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There are 15 CCS chargers at Watford Gap southbound services, with 10 available to charge at the current time - Electric Highway (gridserve.com) (plus a whole bunch of slower chargers).

You assume *all* the EVs will need charging - well mine doesn't when I drive down there as I did a couple of weeks ago, and I don't live anywhere near Southampton. The range on many of the newer EVs is well over 300 miles. Then can they cope with those that want that service - well for my December fly cruise out of Gatwick the official airport parking will charge it for you ready to return for a reasonable fee, and if Gatwick can do it then I am sure it is not beyond the capability of CPS to do that. And then these days there are EV chargers everywhere - just take a look at the next motorway services you pull into, and you will see ranks and ranks of them waiting to be used.

I was on the same cruise, and this is the first time ever out of many cruises that I have missed a port. Either I am lucky or I choose cruises where weather isn't an issue. My insurance is also with Aviva but it is a free policy that comes with the HSBC Premier current account. There are no fees but there is either a minimum income requirement or a minimum amount of investments you need to hold with them. Yes, I looked at the Nationwide Flexplus account but the cost to add existing medical conditions was exorbitant. Whereas the HSBC account has a long and wide ranging list of medical conditions that are accepted with no additional fee. Same with my Aviva policy - but as it covers any non-recoverable costs for missed ports and I have managed to avoid any missed ports other than this one, then I can live with that. I was disappointed because I have been watching the Danish TV drama 'Seaside Hotel' (streaming on the Channel 4 catch up service All4) that is set just along the coast and where the guests go when they want to go to the 'big town for the nightlife' and wanted to see it!

Not seen P&O, or any of the other Carnival brands, do it. On the many occasions when I have done fly and stays with other Carnival brands (mainly Costa) then it has been packaged together by the TA as a special offer. I have seen P&O occasionally advertise cruises that you would need to fly to but without the flights, and then the 'cruise only' price is usually similar to those including flights so you would be crazy to buy one.

Is P&O ever going to use those ships anywhere that tendering would be involved?

I think actually needing to walk down the stairs from your cabin to where the muster point is, is certainly likely to be more memorable than taking two second to scan a card in an anonymous lift lobby whilst you are on your way to the buffet. You think that many people taking a cruise around the med in July have any warm clothing with them? I doubt many have anything much other than shorts and T shirts. At my school, in one of the second floor classrooms the fire escape was rope ladders to be thrown from the windows and in another first floor classroom it was a trap door and ladder in the floor. Unfortunately we never got to try them out in a drill.

You think the vast majority actually watch that video, rather than quickly finding the remote control to turn it off! If you held a quiz in Brodies a week into the cruise on the safety drill and muster points, with anyone getting the answers right entitled to a free cruise - well your money would be safe. In the case of abandoning ship in an emergency, I have as much expectation of survival as I would of the floatation device under my seat in an aircraft actually being useful as it plummets from 40,000 feet towards the sea. That doesn't stop me flying though.

On my last cruise I used the AI software, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Bard, and Bing to prepare an itinerary for each stop - it was surprisingly effective.

Yes, but scanning your cruise card in an unfamiliar lift lobby, a lift lobby that looks like every other lift lobby, moments after you boarded whilst your mind is on other things is not likely to be a memorable location when things go wrong. And as for the emergency signal - I suggest if they did a straw poll of passengers the following day, let alone a week or two later, and asked what it was then I doubt they would get a significant number who had any clue at all.

Hence why I said *almost* every passenger. For those that don't then its not hard to do some planning and buy or print whatever you need before sailing.

I just find it interesting that pre-CC the P&O embarkation lifeboat drill involved going to your muster station with your lifejacket, listening to someone tell you the drill, putting the jacket on, and then leaving. And yet now post-CC the 'reviewed and updated' process involves walking past someone whilst your mind is focused on finding the buffet, and then turning off the annoying looped film that is playing a video when you finally get into the cabin and want to unpack. Hard to see how that change of process better prepares passengers for knowing where they need to go and what they need to bring if it all goes horribly wrong.

