groovechick

Oh dear! If you're like the rest of here you will come home from your first cruise with an unshakeable and costly addiction. Fun though!

Seriously though, I am sure you will love it. We cruised to the fjords 2 years ago and had a fab time. Stavanger is very walkable, because you dock right in the town and it's just a short walk to the cathedral, old town, shops and museums.

If you're calling at Bergen, the ship's shuttle drops you in the centre of town and again it's a short walk to the museums, funicular railway, Bryggen fish market, etc.

The scenery is breathtaking.

I hope you have a wonderful time.

Well, we decided to cross everything and risk it. We got the last 2 PB grade insides, it looks as though by tomorrow the inside cabins will be sold out.

Although we have reservations about her size (and it sounds as though she will be at absolute full capacity), we are looking forward to being on a new ship and returning to the Caribbean, where we honeymooned.

Thanks Dai, I'm sure we will have a great cruise. We have on our two recent P&O jaunts and always enjoy ourselves, no matter what. We're glass half full kind of people. ;)

I hope you both have a fantastic time and I look forward to reading your reviews of Britannia.

No, Dai, your comments are absolutely valid. We actually tried last year to book for Christmas 2014 in the Caribbean on Azura, but a consultant at P&O gave us incorrect information and we failed to get a booking.

We have been looking at other lines, but we can get 2 weeks on Britannia for the same price as a maximum of 9 nights on other lines. I know all that has been said on these forums about declines in P&O quality and standards, but we have a limited budget and hope to get the maximum bang for our buck.

We are booking full fare, which is why I was surprised we could not choose a specific cabin. The P&O consultant has told us they are heavily overbooking - quite an admission!

Also why were we told we could book a specific balcony cabin, but not a specific inside cabin? Surely either all bookings should be for specific cabins if paying full fare, or none?

BrianI - unfortunately the very good specialist cruise agency we have used in the past no longer deals with P&O, who treated them very badly last year. Hubby went into town this pm to try booking through a TA, but got exactly the same story. So much for the other threads on CC where OPs have said they have managed to secure specific cabins booking through a TA.

Davecttr - if we decide to proceed knowing the limitations, we can only hope that there are lots of cancellations between now and next Christmas and we get our choice of 2 insides close to each other. I will happily settle for that, although wouldn't say no to a luxury upgrade.:D Alternatively, I'll hope for a lottery win and we'll book the Presidential Suite, or whatever it is on Britannia.

I'll look forward to reading OPs reviews of Britannia. Will you be one of the first to sail on her Dai? ;)

With apologies if I am duplicating an issue raised in other threads... We are trying to book a Christmas 2015/2016 Caribbean cruise on Britannia, for our silver anniversary. The four berth insides to which we thought our budget would stretch have all been allocated, but we were pleasantly surprised to find it would stretch to 2 x 2 berth insides, good news as our children by then will be 20 and 15.

Despite the fact that we are booking so early, P&O are refusing to allocate us specific cabins, and only to guarantee a grade of cabin. Furthermore, they won't even guarantee that our cabins will be in the same part of the ship. Whilst we don't want the children tied to our apron strings, there ARE practical reasons for wanting them to be next door/ a few doors away/across the corridor. According to P&O, if we get an upgrade, the upgrade will not necessarily apply to both cabins, and upgraded cabins may be in completely different parts of the ship.

Also, yesterday, the cruise consultant told us there were loads of our preferred cabin grade available; today, apparently there are none. Funnily enough, we were told we could book specific balcony cabins, but DH is not prepared to pay the extra £1 K for a tiny balcony obstructed by a lifeboat, stanchion or similar.

My question is - do any of you wonderful, experienced CCers know of a way round this? Is it really too much to ask to expect to have specific cabins, in a certain location when booking 20 months in advance and paying a hefty deposit? Although a shorter cruise and less interesting itinerary, at the moment it is looking as though Celebrity will be getting our business instead...

Thanks

Whilst I would never dream of sneaking drinks on board and agree that P&O's prices are reasonable and compare very favourably with town centre pubs and restaurants, from a personal point of view I have to save very hard to afford my cruise, which is why I can't cruise every year, so a drinks bill of a couple of hundred pounds over a week is a big deal. I'm invariably on a budget whilst on board, but I wouldn't jeopardise the reasonably priced drinks and in-cabin drinks policy for it. I found RCI's drinks prices to be extortionate - 3 years on and I still haven't got over the shock of 14 quid for an average glass of Merlot, the kind of stuff you'd pay about £7/bottle for in a UK supermarket!

