HappyGiraffe

We depart within 14 days and received nothing today as yet.

3 hours ago, Vampiress88 said:

Question as currently I’m a few sandwiches short

 

this means we need to be there at 1pm? Yes? Surprised as last time it was 3. And I don’t know what time I booked parking for. 
 

Depends on when you accessed/ printed it! P&O had a hiccup a couple of weeks back where everyone's tickets were issued with a 1pm boarding time, then an email went out a couple of weeks later advising everyone to check again as they'd made an error and arrival times were meant to be staggered so not everyone turned up at once. Our time shifted from 1pm to 2pm, but in the mean time we'd booked our train travel so will be arriving early and just have to sit and wait out the hour if they can't fit us in early! 

Olden, we took the P&O excursion to the Loen Skylift and Kjenndal Glacier. The Loen skylift cable car would have been spectacular in better weather, unfortunately the day we were there the top of the cable car was hidden in low clouds/ mists  so although we got a good view on the way up there wasn't much to be seen from the top (although wandering around in a cloud was an experience in itself, I guess!). We loved the trip to the glacier, the glacier itself is impressive and the drive around the lake very scenic and the tour guide had some very interesting commentary. We stopped on the way back to see a grass-roofed summer village and also a memorial thing as well. It also left us enough time to wander along the fjord to the little Olden village after getting back to the ship. Other than the beautiful scenery, there's not much to see in the port area itself.

Stavanger, there's plenty to do that's walking distance from the ship. We moored right by the old town and enjoyed wandering around. There's a traditional worker's cottage you can look round free of charge (next to the canning museum) that also sells ridiculously cheap Norwegian waffles. The canning museum was interesting if you like that kind of thing. We also really enjoyed the Petroleum Museum (far more interesting than it sounds!), it's an easy 15 minute walk from the port. We'd hoped to go to the Viking House VR exhibit  as it looks really interesting but the opening was delayed until after our visit. 

Bergen, we enjoyed both the Floibanen funicular railway (get there early if you can, as we walked straight there from the ship, got there about 7.30am and walked straight on but by the time we came down there were long queues - we also downloaded the app before the cruise and used it to buy tickets before we got off the ship in Bergen, which saved us having to queue up at the ticket office) and the Mount Ulriken cable car (we bought the tickets at the tourist info office and took the shuttle bus from just round the corner from there). Brilliant views across Bergen from both, although we did have glorious sunshine, which helped!

We were there a similar time last year, the weather varied anywhere between hot & sunny and cool & damp, sometimes even on the same day! Take a thin-ish waterproof jacket and clothes you can add or remove layers underneath.

Which ports will you be calling at?

2 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

When was the glass house restricted to formal attire, it was definitely smart casual last January?

Good question! Perhaps you are more up to date than the website! 

The list of where the dress codes apply on each ship is here: https://ask.pocruises.com/help/po/life-on-board/enforced_dresscode

The main options for non-formal dining on black tie nights (roughly 2 per week) are the buffet and the Beach House. The buffet is fine, but we really enjoy the Beach House and think it's worth the small amount extra. We check which nights are black tie when we get on board and then, depending on whether we've packed formal stuff, we book the Beach House to either avoid or coincide with the formal nights. The rest of the week, the main dining room has a more relaxed evening casual dress code, there's examples of the different dress codes here: https://ask.pocruises.com/help/po/life-on-board/dress_code

They organise group meetings on request, so presumably no-one on your cruise contacted them to ask for a CC one. If you'd like to meet up with CC people on your next cruise, the info on how to arrange a meet up is in the FAQs here: https://www.pocruises.com/frequently-asked-questions.ceremonies-at-sea.FAQ348.summary

On 2/11/2020 at 5:52 PM, MeHeartCruising said:

There apparently is an elevator to look for after getting off the ship that will take you up the cliff into the city center.  We didn't use it, so I can't tell you exactly where it is, but if you search on this forum you should be able to find those details. 

