NoFlyGuy

14 minutes ago, Tommart said:

Not every government, no.  But take a look at an impartial view of the situation in the UK from the viewpoint of a quality Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald.  They have no political axe to grind, but they're clearly stunned by the failure to take timely action here, bearing in mind that we now have the worst death rate in Europe. It doesn't make pleasant reading, particularly for anyone who's lost someone in a care home.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/biggest-failure-in-a-generation-where-did-britain-go-wrong-20200428-p54o2d.html

 

'Biggest failure in a generation': Where did Britain go wrong?

 

 

 

Not exactly true - you need to allow for population size when calculating death rates.

Then of course countries report their statistics differently and you need to compare like with like.

I also think southern hemisphere countries need to exercise some caution. The northern hemisphere is far more heavily populated and this pandemic has hit during the northern winter.

One hopes that the 'south' doesn't get hit badly during their winter - time will tell.

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

The main thing needed to attract people back is unfortunately out of P&O’s control, and that’s a vaccine that is widely available. Until then, I think it will be a case of only appealing to those who are completely oblivious to the risks or just don’t care (“we’ve all got to die at some point” / “Life is for living” etc). Much to my surprise, there are quite a few on this forum who are quite happy to take the risk. I am not amongst them! Social Distancing and cruise ships just do not go together. The second biggest thing is also out of P&O’s control, and that’s having all cruise ports open to cruise ships. 

 

Once we are all vaccinated, I think that demand will start to return at a reasonable pace but I believe that it could take up to a decade to get back to the level of perceived demand that the industry had last year (that was generating all the new builds). I note that the CEO of the major cruise ship builder has put the same time scale on the full recovery. The market, especially P&O, was shifting at a fast rate towards the ‘new to cruising’ audience and I fear that they will take a lot more convincing now than those of us who are seasoned cruisers. By definition, this forum will never be representative of the market that P&O is going after.

 

I am less convinced than others that demand will outstrip supply. A lot of people are shifting bookings at the moment, rather than making all-new ones. Once the balance due date looms for these cruises, common sense will prevail with a lot of these people and if they are not vaccinated by then they will delay again. P&O knows this, hence the ability to change to bookings multiple times. 
 

I agree with others that P&O, as with other cruise lines, will need to address travel insurance and most likely include it in the fare. More strategically, I would be creating a sub brand within P&O with at least one of the adult only ships and make it far more upmarket. This would have to encompass serious upgrades to cabins, main dining rooms and entertainment, but would enable them to retain some of those who are moving away from P&O due to their brand repositioning, as well as attracting a new market. As the market will be challenged for a number of years, I’m not sure that it’s wise to have all the P&O ships having pretty much the same offering. 

I agree a vaccine is important to a great number of people whether it be cruising or any other type of holiday.

I'm normally a glass half empty person suffering with anxiety and taking medication but on this subject I'm a glass half full person.

For once the whole developed world is throwing the kitchen sink at this problem.

Whilst humankind is great at buggering up the planet with climate change and the like, there is also great ingenuity out there.

Where there is a market (eg amazing mobile phone technology) or concerted government cooperation, it's amazing what we as a species can accomplish.

I believe a viable vaccine will be in production by the autumn (hopefully I wont be getting hate posts come September/October!).

If correct then I think the travel industry will both survive and get back to normal pretty quickly. We will all need a holiday.

Keep well and safe everyone.

6 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I dont take joy in it at all egelsbrech, but I do find it strangely addictive reading the same moans and groans every day, and quite often every hour.  I really do empathise with all your concerns and worries, but honestly is it doing you any good, one or two of you do seem prepared to sit back and wait, but many of you keep repeating the same things, as though by increasing the number of times you revisit your loss will improve your chances of a good outcome.

I hope you all do get full refunds, but I fear it  might be a long wait.

We all want the refunds that we are entitled to but I agree that repeating the same things does no good and probably does your stress levels no good in these already dreadful times.

It seems to me that there are two groups, one just wanting their refunds and those needing their refunds to help ends meet. The latter I have every sympathy with.

Being retired we are in the former group and, in that respect, lucky. But it's not a panacea for us as well.

We have cancelled two cruises back on the 17th March and still have five booked up to early 2022. Much of the cost of those cruises would have been paid for by dividend income from our investments over the years. With that drying up rapidly we may have to cancel some or all of them and forfeit the deposits.

I'm not complaining - it is what is it and we are both keeping out of harms way and remain healthy even though we have underlying health conditions.

