mklions

We have just booked on the Encore 17 nights Dubai to Singapore sailing on 21/11/24.

Cruise only £4100 pp for a V1 cabin.

Im trying to find out a bit more about these cabin on deck 5 as they have a steel balcony frontage. Any pictures or reviews would be most appreciated.

MKlions

I am guessing that P&O get in touch with all passengers a couple of weeks prior to sailing to let them know about the immigration form?, as this was never mentioned to me when booking the cruise.

I've flew to Barbados many times in the past and this is the first I have heard of this pre on-line immigration form normally the cabin staff issue the forms on the flight to fill in.

Don't we fill this out on the plane before landing? Ive never had to fill out an immigration form pre flight.

Or am I missing something?

On 9/13/2023 at 10:07 PM, molecrochip said:

That’s wrong. A cabin boards together. If she is Caribbean then you can join her at 12.30. P&O don’t board separate members of cabins separately.

 

Where you may come unstuck is the embarkation lunch which technically you don’t qualify for. I suggest that you both attend with your wife checking in, and play ignorant of not qualifying. Whether you have luck depends upon how busy it is.

Do they still do the embarkation lunch at Southampton for suite guests and high ranking loyalty customers? If so how do you get to know about it?

10 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

Sindhu were doing the Tiffin box lunches on some sea days when we were on board in September.  Didn't go though.  By the time friends we were travelling with decided to give it a go, the remaining days were fully booked.

Interested to know what is a Tiffin Box?, and is it chargeable?

The seat booking for our flight to Barbados opened at midnight last night, it was 2.15am before I eventually got through to make the booking ensuring my wife and I got the seats together.

Fortunately I managed to get two seat together although half of them had already been booked before us, so I guess everyone had the same idea come midnight.

So my advise please if you want seats together especially in premium economy ( only about seven rows in a 2-3-2 formation) work out the 14 weeks prior to your cruise and look to book at midnight on that day.

Ive also taken a look on the TUI website and see that on long haul flights flying premium you get lounge access at some of the UK airports  ( only outbound not inbound) and wondered if the same applies to us cruisers traveling on a TUI flight with a P&O charter?

Mklions

25 minutes ago, carlanthony24 said:

Valiant Lady now joining us in port

We went on the Valiant Lady in May, a totally different type of cruise to what most of us know.

One thing we really did like however was that the ship had  20 different venues  to choose from.

The quality of the food was first class and fresh, as a ship the same size as Ventura/Azura that was impressive.

2 hours ago, carlanthony24 said:

Captain has just announced further to the west we will see a change of weather. 15-30 knot winds with cloudy skies but slight to moderate seas and chance of showers tomorrow. Weather for Palma on Wednesday expected to be 27 degrees and sunny.

 

 

Lucky you with the weather tomorrow, its very cold here in Buckinghamshire and could be a frost in the. countryside tonight.

Not so sure on the sailing though 15-30 knot winds, maybe a tad choppy tonight, let us know how it goes!

Thanks for posting a great thread!

We normally stay at the premier inn and park our car in the multi storey next to the hotel. It’s £5 a night parking and very secure.

in two weeks time we will be staying at the Moxy hotel ( £100 for the room with breakfast included) and it is next door to the premier inn so again parking in the multi storey.

21 hours ago, arlowood said:

Seems odd as @mklions in post #4 above reports that he has pre-booked 4 reservations for the Glass House

Sorry I should have said we have booked four times in the Beach House.

Mine also came today 15 days before our Ventura cruise! ( can't wait)

Booked 8 venues,

2 in Sindu ( one for week 1 and one for week 2 ) incase they change menus a week around.

2 in Epicurean  ( one for week 1 and one for week 2 ) incase they change menus a week around.

4 in Glass House.

Had to pay online today with CC, so cannot use our OBC.

We have 4 formal nights which we have not booked speciality restaurants for hoping the menu/food will be a little bit better on formal nights in the MDR.