If you walk from the port along the flat towards the town, it's quite a way along on the left. Look on google maps for "Barakka lift". It's 1euro return and saves a lot of time and uphill walking! The top is in Upper Barrakka Gardens, where there are also beautiful views over the harbour (and many, many cats!).

I can't help with Mdina as haven't been, although I've seen it from a distance and it looks impressive! 

If you end up in Valletta, the Barrakka lift from bottom to top of the hill is only costs 1euro return and saved us a lot of time and walking!

Just found our souvenirs from last time on Oceana in Valletta and thought you might like to know some more of the first day timings. Everyone had to be back on board for 7.30pm for muster at 8.15pm. The buffet was open from 11.30am - 3pm for lunch with afternoon snacks from 3pm-5pm, and the poolside grill grab and go food place was open from 11am - 6pm. There were also guided tours of the public areas of the ship at 4pm and 6pm (we've always just explored on our own) and the evening theatre shows were at 9.15pm and then repeated at 10.45pm. 

I think perhaps pre-booking depends on the ship. I definitely have the option to do an online booking for either Cafe Jardin or the Beach House for Oceana next month, but I know that on our last cruise (Azura) you couldn't book the Beach House until you were onboard.

Losing the battle to zip up the second suitcase and the sinking realisation that perfectly packed suitcase #1 is going to have to be emptied and repacked again to get all the essentials in!

6 hours ago, kruzseeka said:

 

As I understand it, the cost is £40 but it was only introduced from 1st November last year so it seems they have been prepared to charge for the appropriate period remaining on the policy.  That's good!   

Very conveniently, our annual policy renews the day after we disembark and we sail quite soon, so it's only £5.26 for us! 

Thanks Stephen, that's on my list of things to look into over the weekend so good to know it shouldn't cost too much extra! I think this is the first year that Nationwide have offered the cruise upgrade.

We were there a couple of years ago and there were several boat trips from the old town port, including older boats, glass bottomed ones and "semi-submarines".

We enjoyed this boat trip which sailed along part of the walls then round Lokrum (not stopping), it was around 75 Kuna pp and we booked it on the day at a kiosk in the old town port: http://www.dubrovnik-panoramacruise.com/?dubrovnikexcursions=panoramaboat&lng=en

Some of the kiosks sell tickets for different boats doing the same trips at different times of day, so if you have a particular boat preference make sure to double check with the seller! 

Can't help with the tours as we took a taxi to the cable car then did our own thing, but there were plenty of taxis lined up in the port offering tours when we arrived.

We sailed from Valletta on Oceana about 18 months ago so will do my best to answer!

1. See above! 

2. We were on-board midday-ish, went straight for lunch in the buffet and from what I remember the "cabins are ready" announcement was at about 12.40. Could be a bit later another time as there were lots on our cruise who had also been on board the week before so less cabins to change over! As Denarius says, our luggage didn't appear until later while we were out exploring but our cabin steward took it in for us. Also allow for a bit of time between arriving at the port and getting on board as you need to check in and have passports checked, and though they're very efficient if several coaches arrive at the same time it could take a bit longer.

3. Muster was scheduled for 8pm (although ended up being pushed back a bit as a flight was late). I would think it's unlikely to be much earlier but double check when you are boarding or ask your cabin steward. There's also always a board as you leave the ship showing the time everyone must be back on board.

There should be plenty of time to visit Valletta before you sail, especially as the town is an easy walk from the port and there's a lot of interesting things quite close together. Was there anywhere in particular you hoped to go?

Just as an example of how much can be crammed in to an afternoon, we dumped our hand luggage in our cabin and were off the ship again at around 1pm,  walked along towards the town, took the Barrakka Lift up the hill, saw the Malta Experience cinema show and Sacra Infermeria tour, stopped for a quick ice cream, explored the war museum at Fort St Elmo, walked back down by the harbour, did a harbour tour in a motorised-gondola water taxi, walked back to the ship and still managed to fit in supper in the buffet before muster! It was probably a bit too much, but we enjoyed it. Thank goodness we had a sea day after to recover! 