I wont be chasing P&O or contacting my credit card company - I'm happy to sit and wait.

Dodgy P&O systems. On the 17th March we cancelled two cruises for 15th May and 28th June neither of which can  now be accessed on cruise personaliser.

Apologies if I annoyed/upset people with my posts yesterday. Frustration with the lock down and too much wine really. Still, no excuse.

A cruise to nowhere wouldn't appeal to us. Whilst we like(d) the whole cruise experience, visiting and exploring new places is the main reason we cruise.

Could be back to driving to the South of France for us in the future.

11 minutes ago, miniyorkie said:

A tad harsh NoFlyGuy. You admit that your financial circumstances are such that you can afford to wait.  Others have no work,  no automatically paid  pensions. The refund is required by many  to pay  household expenses and the uncertainty as to when it may be refunded causes more anxiety. It cannot be denied that P.O are not playing fair to customers who have to abide by their rules on payment terms. 

Point taken.

But the world isn't like it was 3 months ago.

Financial rules, both on the positive and negative, have to be reviewed.

Processing refunds within 14 days is just one that is not realistic in the current climate.

13 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Hardly.

3 friends died last week with coronavirus.

I am in extra lockdown because I had a heart attack at Xmas.

You obviously are not waiting for thousands of pounds back from a cruise company.

I am waiting for a refund of  £1650 and a cruise credit of around £2300.

Back on topic we are at day 42 having cancelled our May 15th cruise on the 17th of March once the advice was for those with underlying medical conditions not to cruise, obviously a link there to being able to get insurance on another thread.

Everyone's situation is personnel to them.

We are lucky in one way as we are both early retired and have our works pensions and my state pension so waiting for our 50% refund  and 50% FCC is not urgent.

Our next booking is not until Christmas with the balance due (via TA) on 31st August. We can but follow developments as to whether to make the final payment.

But like most there are problems for us - we have three cruises booked in 2021 and one in early 2022 and can't use the FCC against any of these (true, we could try to update our cabin).

Also on the downside, much of our cruise costs were paid for by dividend income from investments, many of which are drying up.

Who knows how this is going to pan out in the medium term and we may have to cancel some of our future cruises if funds are not available.

In the overall scheme of things I treasure the fact that I and my wife are 'reasonably' healthy whilst thousands of families are suffering misery. If we lose a few cruises and deposits so be it.

I can wait a bit longer for my refund whatever the law says. These are unusual times to say the least! 

12 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Kalos - not easy to read your post.  But, as a matter of interest, if, I go for a walk with my wife, why are we not allowed to sit on a bench or on the grass?

It's quite simple really. Getting back to cruising/holidays we often walk miles and, of course, take a seat from time to time. That's because it's an outing. The rules now are we don't do 'outings' but go out for exercise only and in our vicinity - i.e. don't go off driving in our cars to some beauty spot.

1 hour ago, kalos said:

Some very good points have been put forward on this thread and I do agree that politics/colour is not

very helpful at the moment. Most of the opposition who have been on TV also say the Government is doing a very 

difficult job with the outbreak.

One thing that seems missing out of this thread is the public, no not us who are isolating or the ones staying at 

home following the lockdown rules .No we are talking of the UK selfish who on the first ray of sunshine go out

not giving a second thought for others .Look in most papers and the photos of them laid out in parks and beaches

is there to be seen .

This does not happen just in our country , USA figures are going through the roof and again look in the papers and 

look at the photo's of Daytona beach and others and you begin to understand why, when you see how many people

they are .

We need to look forward and learn from countries like South Korea, they learnt a hard lesson from the MERS outbreak.

They were not going to go through anything like that again ,so the first sign of this they were onto it and more importantly their public were prepared to follow advice and stay indoors until testing and other plans were made .

A very good article about South Korea https://www.wired.co.uk/article/south-korea-coronavirus

 

Good points Kalos.

We went out for our walk today in Silverstone as usual - it's a big village but usually very quiet in the middle of the day.

Could not  believe the number of private cars we encountered on a minor road between Silverstone and a Abthorpe .

If you are going out for groceries to Towcester or Brackley why are you driving down this road - it just leads to small villages.

Got back to our road and our neighbour from two away was helping someone  load something onto a trailer - no social distancing! Maybe should have said something rather than just look at each other and seethe.

What do people not understand about the rules!

