Alicop21

Hello. We'll be sailing with Princess for the first time next summer to the Mediterranean. (Sky Princess, August 10) We've only ever sailed with P&O before so completely aware that cruise lines do things differently but I'm struggling to find out any info about each port of call. Apart from a couple of lines about each stop, there only seems to be info about the (very expensive excursions) and nothing about the local area and info on shuttle busses etc. We don't want to do a trip at every port but it would be good to know in advance about if and where shuttle busses drop you off. Am I missing something or a section of the Princess website?

We've sailed with P&O a couple of times and have been very happy. We have kids so are limited by the times of the year we can sail etc and we only want to sail from Southampton (as we are close by). I thought I'd look into other cruise lines for next year but I'm finding the pricing on some of them very odd. I've been told that both Princess and Royal Caribbean are a 'step up' from P&O (maybe a discussion for another thread) but I've just looked up three very similar cruises from all three operators and the price varies wildly. For 14 night balcony, P&O are the cheapest, Princess is about another £1000 (though I'm confused by what is included/not included on the lower tier price, tipping etc) and Royal Caribbean is DOUBLE the price of P&O! DOUBLE!? Is it really that much better?

For us, it just all felt completely different. The Iona cruise was to the Norwegian Fjords and we splashed out on a balcony cabin. We were blessed with glorious weather (we went during the Easter holidays) and it was off the back of such an amazing holiday high that we decided to book another. The cruise on Ventura was in the summer holidays and it felt very 'summer holiday.' The pools were rammed and a lot of parents were just off drinking all day and leaving their kids to their own devices. Clearly it was a 'different kind of holiday' and we were totally open to that. All our kids wanted to do was be in the pool too! The ships though are completely different. Ventura felt very 'tired.' We realised it wound't be as 'modern' as Iona but bits of the pool were coming off, parts of the deck had holes in it, the food was as good but not as much choice. The big difference was how dark it felt. Iona felt bright, light and wanted you to see the sea. On Ventura, we struggled to find anywhere inside where we could just watch the world sail by. The staff on both were amazing though and all of them deserve praise for working with masks on and having to deal with 'brits abroad.' Maybe I am being overly critical and maybe we just lucked out on our Iona cruise. But for, us, they felt like two totally different cruise lines yet they were both P&O we paid pretty much the same price.

Thanks for all the advice! I suppose, when you are spending a lol of money on a holiday (like anything) you just want to make sure you are doing the right thing. Iona was a dream. Genuinely better than we could have hoped for in a holiday for all four us (maybe we just lucked out on our first cruise) and then Ventura felt like such a step down (but was the same price). On your recommendations, I've found a couple of good ones on Arvia for next year (we're hampered by school holiday times only unfortunately) which I'm sure we'll enjoy.

Hello. We went on our first cruise earlier this year (2 adults, 2 kids between 7-10) sailing on P&O's Iona and it was fantastic! We loved it so much that we booked another for the summer on Ventura. It was a completely different experience. I understand a lot of this will be down to the summer holidays etc but the whole ship and enjoyment of the holiday was completely different. We want to go on another cruise but there are so many cruise lines I'm a bit lost as to where to start. We want to sail Southampton to Southampton and obviously we'll need a cruise line that is child friendly. I looked at Royal Caribbean but their prices seemed almost double to something similar on P&O next year so maybe they are above our budget? Who else should I look at? Are MSC any good? I heard mixed things. Gah! So many choices and not enough experience! So, any recommendations for family cruise lines around the same price as P&O (and standard of Iona) would be greatly appreciated.