frozenflowers

Just now, majortom10 said:

No you are wrong you have to have at least 3 months validity on your passport when returning to the UK from your holiday. If you haven't you will be denied boarding in the UK at the start of your holiday.

Yes, that is correct. What I am trying to tell you is that a passport with JeanLyon’s dates DOES have three months validity when her holiday ends in October 2025, for the purposes of determining her return date. You are still allowed to count “extra” months for that purpose. 
 

What you are not allowed to do is count the extra months for the purposes of entering the EU. So her passport expires for entry in January 2026, and she can’t enter the EU after that date even if the expiry date suggests she has three months left. So no going on holiday in April 2026 on that passport. But it would be absolutely fine to go in October 2025, as the January date is not relevant for determining the date of expiry.

There are TWO independent rules here: one rule about the date of ISSUE and one about the date of EXPIRY. A passport has to be less than 10 years from date of issue to enter the EU. A passport has to have 3 months left before the date of expiry when leaving the EU. They are different rules. 

2 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

No as that was agreed by UK as part of Brexit deal that no passport can last longer than 10 yrs. There has been many reports of people arriving at UK airports for holiday abroad and refused boarding for same reason. They lose their holiday and cannot claim off insurance. No passport can last more than 10 yrs from date of issue.

That is correct for leaving the UK and entering the EU, but not for coming back. 
 

Jeanlyon can enter the EU on her passport until 10 Jan 2026. She will have three months left because her expiry date is in October 2026. What she cannot do is enter the EU on 12 January 2026, as her passport will be more than 10 years from the date of issue. Then the three months are immaterial. 
 

People are being refused boarding because they are showing up with a passport thinking that they because have more than 3 months left they are fine, but discovering that because they have passed the 10 years since date of issue, they cannot enter the EU. 

That’s what I am saying - her passport does not expire in January 2026 for the purposes of determining the 3 months. It expires then for the purposes of ENTRY to the EU. 
 

Basically when you want to enter the EU you need to pay attention to the issue date, and your passport must be less than 10 years old from that point. When you want to LEAVE the EU you need to have 3 months left, and for that you need to look at the expiry date. You can still count those extra added months for that purpose. 
 

It is an annoying and confusing problem and it will go away in a few years when the last of the added months passports finally expires as they are not issued with those any more.  

https://www.postoffice.co.uk/identity/soon-to-expire-passport
 

Your passport will be valid for your October cruise as you can count the extra months for the purposes of determining the date of expiry, but not for the date of issue: the two rules are independent. 
 

To enter the EU your passport has to be less than 10 years from date of issue, so with yours you could enter the EU until 10 Jan 2026. 
 

You must also have 3 months on your passport after your return date, and for this you can use the date of expiry even if it is determined by extra months. So there is absolutely no reason your passport wouldn’t be valid for travel to Europe in October 2025.
 

It is confusing though, and for the sake of peace of mind you might want to renew it anyway as it’ll be no good to you for European travel after January 2026. 

33 minutes ago, Lee Jones Jnr said:

P&O is a business and this was always going to happen once the race to the bottom started.

It’s always seemed mad to me that people are so desperate to save £3-4 that they bother taking on a bottle anyway rather than just getting a bottle delivered to the cabin and I dislike the constant Facebook threads about how to smuggle more on.

It seems a little tragic that some are thinking of smuggling on something because P&O don’t sell it too, just drink something that they do sell or if it’s that important cruise with a line that sells what you want.

In my husband’s case it isn’t a question of saving money - it’s about the available selection. He likes a whisky on the balcony (or an aquavit in Norway!) in the evening but he is particular about the variety so preferred to bring his own. It’s not a deal breaker but it is a bit annoying not to be able to do that next time. He’ll live, but I guess it is a small diminishment of a holiday pleasure!

8 hours ago, tring said:

 

No you have to transfer to two separate bookings before balance payment date.  Need the cruises to be of a higher price and more than a year after the original booking start date and they have to have been select bookings, not saver.

 

We are in that situation ourselves, having booked a cruise with another cruise line about a month ago which clashes with b2b Azura bookings.  I was pretty sure they were the rules as we have had to adhere to them in the past, but did ask about a week ago and had those criteria confirmed, especially having to be two separate cruises, (though of course could be more b2b's).  Our Azura cruises are not until late next summer, so we have a while to think about what we want to book instead.  Of course you can change the cruises one at a time and leave the other a bit longer, as long as you do not pass balance payment date.

 

Could always double check yourself, but think it was correct about a week ago.

 

Edit

 

One other point is that you can only transfer a cruise once, so important to check you choose a cruise you are sure about.

 

 

 

Thanks! I thought this would probably be the case!