3 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You might like to read on, though, Avril,  to the rest of what he said. References to their numbers of ICU beds, and their high levels of testing - as against ours. 

 

Very generous comments, though. If only we could be so generous towards EU countries instead of constantly sniping.

ICU beds - seems like we have coped well with that unless you believe that both the government and all the senior health pros are lying. It seems we have far more capacity than we need at the moment.

Maybe you think that's another failure - wasted money on Nightingale hospitals etc.

Talk about bending the facts to fit your views!

43 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You’re missing some key points:

 

1 Johnson DID want this job - look at the lengths he went to to get it.

2 Constructive criticism? Start the process sooner and don’t ignore the warnings that the UK pandemic preparations are inadequate.

3 This isn’t just any political advisor it’s the notorious Dominic Cummings.

4 Johnson missed the key Cobra meetings well before he was unwell. He had other more important personal matters to attend to and failed to understand the importance of Coronavirus. We lost at least a month’s vital planning.

 

This has been a horrendously expensive and catastrophic shambles. Both in terms of finance, and, sadly, unnecessary deaths.

 

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

We may be faring relatively badly but we are not the worst - that seems to go to Belgium who have had the worst number of deaths per  million population so far. But we hear nothing of what their approach has been.

Sweden is taking a different approach and their stats on testing are on a par with ours (per population)  whilst not employing a severe lockdown.

Why is that? Surely they should be a disaster area!

Reality is there are no easy answers as we are all dealing with something new and trying to learn from each other.

But of course there are always those on here and elsewhere who will slate the government 'come what may'.

I'm sure some of the medical experts we hear from each day would have resigned by now if they thought that ministers were ignoring their advise and following ideas that 'advises' like Cummings or others may have come up with.

We got 100% of our single trip premium back when we cancelled our May cruise back in mid March.

When we cancelled a cruise in October 18 we received a 50% refund from P&O and 50% at a later date from the insurance company.

Both resulted in a credit balance on the card.

On both occasions I just phoned the card provider and asked them to refund the exact amounts to my bank account.

My direct debit then paid the outstanding balance as normal on the due date.

25 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Realistically,  cruises will start when the Brutush Government decide it is safe to have 5000 people squashed together in a ship,  when other countries are prepared to allow thousands of foreigners to enter their ports, and when insurance companies are prepared to cover individuals for Coronavirus. 

Thinking that none of the above will take place by August seems purely rational to me.  

Would agree. Anyone who thinks a July or August cruise is likely to go ahead must be in dreamland.

6 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

Someone said to us that you don't realise how much of a good time you had on a cruise until you look back. 

Seems to be your experience.. 

Andy 

Very true Andy. We are well and truly hooked now!

Who knows when any of us will get to cruise again. Thousands of deaths worldwide and rising so, when we next get to cruise

is not that important, at least to me.

Bye the way I'm Chris and hope all of you and your loved ones stay well.  

4 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

Another lovely thread Andy. I’ve been mulling it over and I can’t think of a favourite cruise as I love them all!

So sorry to be boring, I’m going to mention my first cruise - it was 2012 on Azura for our 25th wedding anniversary. It was meant to be a special one off holiday but of course we were hooked!

Not the most exciting ports in the world - La Rochelle, La Coruna Bilbao and Guernsey- which was cancelled but they took us to Cherbourg instead. 
It was early June and not the fabulous weather I was expecting but my God I enjoyed every minute. 
The first time we spotted Azura our jaws both dropped - I can’t remember the terminal, I think it was QEII but the angle of it meant we could see the radar ‘balls’ of Azura over the top of some flats and I thought she was enormous!

Ive always loved the sea and just to be looking at the sea sitting up on deck or watching out the window makes me feel happy. No other holiday compares. I love unpacking once then waking up somewhere different each day.

 

Our Captain was the famous Camby and his address the last night brought a lump to my throat as he wished his crew a safe journey home as many were finishing that cruise. I remember I was grateful my husband was busy watching the tug boats as I had a tear in my eye! 
I was so so sad to get off and raved about the holiday to anyone and everyone!

I still get that slither of excitement as I see the ‘to the ship’ sign!

Our first cruise was with RCI on the Indy in 2011 when Janice reached 50 and wanted to do something different rather than just driving to the south of France twice a year.

Must admit when we approached the city terminal at Southampton that first time we thought OMG she's enormous! Just looking at pictures on the internet didn't prepare us for the shock.

