Peter Lanky

I've had all the emails including today's, and also attended the webinar. However having located the Journey cruise, and tried to book, I am returned the message 'no categories found'. It looks as if the Azamara ebsite is as useless as ever.

34 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Drinks price mark ups are no different to restaurants and hotels. About 80%. If folk don't want to pay those prices...don't drink. The margin on food is about the same as alcohol. Taking our own drink and food into restaurants doesn't really appeal.

Rather more than 80%, in fact I'd say more like 300%-800% depending on the establishment. It can't be compared with food which takes skill and imagination to prepare in many cases. There is no skill and minimal effort required to open the screw cap on a bottle of wine or Scotch and pour it into a glass.

Many people drink in restaurants because they feel obliged to, in a similar way that they feel obliged to tip in restaurants, because their fellow diners put pressure on them either silently of vocally. I don't comply in either case.

On 5/11/2024 at 12:32 AM, Lee Jones Jnr said:

Why are cars allowed to carry four, five, six passengers but motorbikes are not?

The customer has a choice. This is the policy, these are the prices, cruise or don't, buy or don't.

In the end the market determines the value, if enough people feel strongly enough to ditch cruises and drink off license in hotel rooms then the cruise market will change.

In the end, if people want to cruise (or dine out) they will put up with the rip off prices of drinks, just do without the drinks or try to beat the system (hip flask in handbag etc.) It's 'business' but it doesn't mean it is right.

Imagine buying a car and being told you can only fill up with petrol at a motorway service station.

Another angle to this argument is how cruise lines have been allowed to stop people having a drink in the privacy of their own cabin in the first place. If I stay in a hotel, we will have a drink in our room, even if it is nothing more than nightcap. The hotel, or at least the ones we stay in, don't scan your cases for a bottle of booze. Why is cruising any different?

It seems the entire industry is geared towards banning something purely to maximise profit by selling it's own stock at profiteering prices. Maybe if prices reflected the real cost of purchasing the alcohol and the cost of serving it and clearing it up, then people would not be so bothered about having a drink in their cabin or even filling up a glass and taking it into the bar.

Much as having a drink isn't a God-given right, neither should screwing the customer be a right, yet it seems it is.

1 hour ago, Snow Hill said:

Is this the start of change in a policy of what alcohol you can bring onboard? From the accountants point of view only allowing alcohol purchased onboard to be drunk on board would maximise the profit from those sales, especially with the markup on the price of a single alcoholic drink and non alcoholic as well.

 

To make the changes in one fell swoop would cause a bigger uproar no doubt, factor it in over couple of years then maybe different. So this year prohibit spirits, next year add wine to the list of prohibited items. At the same time raise the price of drinks packages and exclude certain drinks from said packages.

 

The airlines have been doing it for sometime, what used to be included in the fare is now chargeable and you can’t go elsewhere whilst in transit. What next a charge for the number of cases you take onboard that would be a nice little earner from the accountants point of view.

 

Let’s face it Cruise Lines are like any other business they are there to make a profit.

 

Am I being too cynical about the accountants involvement in respect of this policy change?

 

 

No you are not being cynical, because not only cruising, but everything nowadays is ruled by the accountants, and in my opinion they are not very good accountants, being straight out of business school in many cases and have no idea about real life.

Everything seems to be a 'race to the bottom', and I have seen this in employment where the minimum wage is now a target rather than a safety net, with peripheral benefits being removed by stealth. Customer happiness is no longer seen as important.

11 hours ago, majortom10 said:

But you cannot compare P&O with Azamara/Silversea/Oceania as they are different standard and far higher cruise prices. You could drink a considerable amount on P&O and still be paying a lot less.

Yes they are higher standard, but not necessarily more expensive as I've previously mentioned. My 20 night cruise on Azamara last November from Gran Canaria to Cape Town was far cheaper than (for example) a 19 night cruise on Arcadia in October this year. Add the P&O drinks package, and the price of the P&O becomes almost double that of the Azamara. We were also booked on an Azamara cruise that we should have been on at this very moment, but was cancelled because of the Red Sea problems, which was 27 nights and also cheaper than the 19 night P&O cruise.

