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I suggest you were misinformed by Cunard as their rules don't say that - Passports and Visa (cunard.com) Cunard guests can only board and travel to EU or Schengen area countries* if their passport was issued less than 10 years from date of embarkation. The passport must have at least three months left before the date of expiry when you disembark (regardless of whether or not the passport has an extension period). For cruises that travel outside the EU or Schengen area, in line with the requirements of many of these countries, guests are required to have six months validity left on their passports from the date of final disembarkation. All passports should have sufficient blank pages for entry and exit stamps (applicable to the length and ports of call in your itinerary). *EU countries include: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Additional countries in the Schengen area include: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. P&O's rules are (unsurprisingly since they are the same company) worded almost exactly the same - Check Your Passport & Visa Requirements | P&O Cruises (pocruises.com) P&O Cruises guests can only board and travel to EU or Schengen area countries* if their passport was issued less than 10 years from the cruise embarkation date. The passport must have at least three months left before the date of expiry when you disembark (regardless of whether or not the passport has an extension period). For cruises that travel outside the EU or Schengen area, in line with the requirements of many of these countries, guests are required to have six months validity left on their passports from the date of final disembarkation. All passports should have sufficient blank pages for entry and exit stamps (applicable to the length and ports of call in your itinerary). *EU countries include: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Additional countries in the Schengen area include: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. This applies to British Citizen passports however, if you hold a different passport then you should contact the relevant embassies or consulates to confirm your entry requirements. If you do not possess the correct documentation you will be denied boarding, without any refund of the cruise fare and subject to any fine or other costs incurred by P&O Cruises.

Some EU border guards might hold that view, but that isn't what EU law says - EUR-Lex - 32016R0399 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu) 1. For intended stays on the territory of the Member States of a duration of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period, which entails considering the 180-day period preceding each day of stay, the entry conditions for third-country nationals shall be the following: (a) they are in possession of a valid travel document entitling the holder to cross the border satisfying the following criteria: (i) its validity shall extend at least three months after the intended date of departure from the territory of the Member States. In a justified case of emergency, this obligation may be waived; (ii) it shall have been issued within the previous 10 years; As you can see the first condition is the passport has validity for three months after the date of departure which includes any extra months as the passport is valid up to that point, and it is only the the second condition that refers to having been issued in the previous 10 years where a valid but issued more than 10 years ago passport can be refused. But whether anyone wishes to argue with an EU border guard over this point is up to them.

If they are still going I haven’t seen them on any cruise since 2020.

No you don't do that. You simply ask your cabin steward to ensure your cabin has an extra set of towels every day, and they will do that when they service the cabin in the morning.

Both, and any paid meals or room service.

Yes you will pay the 10% IVA whilst in mainland Spain's waters, so whilst docked and shortly before and after leaving, but you won't in the Canaries as they have IGIC not IVA and IGIC doesn't apply to cruise ships.

Yep - roast meat that might have vaguely seen some spices.

If you have never experienced an inside cabin but have already booked it, then give it a go rather than dismiss it on the possibility you might not like it. I tend to book either inside or balcony cabins depending on the cruise itinerary - a winter cruise when opportunities for sitting outside are limited then it will be an inside, but a summer cruise when sitting in the evening with a drink then it will be an outside. In my view, outside cabins are just utterly pointless as they give you very little extra for a lot of extra cash. At the end of the day the amount of time spent in your cabin when you are not sleeping will be minimal, and it is not as Iona doesn't have a vast number of areas where you can sit. As for the likelihood of an upgrade from an inside to an outside or a balcony - virtually zero. The best you are likely to get is to a 'better' inside cabin on the ship - although what you think is better and P&O think is better may not be the same thing.

As it is their coach and it is part of the package then if they didn't wait for the coach then either they are refunding 50 people for their cruise (plus likely paying compensation / FCC as well), or arranging last minute flights and hotels for 50 people. So many tens of thousands of pounds in refunds vs holding the ship for an hour or two - it is not a hard decision for P&O. And that was demonstrated last year on a P&O cruise from Malta when the flights in from Manchester were very very late, and we sailed many hours after we should have done.

Is that worse than the comedy DJs?

Nope. There is no need for a suit (dark or otherwise) or a DJ, as even just a jacket and tie is sufficient on formal evenings these days according to the P&O website.

I have never been asked to produce anything, but if Aviva through Barclays is the same as the Aviva travel insurance that you get with HSBC Premier accounts, then they have a website (or possibly a phone number) where you can request proof of insurance and they will email you a simple letter saying that X and Y and whoever else is travelling are insured on this date. I usually take a printed copy of that to show anyone if they asked, and if they want the details then I have a PDF of the policy document (and summary) on my phone, iPad, and in the cloud if anyone really wanted a printed copy.

Good That's exactly what forums and social media consist of! P&O's customers are not trained mariners so it is obviously a source of interest of quite how such a dangerous situation occurred and whether everything that should have been done to prevent it had been done. I disagree. I think it would be incredibly helpful to a potential cruiser to know how P&O treat their customers when something goes wrong. And so not relevant to my view about P&O's treatment of its customers.

