Hobson1754

1 minute ago, molecrochip said:

On our cruise before the refit, our steward explained that the carpet, mattresses and soft furnishing would all be replaced. He also commented that he had to go a deep clean once the furniture was all back in.

Thanks for that - that sounds good. Off on Brittania 3rd January and starting to get excited now.

Does anyone know if, when in for a refit, they also do a deep clean of cabins etc. Only asking as I’d seen some review that stated bathrooms & cabins were in need of a good clean I.e grouting etc.

21 minutes ago, SarahHben said:

Very sad news. How awful for everyone involved.

 

This has been posted on the P&O Cruises website....

We will be contacting all guests who have current or future P&O Cruises holidays booked through Thomas Cook. All P&O Cruises holidays booked through Thomas Cook are ABTA and ATOL protected and will go ahead as planned. We will be contacting all guests booked on Thomas Cook aircraft on our fly/Caribbean or fly/Mediterranean cruise holidays once we have confirmed alternative aircraft.

 

 

Yes they’ve also got a recorded message on their phone lines stating that they will be in touch and to ensure contact details on Cruise Personalisers are up to date.

3 hours ago, rickpo said:

I paid my balance last week through a travel agent and on my credit card account it says that the payment was made to P&O Southampton.

So if all agents do this then the money will not be sat in their accounts but will have gone to P&O directly.

rick.

Checked my credit card account & states my balance was paid to ‘Thomas Cook Retail’!

6 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

There have been several TAs who have gone bust over the years and P&O have always taken over the bookings and honoured any payments already made, I imagine the same will apply if eventually Thomas Cook goes into administration.

Thanks - that’s quite reassuring. I know it’s still early days and hopefully something may be sorted with rescue package - I’ve only got a holiday to lose, thousands have their jobs on the line!

7 hours ago, ann141 said:

I think you will need to speak to someone at P and O if TC goes into administration.We have just paid several small deposits for future cruises to Thomas Cook which I presume P and O will have but not sure what will happen in your case. It is in P and O s interests to help people as much as they can.The P and O freephone number is 08000523840 incase you need it

Thanks for this - tried to ring P&O yesterday and they’ve now got a recorded message relating to TC saying they’re monitoring situation!

Thanks for this.  I’m not sure where we stand. We’re due to fly out to Brittania on 3rd January, paid balance to Thomas Cook just last week and very much doubt that my balance was forwarded to P&O!! Know (or think) I’m covered by ABTA & credit card but not sure how this works in relation to existing bookings already fully paid i.e. will P&O save booking until compensation is forthcoming?

18 hours ago, ann141 said:

Its not been confirmed that thomas Cook will go into administration,.There are still slight possibilities that the government might step in to help.I contacted P and O earlier today and they assured me that any cruises booked through Thomas Cook would just transfer to them.More of a problem for people currently on holiday and those who have booked Thomas Cook flights independantly

Yes I’ve been another fan of your blog. Many thanks for the very detailed insight into a P & O cruise.  Your balanced and mostly positive review has given me much comfort for our first P & O cruise in January.

There’s still a problem with the Roll Call tool. I started a post some time ago for our cruise in January but it wasn’t automatically assigned to the cruise on the Roll Call page. Don’t know when it’s all going to be fixed!!

Going off thread a little but what about ‘supposably’ & ‘probablies’ - this could be the start of the longest thread yet!!

Well this bodes really well as I have been having doubts for months now about our first P & O cruise (14 night Caribbean on Brittania in January) & our first cruise in 4 years! I’ve accepted that since we started cruising about 25 years ago things have changed and that there’s not the wow factor anymore but fights and this sort of behaviour goes to a different level.  I can only hope that the media have exaggerated the situation and that we hear more from passengers who were there via Cruise Critic.  

The positive from our point of view is that, unless we change habits of a lifetime, I think we’d be fast asleep at 2 a.m. and if not definitely not at the buffet!

Hi - on a similar thread I’m interested in Zumba classes on Brittania and, if they have them, has anyone any experience of them?

10 hours ago, happy v said:

We went to the museum and then walked back towards the port.