But why would they want to tell you anything useful when they can sell you an overpriced excursion instead? And these days almost every passenger will have a smart phone in their pocket with all the maps and information they could possibly ever need.

The sheets of paper with the illegible maps and no actual useful information... It certainly should be, along with the news sheet.

I have a cruise booked for December and although I have booked Freedom, my intention is to go to the 'restaurant change desk' on boarding and ask to change to second sitting fixed but *only* if we can have a table for two. I asked my cabin steward on arrival for a double set of towels and they provided them without issue every day. And my cabin had the bed runner - although it was instantly consigned to the wardrobe for the duration of the cruise. The reduced choice on the main menu is also hampered by the inclusion of a vegan option as well as the vegetarian option. And what they seem to have cut out to allow for it are the more interesting menu items leaving the dull 'meat and two veg'. Mind you the table of four friends next to ours didn't seem to worry about the limited selection, as every night they would order a starter, main, and desert each, plus at least three starters, mains, and deserts to share between them. And then got the waiter to take a photo of the table laden down with food. Every, single, night. With wine I ended up calling in at the Glass House each evening to pick some up on the way to the restaurant, as not only was it a better choice, it was better stored (the white was actually cold and served in cold glasses), and I had it to sip before the food arrived. Cheese - there must be such a huge amount of waste it is pre-plated. In the past I would ask for a slice or two of what I fancied and a biscuit but now anything on the plate I don't want is just waste. And the lunch menu - I quite like the new layout and the sharing plates, although as my wife has an allergy and her food came from the separate 'diet' kitchen then even if we ordered a sharing plate we each had an individual plate. Yes, a disappointing cost cutting measure, and an odd one as I am sure it was little touches like this that encouraged people to go to the Crows Nest for a drink before dinner. However nice to see the paper coasters for drinks have returned, no more condensation from the outside of the glass dripping on you. Although a number of lifts had missing buttons, buttons that were stuck down, or lobby call buttons that didn't work.

That's exactly it - head towards the back of the ship through the gym and into the lift lobby, on your left is the Cookery Club and on your right is the H2O Reef club, so the only exit is up the narrow set of stairs next to the Cookery Club to get outside (or go down the main stairs to deck 16 and then back up the outside stairs to deck 17). It just seemed a pretty poor design to me. That area on 17 with the small pool was quite a nice area to sit or sunbathe because like you, few people actually found it!

Unless you are so wealthy that £2k is utterly irrelevant, then it will always be a case of 'do I spend it on this or spend it on that'. And 'this or that' might be on the balcony, but on the other hand it might be on a whole bunch of excursions or food and drink on board, or another cruise, or even a different cruise on a more upmarket line. It is all a choice, rather than being a default - 'over X days must be a balcony' decision - although of course P&O (like every other cruise line) make their profits from those who couldn't possibly contemplate sleeping in a room without a window.

Only if you go through the Cookery Club, which you can't if it is running a class, as the other side is 'The Reef' teenagers club (which none of them were using). True, but as the gym is a discrete area they could have just that section set to a cooler temperature. I can sort of see the logic that you might want to make certain areas 'special', for example Brodies with the beer, the Glass House with wine, and the Crows Nest or the Blue Bar with cocktails. The trouble was that the range of "classic cocktails" in the Crows Nest were nothing of the sort - they were things that had been invented by P&O and were certainly not 'classics' and so previously if you did want something drinkable then you had to bring it from another bar.