Apparently you can always cancel a restaurant should you wish and get a full refund.

9 hours ago, david05 said:

5 January SOA Canary Island Hopping 15 nights
6 January SOD Caribbean and Central America Discovery 49 nights
20 January SOA Legends of the Eastern Mediterranean 24 nights
13 February SOA Casablanca and the Canaries 15 nights
24 February SOD Norway and the Northern Lights 16 nights
28 February SOA Croatia and the Treasures of the Adriatic 22 nights
12 March SOD Springtime in the Canaries 14 nights
22 March SOA Portugal and the Tropical Azores 14 nights
26 March SOD The Western Mediterranean and Italian Riviera 18 nights 

 

There was no easy way to copy directly across from the Saga website so any errors are mine but I accept no responsibility for them!

Thank you, the 13th Feb Casablanca and Canaries looks appealing .

Nice photos, love Malta,

Have a great holiday and look forward to some more of your reports.

when will the 2025 cruises appear on the saga website, interested in a Jan/Feb cruise.

3 hours ago, ShelaghL said:

I thought I had already replied to this but I can't see my reply.  We've never found departures packed so we've never bothered with it and we've flown from Barbados many times.  You can book lounge on the day.  I'm flying back on 27 January and so can send an update.  Maybe best if you emailed me but I think it didn't publish my original reply as I included my email address and maybe that isn't allowed? I'll try and remember to log in to this string when I get back from our cruise - also on Britannia - you no doubt fly in when we fly out.  Do you know which airline you are flying with?

We are flying premium economy via Gatwick on TUI.

One problem we have is booking seats together, my wife will not travel ( nervous flyer) unless we are sitting next to each other and we cannot book seats until 14 weeks before our holiday.

In the past we have booked the seats at the time of booking, but this seems t have changed.

mklions

7 hours ago, ShelaghL said:

Hi - I knew well in advance of the 14 weeks that we were flying with Tui - have you looked on the cruise personaliser as your flight should be confirmed if you are flying Tui, though seat reservations can't be made until 14 weeks beforehand and good luck with that.  I got an email on the Friday to say I could book seats from 00.01 on the Saturday.  I stayed up and gave up at half past midnight as I couldn't get on the site.  I got up at 05.40 and managed to get the seat selector up only to discover that all window seats had gone and there were only 2 sets of 2 seats still left together, so I booked one of those as I want to sit next to my husband! Since then I haven't been able to access the seat selector again and I've heard that there is a problem with the site that P&O are trying to rectify. By the way you will need to pay £90 EACH i.e. £180 to book seats - this fee applies to all seats (£45) per seat each way) not just PE.

Wow,

That's amazing that the seats fill so quickly, I'm also amazed that people are prepared to stay up into the early hours to book their seats.

I guess we will have to plan to do the same.

We have always managed to get PE seats together and I don't remember having to book them on the same day that they become available.

Our flights on our cruise personaliser are shown as flying with TUI, so hopefully they will not change aircraft.

Just a thought,

We are flying home from our Britannia cruise on 9th Feb next year and we are thinking of booking the lounge access at Barbados. Airport.

P&O always get you off the ship and to the airport extra early on disembarkation and maybe for a little extra comfort ( before our overnight flight) we should look to buy access into the lounge at Grantly Adam’s. 

Has anybody ever considered this as an option, and if so do they know the cost and the best place to book.?

Thanks,

mklions.
 

Be. surprised if it wasn't LGW.

58 minutes ago, carlanthony24 said:

If it says TUI it will be TUI unless they need to get a different aircraft in e.g Dreamliner gone tech or they may not have the crew.

Lets hope so.

Earlier this year I booked a Caribbean cruise (sailing on Britannia) through a well known TA who advertise extensively in the national papers.

They made a mess of our booking which originally we were  flying PE out of Birmingham. 

When I enquired a few weeks ago they told me that there were no PE seats available out of Birmingham and that we could only fly economy.