Careful choice of cruises can reap dividends. I do a lot of homework. The only reason I went on a P&O cruise this year was because it was so cheap, it would have been foolish to stay at home in January. I also previous said that it was acceptable without being inspiring, and I am glad that we took the cruise, but we managed the trip with our permitted litre of Scotch, which never left our cabin, and no other drinks.

50 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

 

The logic  doesn't compute, you are willing to spend £1000s more on Amazara/ silversea/Oceania,  so you can save at most a £100 or so bringing own drinks

They can cost a lot more if you let them, but careful choosing of cruises can net a bargain. Our 20 night Azamara cruise just before Christmas cost under £5K for 2 of us including flights (return from Cape Town) so not exactly a fortune. Also you cannot compare small ship cruising with a ship with 3,000 people on. The whole atmosphere and service is on another level, so it's not simply a case of having an included drinks package.

The one common feature of all cruises though is the extortionate price of excursions, whether on P&O or a premium line.

1 hour ago, jeanlyon said:

Wel of course you can drink for that price at home!   BUT if you go to a pub, a large glass of wine is about the same as on P&O.  You are not at home!

The fact that wine is a rip off in a pub doesn't make me feel better about it. At home I unscrew the lid, pour it, and after drinking I wash the glass. Somebody else doing those 3 simple tasks for me isn't worthy of a 500% price premium.

53 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Wel of course you can drink for that price at home!   BUT if you go to a pub, a large glass of wine is about the same as on P&O.  You are not at home!

The solution is simple:

In a pub I drink ale, the wine is usually mediocre anyway.

When at home I drink wine; all sorts of it.

On a P&O Cruise I just have a Scotch nightcap in the cabin, but looks like it's teetotal if I ever go on another, which is unlikely.

On an Azamara/Silversea/Oceania cruise I drink to my heart's content.

All options covered. 😀

41 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Drinks prices on board are not much different to pub prices these days, so not sure why people think they are expensive.  The package is expensive unless you drink a lot of alcohol and soft drinks.

It depends on how you compare. I only drink ale at around £3 - £3.50 a pint in pubs at home, and to me the beer on board is undrinkable, so not an option. I never drink wine or Scotch outside home as it's so overpriced, so £7 for a glass of mediocre wine on a cruise is a non starter when I drink far better wine at home for £1 a glass. I'd rather just do without than pay the equivalent of £40+ for supermarket quality wine, which is what most of it is.

On 5/4/2024 at 10:53 AM, Denarius said:

I agree. I've always thought it odd that people will spend thousands of pounds to go on a cruise then go to inordinate lengths to save a few pounds onboard.

A lot of people have probably been able to afford cruises only because they have not wasted money on overpriced cruise drinks. But it's not just the overpriced cruise drinks though. The canny person will save a few pounds here and there on dozens of different things during the year, and they all add up.

Not everyone is blessed with a high salary to enable them to travel. Some of us have to work a bit harder at it, but if we are canny enough, we get there in the end.

As for the policy itself; is the overpricing of drinks and then preventing people bringing their own any different to the convenience shop owner who buys the entire stock of toilet rolls in Asda and then sells them for double the price?

The bottom line though is that we've only been on one P&O cruise and I found it acceptable, but not very inspiring, so I'm more likely to stick to the all inclusive cruise lines in future and forget about the price of drinks.

2 hours ago, NC Rob said:

We just got a notice that the May 29th departure on Azamara Journey has been cancelled.

Azamara has known this for some time. Journey is travelling around Africa, and scheduled to be in Walvis Bay on 21st May. There was never a possibility of reaching Athens within 8 days.

We were on the now cancelled Singapore to Athens cruise on Journey on 3rd May and have now been 'lifted and shifted' to a cruise next March. However I have been keeping an eye on things and it seems the Journey is definitely going around Africa as a 'Japan to Greece' 41 night Grand Voyage at the absurd price from £15,798. I can't see anyone jumping in at that price. This also includes the scheduled Japan to Singapore section.

However, the maths doesn't work out. Stopping at Walvis Bay on 21st, it seems to be planning to leave people in the middle of the ocean on 29th May. 🤣8 days non-stop at 20 knots would probably end up somewhere off the coast of Mauritania, so good luck to anyone trying that.