Did Cunard offload passengers and put them into manky hotels with dodgy food, as that was what P&O certainly did wrong. If Cunard did not do that then I suggest you re-read my post because I made no comment on whether the captain and ship's crew had done anything wrong, but that the serious incident where P&O were lucky that nobody was killed or seriously injured will be investigated and not brushed under the carpet like some here are doing with a 'stuff happens' attitude.

It has, with the the P&O cheerleaders 'rah, rah, rahing' away. Was it good that the ship came loose from her berth - well no it wasn't and P&O were damn lucky that nobody was killed or seriously injured. Will the maritime accident investigators look into it and decide whether the captain and ship's crew did everything they should have done with the information they had available - lines, tugs, moving off the mooring in advance, etc. - of course they will rather than just shrug their shoulder and say 'stuff happens'. Should P&O have treated the paying passengers that they removed from the ship better - quite probably, but their 'emergency planning' seems to focus on minimising costs (cheap hotels and getting the ship back so it doesn't have to refund the next cruise) rather than keeping the paying customers happy.

So time spent in a manky hotel with dodgy food and then a cramped flight back to Birmingham, and then a long coach ride back to Southampton - and instead they could have been enjoying a leisurely sail back to Southampton. Never volunteer.

But will you dismiss the findings of their report as 'captain hindsight' because they were not there when the incident occurred?

Are you going to tell the Comisión Permanente de Investigación de Accidentes e Incidentes Marítimos that they should not carry out the investigation they are required to do because "they were not there"?

That would be a suitable attitude to take if *everybody* was being removed from the ship, but not if you are one of the 1% of the ship's paying passengers that P&O has selected to be removed - 1% because from what has been said previously few full fare passengers were told to get off and most were employees or people on 'friends and family' discount fares. As I posted before, I would want to know for absolute certain where I was staying, for how long, when I was flying, etc. so I could check out those places and make an informed decision before making any move out of the cabin - once you and your luggage are on the quayside you have lost any tactical advantage and if you volunteer / don't object before knowing those facts then you are a mug. And if you really didn't want to be removed and flown back home - well you don't need to be Einstein to think of a reason why flying isn't suitable for you at that time.

There are two star hotels and then there are two star hotels - some I would be happy with, some I would not, but really it depends on how long you are spending there. Overnight after disembarkation for a flight the next day is one thing, but staying several days is another. The only reasons why I can see that you would want to take the hotel / fly back option, rather than spending a few days at sea, would be if the offer was too good to turn down - and for me that would have to be a *very* significant offer, not just a refund of those days lost. Obviously not a full refund to the cruise, but something that I would have to seriously think about. Plus I would want absolute certainty of where I would be staying, when and who I would be flying with, the arrangements to get back to Southampton (or direct home if my car wasn't parked there). In essence they would likely find someone with a lower bar than me to volunteer before I did.

That would be a crazy move for a volume operator like P&O. In the main the sort of people who book immediately when a new season is released are doing so because they want to be certain to get a specific cabin or grade of cabin, and those people will continue to do that no matter how much they moan about prices dropping closer to sailing. The people they should offer such a price guarantee to would be to those who book six to nine months out from sailing, to persuade them to actually do it and not to wait for any bargains that might appear closer to sailing when P&O are getting nervous about filling the ship. Such people are likely not committed cruisers and certainly not committed to P&O, but are just seeking a good deal for a holiday whatever it is, so give them a reason to book it and they likely will.

If there is a "cruise by cruise consideration" then that consideration must be based on some previously set criteria - unless you are asserting that for every change in schedule that P&O management convene a meeting to discuss and agree what the criteria are for that cruise and why those criteria may or may not accord with decisions made on previous schedule changes. Even though ABTA, Package Travel Regulations etc. have guidelines, those guidelines have to be interpreted and applied consistently by an organisation, and the only way to ensure consistency is to have an internal policy on interpretation and application - unless again you are asserting that for every change in schedule that P&O management convene a meeting to discuss and agree what the criteria are for that cruise and why those criteria may or may not accord with decisions made on previous schedule changes. And for transparency the customer ought to know how P&O is going to interpret and apply those guidelines, so therefore should be provided by P&O with their policy on the subject.

Is it? The tracker on it doesn't seem to be very good...

I suggest you buy a better tracker or a better car! Mine is perfectly accurate. And you have also overlooked the point I made that it also records the distance travelled hour by hour, the speed driven, etc. so even if the tracker was inaccurate (it isn't) it would still show that the car had been driven more than a few hundred yards.

One thing to keep in mind is that a 'charge back' is reversible if the retailer disputes the matter after the bank has refunded you. With a s75 claim, once you have been paid then that's it no matter what the retailer says at a later date (if the retailer / service provider is still in business then whether the bank suffers the s75 loss or they pass it back to the retailer / service provider will obviously depend on the agreement the two have). And so personally if it was an argument about £150 then I might try a 'charge back' first for speed, and then followed by a s75 if that did not work. But if it was a claim for £1,500 or £15,000 then I would just use s75 to prevent any possibility of reversal.