We looked for the restaurant with the most Italians and had a pizza............we chose napoli (obviously) and have to say it was pretty amazing.

Afterwards we took a funicular up above the town and sat in a park and ate ice cream looking down on the ship. A thoroughly enjoyable day.

I agree - we’ve been to Naples on a few occasions and the funicular takes you high above the city.  There’s not as many tourists up there - more a place where locals shop and eat/drink from what I can remember.  We love Naples and, as long as you’re aware of your surroundings, don’t walk around flaunting ‘bling’ etc, we’ve always felt safe. There’s also a lovely shopping arcade ‘Galleria Umberto 1’ on Via Giuseppe Verdi which is worth seeing for the beautiful building alone.

Thanks glittergal that’s great - that website does have port times and I’ve taken a copy.  We’re going 3rd January but am starting to look at independent tours, particularly for those islands where we are there until the evening. 

Hi I’ve looked at Sky scanner but  can only see flights, hotels and car hire.  I’ve just emailed P & O so I’ll see when/if they get back to me.

I’m trying to find port times for our Brittania cruise from Barbados in January 2020,  in order to research/organise tours etc. and am unable to find anything on any website!  I was sure I saw timings somewhere when I booked the cruise but.....

Never done a P & O excursion to The Alhambra, but have done it ourselves whilst in Spain - well worth a visit. Granada is a beautiful city and the Palace is gorgeous.   It sure how long the journey from Malaga port would take however as we did an overnight stay in Granada from near Marbella and it was quite a journey. However P & O will have it all sussed out.

I’ve seen a number of posts where it’s stated that upon boarding your cruise, there’s often discounts offered at the speciality restaurants for the first night - my question is how does this work (or doesn’t it) when on a Caribbean cruise? For instance starting in Barbados, boarding can be over 2 days and often the cruise can be joined in St Lucia. 

We are also going on our first P & O cruise on Brittania, beginning of January, flying TUI Dreamliner from Manchester and I’m sure my information tells me that I won’t see my luggage after check in at Manchester until it arrives directly to the ship.

A further question for regular P & O cruisers - I can’t remember if I saw it on a review or here on the Forum - someone stated that their bed linen wasn’t changed the whole of their cruise - do you think (or know) this was spurious or an exaggeration, this can’t be right surely?? 

Having seen a couple of previous posts relating to P & O becoming akin to Butlins and this being our first P & O cruise, I was seriously thinking of cancelling our Caribbean cruise booked on Brittania for next January. However after speaking to my TA and seeing this and some further responses I’m feeling a little more settled that the general feeling is that the  shorter cruises may tend to be more Butlins! This paired with the fact that some might have had a negative experience  which isn’t the norm. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with Butlins but don’t think it’s particularly for us - especially not for what we’re paying! I’m well aware that cruising isn’t the same as it used to be when we first cruised - about 25 years ago - but things never stay the same and I’m sure that we’ll have a good holiday. Unfortunately what we miss now is the ‘Wow’ factor you used to get at dinner when your meal was placed in front of you.  Think it has to do partly with quality not being as good but also, as time goes on you tend to get used to quality & expect better and better.

On 4/22/2019 at 3:34 PM, molecrochip said:

 

You’ve convinced me - think I’ll be sticking to Freedom dining. Also, having read another post which was detailing the positives of P & O, I’m feeling much more settled about our cruise in January so thank you all.

Well that’s given me food for thought. I do fancy the concept of Freedom dining always having done fixed in the past. The only drawback I can see is, because you don’t have same waiter every night, they don’t get to know your preferences - in my case I can’t stand food which is just warm!  Also, these waiters in Freedom dining room must really miss out on tipping now as P & O have scrapped automatic tipping.

Thanks everyone. I was starting to rethink this cruise from reviews I’ve seen about Brittania.  I’ve never been on P&O (only Celebrity, Holland America & RCL), but this forum seems to give a more balanced view. I appreciate the balconies are small & that won’t bother us greatly, however we’ve opted for Freedom dining and again reviews have stated that the service often isn’t as good and food is not always hot enough.  Think I’m going to contact them to maybe switch to fixed dining, although we will be trying some speciality restaurants.