As mentioned on another thread, I saw someone doing exactly the same thing. I mentioned it to the staff member who was stood immediately next to the 'bottle filler' to ask them to clean it and the miscreant (an elderly well dressed poshly spoken person) reacted rather poorly. I guess it depends where your cabin is as there was no vibration at all in mine (front section, A deck). Other thoughts - Ship design - a B minus to the designer - no way to promenade around the outside. Dead-ends on deck 17 at the gym with the only way to the rear sun decks being up or down stairs. Awful layout of seats in the cinema. Virtually no natural light in the atrium. And as for whoever programmed the lifts - make them walk the plank. Cabins - inside more spacious than other ships, a decent TV and range of in-house films, but no USB sockets and too few plug sockets. Outside on the balcony - well don't go swinging any cats unless you want them to have concussion. Food - MDR - Had worse, had better. The main issue with the MRD evening menus is they have gone backwards and they are now as dull as ditch water. For goodness sake, not everyone wants a roast meat meal - how about some imaginative food from the rest of the world. Glass House food was good, but the menu was limited. MDR service - chaotic at lunchtime on seadays, and on the odd occasion in the evenings (fixed late seating) when it was full (although most nights it wasn't). Cinema - other than the seating arrangement, the issue was the films they were showing, which were mainly 'straight to video' stuff that nobody had ever heard of, or stuff that was decades old. And the timing of films was daft - almost designed on purpose to clash with meal times. Entertainment - Mostly good, but... for goodness sake accurately represent what the act is - don't entice people by saying it is X and then delivering Y because no matter how good Y is the audience will not be happy. Gym - turn the damn aircon down, as it was far too hot in there. Bars - glad to see that they have moved away from 'only that bar will serve that drink' although the menus still imply it, but still disappointed that the canapés have not returned in the Crows nest. Also surprised to see quite how many people were willing to pay the exorbitant price for the drinks package - and then trying to get their money's worth. Boarding and disembarkation - all worked fine for me.

On my cruise over the last two weeks on Britannia the waiters were coming around with drinks on trays, and then as the captain was late turning up for his speech, they came around multiple times with bottles topping up the drinks.

It isn't prison and they don't lock you in your cabin for 35 days! There are an awful lot of places elsewhere in the ship to sit and enjoy the views, and provided you treat the cabin as a place to sleep (when a window is irrelevant), then they are fine.

Inside cabins are absolutely fine for port intensive cruises - and you sleep well because they are pitch black when the lights go off! Outside cabins in my experience are an utter waste of time and money - not nice enough you want to sit in them, so you are paying for a window. Balcony cabins are nice (current watching Britannia make its way down the Elbe with a drink in my hand waiting for dinner) but at £60 per day… That buys an awful lot of nice meals and drinks onboard or onshore, or at £2k even another cruse or two.

Walking through Britannia’s Horizon this morning towards the rear outside area (there is no other route other than up and down stairs) I saw someone filling a water bottle from the drinks dispenser. This wasn’t a wide mouthed bottle held well below where the nozzle was, this was a disposable narrow necked bottle with the dispenser shoved right inside. These days I never approach the miscreant directly but point it out to a member of staff, which I did to the one standing nearby. “What is wrong with what I am doing” was the outburst from the person. Followed by “Well where do I get water from” - they didn’t take well the suggestion to ask for a glass from any bar or buy a bottle in onshore, responding with insults. Now this wasn’t some low life individual, but a smartly dressed, well educated, older person. If people like that don’t give a damn about everyone else’s health on board then god help everyone eating and drinking there.

On cruises I have done in the past the answer was a ‘no’ because Freedom was full - it had been chosen by the ‘Select’ passengers and the ‘Saver’ passengers had been allocated fixed. If you are on fixed dining then the queue for the Freedom restaurants does not appear in the app in the evening, and I am sure if you walked up and gave your cabin number they would know. Would they turn you away - maybe not if it was a one-off and they were not busy, but I can’t see them tolerating it every night - and particularly if you wanted a coveted table for two.

Early dining is more popular than late. Tables for two are more popular than sharing tables. There is a limited number of tables for two compared to the number of seats for sharing tables. All that combines to mean that someone who has requested a table for two on early dining will be disappointed. Will that be you? Who knows. I know that other cruise companies have specific rules about table allocations, for example allocating by how early you book, but for P&O - sorry, no idea.

Yesterday was just the extreme - most other nights there have only been two couples on one of the eights, two couples on the six, and three people on the other eight. The two waiters allocated to those three tables have resorted to polishing the light fittings to occupy themselves as they have so little to do.