of which Google only found me a handful, do not appear to generally offer the additional benefits, often mentioned by North Americans, available via their TAs. I'd be interested to read the experiences from other Britons who have booked onboard and transferred to a British TA.

How does that work then, please? I would have thought that, if I had booked direct with O, then the TA has earned no commission on the sale. What's the benefit for the TA - would O pay them a commission, even though they had done nothing? And what's the benefit for the customer - the deal has already been done, so to speak? On the face of it, it doesnt seem to be in anyone's interest.

When my BiL worked in New York, he used to torment his American colleagues by asserting, with a straight face, that in the UK we celebrate 4 July as Thanksgiving.

We were originally offered similar flight times, also via London, on a very tight schedule. It was really difficult to get O to understand that this was not acceptable and what we needed was a Manchester to Heathrow flight the previous day (where we would stay overnight at our expense) and then the onward flight to Miami. Eventually, we got the arrangements we needed but it was very stressful, having to keep going back to O because elements of their revised proposals were still wrong for us. It was the biggest driver for us using a cruise specialist travel agent (ABTA bonded) this time and booking our flights direct from Manchester to Barcelona.

Major taxi companies in Manchester will happily drive you to London. My brother in law used to drive a cab and loved such trips, as it was always extremely profitable (ven though the company would have agreed a rate with the customer). The in-laws will, presumably, know the major operators in their area of the city and I'd suggest that be the first contact. FWIW, StreetCars is a major operator in the south of the city and holds an official contract with Manchester Airport. I've regularly used them for trips from home to the airport but have no experience of them for long journeys. https://streetcarsmanchester.co.uk/ As already mentioned, this will be an expensive option and I would seriously look at the train option.

Yep, I was also able to finish work when I was 53. Nearly 20 years on, there's never been a regret.

I recently came across a guy on a Tripadvisor forum who was doing similar. He was still working but the nature of it was that it was all web based, so could be done anywhere. His query to that forum was trying to find an apartment with good broadband.

You say tomato and I say tomato. 😀 I did have the other side of that "leg covering" coin a year or so back on another non-travel forum when an American asked me what the heck were these "trousers" I was mentioning.

Absolutely.

I am pretty sure that is the case. I have recently booked a cruise which attracted Extraordinary Savings. The pricing was very transparent on O's British version of the website yet, on a thread specifically about the savings, Americans were saying they needed to contact O to get the sale prices. I do not know the details of UK consumer law but I do know that "sales" need to be transparent. I imagine other European countries may well have their own differing legislative requirements.

I did indeed enjoy that trip. It was the first of my four "war" holidays in VA, twice meeting up in real life with an American e-friend from a military history forum, who worked for the FBI in Washington. Hope you get to visit your new friends at some point

It's many years since we cruised with P & O. We became, erm, disenchanted with its formality. Dinner jackets and suits are not what I want to wear anytime, not least when I'm on holiday. Apart from a couple of short, very casual, cruises, it wasnt until 2017 that we did another "proper" cruise. That was when we'd discovered Oceania. It looked as though it would give us exactly what we needed, in terms of comfort, good food and a lack of stuffiness. And it did. A variety of reasons mean we havent cruised since then but do have our second O O cruise coming up in a few weeks. My late in-laws cruised with P & O until about 10 years back and, to be honest, their accounts confirmed that I still didnt want to cruise on their ships. I'm obviously loathe to make direct detailed comparisions, without direct personal experience, but would suggest that food quality is much better on Oceania and is probably sufficiently more luxurious to justify the significant extra cost. But only you can make that judgement. By co-incidence, I saw some P & O pricing a couple of weeks back - it is substantially cheaper, per day, than Oceania. But then, P & O is generally selling to a perhaps generally less affluent British market, whilst Oceania's customer base are generally more affluent Americans. Congratulations on your forthcoming retirement. I was also able to finish work in my mid 50s. Never a regret, nearly 20 years on.

Thanks. By the by, I visited your home area a few years back. I have an interest in military history, including the American civil war. We stayed near Arlington and visited Manassas and Fairfax, before following the war south over a three week trip.

With our Nautica cruise only a few weeks away, I'm really looking forward to reading it. Are you intending to post it here on the forum, or in CC's review section? If the latter, may I ask that you post a heads-up to it on this thread.

The FAQs only mention that "sandals or tennis shoes" should not be worn.

I didnt think I owned a jacket either but I came across one in a cupboard a few weeks back. I've certainly not worn it since I retired (20 years this coming September). And, no, it doesnt come close to fitting me now. 😀 Got a black tie - for the occasional traditional funeral. FWIW, we first cruised in the late 1990s, on P & O, but after three cruises fell out of favour with all the formality. We did one casual cruise on the shortlived Island Escape, which we didnt really enjoy. And that was us done with cruising we thought. Then somehow, we discovered Oceania and realised that it was possible to find good quality (particularly the food) in a relaxed atmosphere. That matched our restaurant eating onshore - I won't go to places that require jackets (I waited nearly 20 years for one Michelin 2* place in London to relax its dress code). Fortunately, they are very few and far between in the UK now and, in truth , I think I've come across "jackets required" more often in the States