The advertisement in the paper clearly stated book a suite and get PE flights included in the price.

To be fair to the TA they recorded our booking and admitted the sales agent made a mistake in our booking.

As compensation the TA agreed to arrange private transfers for us if we agreed to fly out of Gatwick.

We agreed as long as we get the PE seats, which they said were booked for us.

We have checked online and see that it states a TUI flight, which is fine, however we cannot book our seats until 14 weeks before we fly. ( in two weeks time)

If they decide to swap aircraft and choose Maleth we will simply not go, as Malath do not supply a PE upgrade.

I am 6''4' and cannot be done with travelling 8 hours in economy.

millions.

I think with the current situation in Israel that cruise ships will not visit any ports in Israel. Saga has a couple of cruises / itineraries next year that would be affective.

It would be a shame because we have recently had a cruise destined for both Ashdod and Haifa cancelled on us due to the unrest. ( substituted for two extra sea days)

We have never been to Israel but I believe it's a marvellous place to visit especially the numerous religious sites.

On 10/6/2023 at 3:24 PM, arlowood said:

HI there

 

If you are considering the 20th October cruise on Spirit of Adventure then I would suggest you contact Saga before you go ahead with any booking.

 

I have seen a post today (on one of the Saga FB groups) from a disgruntled customer who had just received an email from Saga indicating that the planned dry dock maintenance slot for SOA needed to be extended and as a consequence they were cancelling the 18 night cruise to Cape Verde and the Canaries and offering a 14 night Canaries only cruise in November as an alternative. Those willing to accept the switch would receive a discount starting at £100 per person in a Standard Cabin up to £500pp in the most expensive suites. Alternatively they could switch to another cruise with no admin fees.

I have found the original post but the OP or the moderators have removed the copy of the Saga email from the post.

Just looked at the Saga website and this 18 night cruise on the 20th October appears to have been removed, so thank you for the info. I was only talking to Saga yesterday and they were willing to take my booking which is a bit bizarre.

I don't see too much else for Oct/Nov 2024 that appeals so I will see what they offer for Jan/ Feb 2025.

We like to go away either side of Christmas to break up the winter.

We are booked at the end of this month sailing from Southampton to the canaries on P&O Ventura in a suite and again in a suite on P&O Brittania in late Jan on a Caribbean cruise. We only sail P&O if we can get an aft suite but to be honest Saga is becoming more appealing the more we look and there all included perks for all guests are very enticing. ( especially the home and return pick ups to the port)

Mklions.

33 minutes ago, Winifred 22 said:

This what travel insurance is for. Your expenses would be reclaimed from your policy. 

Plus in most cases a hefty excess on your claim!

Thanks for your valued replies,

I will need to investigate further, no point booking for next October if the ship is going into dry dock.

Surprised the sales agent at Saga did not know this earlier today?

Just out of interest when do the Jan/Feb 2005 sailings come out for booking?

MKlions

54 minutes ago, arlowood said:

HI there

 

If you are considering the 20th October cruise on Spirit of Adventure then I would suggest you contact Saga before you go ahead with any booking.

 

I have seen a post today (on one of the Saga FB groups) from a disgruntled customer who had just received an email from Saga indicating that the planned dry dock maintenance slot for SOA needed to be extended and as a consequence they were cancelling the 18 night cruise to Cape Verde and the Canaries and offering a 14 night Canaries only cruise in November as an alternative. Those willing to accept the switch would receive a discount starting at £100 per person in a Standard Cabin up to £500pp in the most expensive suites. Alternatively they could switch to another cruise with no admin fees.

I have found the original post but the OP or the moderators have removed the copy of the Saga email from the post.

Yes that is exactly the cruise we have been looking at.

I spoke to saga this morning to send over a formal quote and the lady we spoke to never mentioned anything about dry dock maintenance for SOA.

I will need to do some more digging, thanks Arlowood for the update.