Thanks happy v, that's really helpful!  We're there on a weekday so will allow a bit extra either end for traffic, but sounds like the timings will work nicely with our plans 🙂

Has any one done this excursion recently and wouldn't mind sharing how the timings worked out? Also where you were dropped off/ picked up in Rome? The cruise personaliser (or whatever it's called now!) says 9 hours leaving at 8.15am but other than that there's very little info provided by P&O. Best guess I'd assume arrive in Rome just before 10am and need to be back on the coach 3.30pm ish, but we don't normally rely on ship excursions and it's our first visit to Rome so any info/ first hand experience would be appreciated! 

They'll go up on the cruise personaliser no later than 12 weeks before you sail, but may well appear a few weeks earlier than that, so it's worth occasionally logging in to check! Somewhere on the website there's a page for each port giving a rough idea of the excursions they run but depending on the time of year and length of time in port they may be slightly different to selection offered on your particular cruise. 

Strange, I can now not only see examples of excursions but the prices too! If you go to the page for the cruise (the "see cabins and prices" option from the list of search results), click on itinerary, use the arrows on the right hand side to switch between the ports then click "learn more" underneath the paragraph about the port, then it brings up a selection of excursions.

On 5/11/2019 at 8:24 PM, HappyGiraffe said:

I'd guess it's unlikely that they'll add completely new extra excursions nearer the time

I take this back, just had several new (fjords) excursions added to the cruise personaliser with 6-8 weeks to go! Apologies, not come across that before but maybe it's more common than I thought!

If you like the itinerary but aren't so sold on the formal night dress code, it's worth bearing in mind that on Oceana the evening dress code is only enforced in Magnums, Ligurian and Adriatic restaurants. The dress code for the buffet and the Beach House restaurant is much more relaxed!

They often go on sale early. I'd guess it's unlikely that they'll add completely new extra excursions nearer the time, although they sometimes add extra capacity to popular tours (e.g. if a morning excursion looks like selling out they might repeat it in the afternoon). If in doubt, double check the terms and conditions but you can usually cancel excursions up to a few days before you sail and still get a full refund!

4 hours ago, annieuk said:

 There also used to be a search function on each board - ie I could search for a topic on the P&O board.

You still can 🙂

It doesn't do it automatically any more like it used to, but when you click in the search box near the top of the forum a list of options appears underneath, including "Everywhere/ Topics/ This forum" etc etc. 

For reference, the shuttlebus inc Skylift ticket is now 80euros (£70ish, assuming a good exchange rate), while the P&O excursion to just Kjenndal was £55 (couldn't find a viable option for doing this DIY other than hiring a car?) and the P&O combined excursion to both was £85 ish. 

We considered doing the P&O Kjenndal excursion and then DIYing the skylift so we could spend more time at each, but overall decided that it was a lot cheaper and less stressful timing-wise to go with the combined excursion and then have half a day free to explore Olden on foot. If you'd prefer not to be rushed and have lots of time at the top of the cable car, then the shuttle bus may suit you better than an organised tour - the tour will definitely make sure you get back to the ship on time but you won't have the freedom to take a later coach if you want to stay longer. Normally we prefer to skip the P&O tours and do our own thing, but we particularly wanted to do both Loen Skylift and Kjenndal and that seems to be an awkward combination to do independently!

Doing Loen Skylift independently will probably let you stay at the top a lot longer, but also check the relative timings/ costs and decide which is worth more to you. We're off to the fjords on Azura in the summer and we found that the P&O Loen Skylift/ Kjenndal excursion only cost a little bit more than the cost of doing just the skylift independently so we've decided to sacrifice a bit of time at Loen to see both, and booked the excursion.