I should have said - both the bookings are a select fare. 
 

What I’m asking is can I transfer the deposits for two one week cruises to a single two week cruise? Or would I only be able to transfer one and have to forfeit the other? If going on the two week Britannia cruise I wouldn’t want to go on either of the one week Iona cruises - the dates clash. 

Just an idle wonder - I have two weeks booked on Iona in July 2025, back to back but they are as I understand it two totally separate bookings. If I wanted to transfer the booking to a 2 week sailing on Britannia in the same month, would I be able to do this with both weeks or would I lose the deposit on one of them? 

28 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

That's lovely to hear.  Are you happy with the itineraries being the same every year  presumably yes.  Were you cruising before these ships arrived and if so is it just the facilities you like onboard.

 

Not just P&O, most of the other cruise lines leaving Southampton are just repeating exactly the same itineraries year on year so do you think you'll be happy with those itineraries, shows onboard etc in say three years time?

 

Please don't think I'm picking on P&O, I'm not, I've noticed a lot of the lines' itineraries are shorter in ports and with little variety.

This is a good question! We had been on cruise pre-pandemic (on Azura, to Norway). We love Norway so quite happy to have gone on more or less the same itinerary multiple times now, although actually we’ve been to one previously unvisited port on each trip so there’s a tiny bit of variety! 
 

The Med on Arvia next year will be a change for us: I’m not sure how often I feel that itinerary will bear repeating: I guess I’ll have a better idea once we have done it once. 
 

At this stage in our lives repetitiveness is a positive boon - we have stressful busy jobs and a young autistic child so knowing what to expect is actively helpful! I doubt we will feel that way forever and as our daughter gets older I think we will want to spread our wings a bit. I do wish that there was a bit more variation in what P&O offer. 
 

In terms of why we like the ships: I like that Iona (and I assume Arvia) feel very modern and not dated. I also like that standard balcony cabins all have sofa beds - I’m not keen on Pullman beds or having to sleep in separated singles to accommodate the pull down beds so it’s a bonus not to have to shell out extra for a deluxe cabin to get that. I like that there is a wider choice of places to eat than on the smaller ships. I like the massive windows in the atrium! 
 

Ultimately for us P&O offer a good value proposition, and the opportunity for a nice holiday abroad without flying and with relatively little hassle. I’d happily try other cruise lines but they all seem a lot more like expensive, and at the moment we’re happy with the product we get for the price we pay. 
 

We’re repeat cruisers on the big P&O ships - we’ve been on Iona twice (and have a further two weeks booked on her in 2025) and are booked on Arvia in 2024. We like them, for all they do have faults!

Standard balcony cabins on Iona and Arvia do have sofas (this isn’t the case on the older P&O ships though, which I agree is an annoyance). 
 

I haven’t sailed with Celebrity. I’d love to but it always comes out as enormously more expensive than P&O for us - we’ve got a child and as we are able to sail outside of the English school holidays on P&O we’ve always been able to pay almost nothing (once actually nothing!) to have her in the cabin with us. No other line has ever had such a good deal that I’ve found. 
 

I get the impression from what I’ve read that service is better on the US based lines. Generally I’ve also heard that the food on Celebrity is better quality than P&O. We do well enough on P&O so it’s probably for the best that we don’t find out for ourselves that we vastly prefer more expensive options!

I’m 32 and was happy enough with the food on P&O when we were on Azura in May, although I thought the best meal I had was at Sindhu. It’s not necessarily the sort of food I’d cook myself but I enjoyed it well enough. 
 

Just wanted to put in a word for potted shrimp though - I love potted shrimp but the stuff I had on P&O was awful. Wrong sort of shrimp for a start: it was just ordinary North Atlantic prawns and not tiny little brown shrimp, and the flavouring was not right.  Try proper Morecambe Bay Potted Shrimp if you ever come across it - totally different thing altogether. 

I normally just book holidays myself and I wouldn't normally ever use a TA, so I feel like I'd be happier booking directly with the cruise line. But if I have to use a TA to get the drinks package then I think it would be worth doing.

It's all quite overwhelming - I've never been on a cruise before and narrowing down all the options feels like a bit of a nightmare!

Well that's good to know! So if I were to book online directly with Princess, would it just somehow be automatically applied?

I'm looking into booking my very first cruise next year, and am considering the 7 night Scandinavia cruise, which is a roundtrip from Southampton on Caribbean Princess next May.

I'm sure I've seen a couple of references here and there to a drinks package being included on roundtrip Southampton sailings, but I can't find any reference to this on the Princess website. Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it only for certain cabin categories or only available if you book by phone of with a TA? Have I imagined the whole thing? I'm in the UK if that makes a difference.

Many thanks!

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