It was a bog standard no fly med cruise which we both enjoyed but I remember when we got back I said that I probably wouldn't want to do another to both Janice and one of our neighbours.

Nine years on now and 20 odd cruises later... tends to be catching!

Stay well all. 

34 minutes ago, wowzz said:

P&O have laid off all their staff from the end of May. They wouldn't be doing that if they thought cruises would resume in August. 

Could be wrong but I thought it was to the end of June.

Even when travel restrictions start to be lifted I would think that cruise ships would be the last to be accepted by countries across the world. Rightly or wrongly cruise ships may well be perceived to be a hotbed of infection.

All getting a bit nasty again. Is that because of certain posters returning to the fold or general stress that we are all feeling?

Here in Silverstone it's quite quiet. We've been out for a few walks over the past couple of weeks.

When someone approaches, we or they,  move aside - either crossing the road or walking into the road to keep our distance.

We can still say 'good morning' or 'good afternoon' or exchange other pleasantries.

Was watching a webcam of a part of Brighton beach/prom today. Yes, i'm sure it was a lot quieter than a 'normal' pleasant Sunday in April, but what struct me was the fact that those who did come out seemed incapable of obeying the rules and keeping two metres apart. Big wide prom, but most still passed about two feet apart! That's just one webcam in one seaside resort.

Of course the restrictions are unpresented and painful but it's not rocket science - follow the rules!

Stay well all.

10 minutes ago, daiB said:

They have to give you your money back eventually it would make far more sense to put it against a cruise you have already booked or indeed one after March 22.

Maybe true if they still exist as a going concern.

I'm sitting on my PC waiting to see if I can book a grocery delivery - not sure when the supermarket systems update to the next day and slots become available, hoping it might be midnight.

Worries about refund or FCC can wait for now.

Stay safe and well.

We are living in unpresedentive times ( at least for me born in '53 ). How many of you can remember this level of curbs on your freedom of movement?

The world is going into shutdown, whole economies are going to be shattered, who knows how many people will die before this ends. We are up to 1019 deaths and our leaders think if we can keep it to 20,000 we will have done remarkedly well and that's just the UK.

Arguements about ABTA and terms and conditions of your P&O booking may become irrelevant and to me annoying,  I've little doubt they will be changed by legistration and be retrospective. I have/had bookings and can live with that. My primary concern is for my wife and I to stay safe, and hopefully, have holidays in the future, assuming there are any travel companies left. 

30 minutes ago, PRINCESSTHE BEST said:

Not at all. By insisting you create a new booking they are filling the cruises for the next couple of years. In the meantime they are taking the government handouts and claiming on their insurance for losses. Check the Carnival share price, it is on the way up again. The stock market knows what’s happening.

Stock markets usually overreact both on the upside and downside. It's the nature of the beast.

Remember the financial crises of 2008 - there were various dead cat bounces before the final slump.

I've no idea of what Carnival plc's insurance arrangements are or what help they may or may not get from the UK government. 

Boris is coming on the tv at 8:30, likely to enforce even more stringent measures to try to resist the spread.

When this ends there probably won't be much of a travel industry left, let alone cruising.

Whole economies destroyed for decades.

Whilst I might like a refund for cruises we've cancelled, I'd rather be hopeful that P&O stay in business, both for us and their staff and, eventually, some form of normality will be resumed - who knows when?. 

Times are changing and normal rules may have to be changed. If legistration is needed I'm sure it will be forthcoming.

24 minutes ago, cjthedjeu said:

There is an article in the Independent today by Simon Calder explaining that the whole travel industry has been petitioning the government to change the current legal provisions for cancellations, forgive me, I cannot find the link just now. Across the board it looks like all companies will be giving holiday vouchers which are valid for 2 years and if you are not able to use them, then you would get your money back. This is designed to try and ensure we still have a travel industry next year otherwise if all companies continue to have to pay out in cash for cancellations while having no revenue streams then they will inevitably go bust. Please try not to be so critical and selfish at this incredibly difficult time, try to think of others and also look after your own and everyone else's health. 

Fully agree!

41 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

When things were "normal" you had no trouble getting a delivery slot. Now it's impossible and when all this is over they'll disappear again without a thought for all the regular customers that were left without deliveries or food. It's a case of " I'm all right Jack" Unfortunately people aren't what they used to be.

Avril 

When this is all over things will get back to normal.

I think regular customers need to take a back seat (assuming they are not in a risk group) to enable those most in need of deliveries to take slots.