7 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

There are always likely to be able bodied passengers allocated to an accessible cabin, if one is available, especially on fly cruises. We dined with a couple last week on Iona who were in a deluxe accessible cabin, these are probably last minute cancellations, and the cruise had no wait list for accessible cabins, or they had no takers.

 

 

That's fair enough as a last minute thing. It's when no cabins are available 12 months before sailing that it becomes annoying.

17 minutes ago, AchileLauro said:

That was until a sail away party when the three in scooters got up to dance. Two of them standing on tables and one standing on a chair. They were quite rowdy and my wife and I looked at each other in disbelief. We weren't quite so sympathetic after that.

This is similar to what I previously referred to as the Lourdes Effect on aircraft.

I encountered a woman in Johannesburg who was brazen enough to say that the had requested wheelchair assistance because her hand luggage was too heavy (and therein lies a whole new subject). Shen then demanded from random airport staff that she was thirsty, and needed somebody to bring a drink, and then later something to eat. Like 75% of the other passengers on this flight who had requested assistance, she left the aircraft immediately, not wanting (or needing) to wait for the assistance staff, after landing.

14 minutes ago, AchileLauro said:

 

When talking about "larger people" are you talking about clinically obese which is regarded as a disability, or are you simply talking about people who are simply larger in frame?

I was merely responding to another statement with somebody describing themselves as being a 'larger person' with no further elaboration.

I did not see anything significantly different  in my adapted bathroom other than it having a walk in shower, grab rails and an emergency cord, plus the obvious wider door. I can't see how the facilities therein would have been any more benefit to a clinically obese person than anyone else. The toilet was no larger and no higher than any standard one. Everything in this bathroom could easily have been replicated in a standard cabin bathroom other than the wide door.

As an aside, the Japanese are way ahead of us with accessible toilets/bathrooms. The doors slide instead of being hinged and the toilets resemble Captain Kirk's chair, with buttons everywhere, as well as being significantly higher than a standard toilet.

5 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I wonder if you are worrying about a problem that no longer exists? 

You may well be right there, which goes back to why I asked the question in the first place. I am effectively looking for reassurance from people more experienced in cruising than I am that they have seen for themselves that accessible accommodation is not being abused.

3 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

So being a larger person with not an instantly recognisable underlying health condition.

 

I don't necessarily need wider doors as I am mobile, but I would need a bigger shower area and seating facilities given normal toilet and showers on cruiselines are smaller than average.

 

Does a wheelchair user need the cabin more than me, and if so how would P&O manage that without discriminating?

 

 

In the same way that I am attempting, both to raise awareness among people in general, and lobbying the cruise lines themselves, you could do the same and attempt to get more bathrooms with shower and toilet facilities more favourable for larger people. This would be a far simpler process than that required to make a cabin accessible.

The cruise industry needs to move forward, and the only way to do this is to highlight the different problems that people have in both using cabin facilities, and those in public areas. The people sat pushing buttons sat at desks in HQ have no comprehension of any of these issues unless somebody tells them.

Regarding your last sentence, you would be able to use a standard cabin, albeit with some discomfort. A wheelchair user would not be able to go on the cruise.

49 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

Other than cruiselines requesting a full medical history from ones registered GP, I can't see anyway they can fully regulate adapted cabins for those in most need and in all honesty it would be discriminatory to do so.

 

As has already been said, if you want the cabin if your choice book it as soon as reasonably possible, the problem then goes away.

 

You simply can't expect to get a cabin at your leisure, it's no different for me, if I want a cabin of my choice I ensure that by booking early.

 

 

They could simply ask on a declaration form 'Do you need the wider doors of an accessible cabin in order to enter/exit the cabin/bathroom, and get people to sign up to it. If they lie on the declaration, there would be consequences which the cruise line would have to decide, but at least it would deter most who are just trying to get a larger cabin. Only a dedicated few would bring their own wheelchair simply to qualify.

2 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

This seems to be saying that your point is not about availability of accessible cabins but the width of the door, ie the entrance to the cabin for wheelchairs. 

Most of the time the two go together, along with a similarly wide bathroom door. However there are many disabled people who could benefit from an adapted bathroom, because that is the only difference other than the door size, but don't require the wide door. Any bathroom could be converted to aid the walking disabled, and as I said, P&O states that there are some rooms that fit this description, or could do if fitted with some grab rails, shower seat and emergency cord.

Much the same applies to disabled toilets anywhere, and I've lost count of the number of times I've sat outside a disabled toilet in severe discomfort, only to see the occupant come trotting out with that smug 'You can't challenge me' look on their face. Accessibility and disability are definitely two different things.

I'll try to summarise the last few posts here. My original question was that of cruise lines allowing people to book accessible cabins when there was no requirement to have a wider door to gain access. The rest is I suppose widening the scope of discussion. It seems that there are passengers who are only allocated one for storage purposes, which is something easily addressed. For example, P&O seems to have numerous cabins suitable for people with limited mobility who do not need the wider door.

Then of course we have passengers who 'try it on', which is another part of my question, to which people have suggested that cruise lines are becoming more strict, which is a good thing. Just as an aside, walking passengers will probably not have noticed that the number of wheelchair 'users' boarding flights, particularly long haul, far exceeds the number disembarking. Flying must have a Lourdes effect. It seems people like the benefits of speedy boarding, but don't like to wait until last to leave the aircraft.

Much as I have tried, I cannot find any online article specifying how many wheelchair passengers per crew member are permitted by law. A quick sample suggests to me that ships typically have 1.5-2% of cabins designated as accessible (wider doors). Assuming the majority only have 1 disabled passenger, then that is less than 1% of the complement. Without doing extensive research which is not what I'm all about, I suspect this is nowhere near the legal limit for crew member to wheelchair passenger.

Again, I'm sure maritime laws differ from terrestrial laws, but there are many laws around disability discrimination, but there are none regarding being single or possession of children, though I fully accept that solo travellers get a bad deal from cruise lines.

So to conclude, quoting 'supply and demand' is not a helpful way of dismissing the problem, though I suspect that until laws are tightened, then this view will dominate.

2 hours ago, daiB said:

Peter it is called supply and demand.

I think we've already been there.

38 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

But surely it is supply and demand that drives the need to book early.  What exactly are you suggesting they address? If maritime law states only a certain number of disabled should be onboard for safety reasons then there's nothing the cruise lines can do.  

 

Having just booked three cruises this week, two on Cunard and one on P&O, the first question I was asked for each was about mobility requirements such as walking sticks and the like.  It was suggested that a full time walking stick user should request assistance for stairs in an emergency.  Taking all these new requirements into mind, the number of staff to mobility impaired and disabled guests obviously has to be finite.

It depends on what maritime law describes as disabled. Do they differentiate between 'disabled' and 'inconvenienced' for instance? I have no idea what this percentage is, and I suspect finding the answer would not be easy. Also anti-discrimination regulations should trump any supply and demand issues if everything is done in the same manner as I have had drummed into me on countless training courses during my career. Giving fair treatment to genuine disabled should not be subject to supply and demand as I see it. If not, everything I have been taught (before becoming suddenly disabled) was all in vain.

22 minutes ago, daiB said:

I am afraid if you want to cruise with a wheelchair you need to book very early.

In these enlightened (allegedly) times, this should not be the case. Far lesser things have been classed as discrimination than this, and we (the disabled customers) need to put more pressure on the cruise companies to address the problem. I shall certain be making the application of this pressure a priority in my spare time.

As a wheelchair user, I am interested to find from experienced P&O passengers if they believe that accessible cabins are regularly being used by people who do not require them. Before the cliché 'Not every disability is visible' is thrown into the conversation, I thoroughly agree with the sentiment of the phrase, but then not every disability needs an extra wide door simply to get their wheelchair through it.

I have enquired about a couple of P&O cruises recently only to be told that there are no accessible rooms available, so that is the end of any hope of going on that particular cruise. I have observed on another cruise line the accessible cabin next to me was being used by a couple who could walk through the door, and as the ship was not full by any means, it seems odd they they should be using this, though obviously there may be a valid reason that only the cruise line knows about when they allocate rooms late in the day.

Again I am well aware that people know that accessible rooms are larger, and fancy a larger room at no extra expense, but it would be good to know that hopefully cruise lines are thoroughly vetting people who book these as having a genuine need.