In my case limiting the drink intake has the added benefit of reducing the damage to the waistline too!:D

The food in the Glasshouse is delicious. If you are interested in wine try the wine-tasting session they run. Well worth the money, plus they serve little titbits of food so you can see how the wines pair with certain types of food. It's also great that if you like the sound of a wine but don't want to commit to a full glass or bottle, they will give you a little sample to try.

The nashta in Sindhu is great for a light lunchtime meal - nothing is too hot or heavily spiced.

The head bartender at Breakers Bar does THE best cocktails - shame we only discovered this late on in our cruise.

Stavanger: Oil Museum - short walk from the dock and surprisingly interesting, walking around the little old streets with the traditional houses is also fun, the Cathedral and lake area. A family on our table at dinner went DIY on the boat trip to the tropical gardens and said it was fab.

In Alesund we did the P&O Troll Road excursion, which was very long and marred by bad weather (thick mist so you could see very little), a dreadful guide and the fact that we didn't get lunch until 3.30 pm! Should have been brilliant, but was a disappointment.

Bergen is great, because once you get the shuttle into the centre of town, all the museums, the cable car, fish market etc. are within a short walk of each other. Cheap place for coffee: 5th floor of the shopping mall on the main street leading towards the cable car and fish market. Free refill if you just have ordinary filter coffee.

I know you were looking at P&O, OnlyMe, but it might be worth your while looking at Royal Caribbean instead, because there you can have 4 to a standard inside cabin and have a double bed with the Pullman bunks over. It worked fine for us and was perfectly safe except for my son's tendency to lob his pillow overboard in his sleep - guess who was sleeping underneath!

I also read other fora to find out about different lines and, like tartanexile, to get tips on DIY port excursions. I also agree that US contributors in particular tend to give a distorted view of any risks. I was getting quite concerned about our stops in Barcelona and other Spanish ports last year (pickpockets, etc.) after what I'd read, but found that we were fine with the standard precautions we normally take. I did buy a small PacSafe bag and was glad I did, as in Barcelona the Spanish authorities insisted we had to take our passports ashore and could not use photocopies, so I had everyone's passports in my lockable bag for peace of mind.

I enquired about this when cruising on Azura last summer, because our son was just a couple of weeks short of his 13th birthday and being very tall and mature for his age, we were worried he would look and feel out of place in a group aimed at 9-12 yr olds. Customer Service at Head Office told me the club organisers do have some discretion as to which groups children can go in, but it very much depends on the number of children on board, and the ratios in each group. Our cruise was early August and there was a very big number of children, well over 100 in his age group alone, I believe, so he wasn't allowed to move up to the teen group, but in the end it didn't matter. When we went to sign him up on embarkation, the first person he met was an organiser who'd been on our fjords cruise the previous year, and in no time at all he discovered that a friend from last year's cruise was also on board. He soon had a group of friends and on sea days we didn't see him from breakfast until dinner, because he was either in the club, on the sports court, watching a film on the sea screen or in the pool! Your boys will have a great time - there are sure to be other children who are at the older end of their club age group, and the organisers are fantastic at making sure that no-one is bored or left out.

Second that!!

We've never cruised with Celebrity and are considering a Caribbean cruise on Eclipse next year for our silver wedding anniversary.

What are the children's clubs/facilities like?

Our daughter will be 19 and therefore too old for them (if she comes with us), but our son will be 14 and really enjoyed his time and the friends he made in the club on our recent cruise (P&O). Celebrity don't appear to have things like the zip line/climbing wall/flow rider on RCCI, so what do they have for an active teen boy?

Thanks

English Lady: might I suggest you try looking at Roman Originals? They have various stores dotted around the country, but also a very good web site from which you can order. They usually have a very nice selection of reasonably priced evening dresses, trousers and tops, which usually includes a couple of black and white dresses, in larger sizes.

I have ordered several items from them and found them to be very well made and finished for the price, the delivery service is excellent. Only downside of mail order is returns are not free. I got a black and white dress from them for our cruise this summer - it looked like it cost at least twice the price and I received several compliments. Happy hunting!

On Azura, if you are sunbathing round the two main pools and want a decent-sized free drink of iced water, rather than going to the buffet and getting the small glasses of lukewarm water there or ordering chargeable drinks from the bar, you can go to the bars and ask for a glass of iced water and the barmen will provide it. We only found this out about 2/3 way through our holiday - another service that is available but P&O neglect to tell you.

You're welcome! Actually I was worried I'd been a bit jaundiced, but I've since looked at the photos I took, and I'm afraid my assessment remains the same.

We also stopped at 4 ports in Spain on the cruise, and although Spain has been hit equally hard by the economic/financial crisis, everywhere was spotlessly clean. When we visited Cadiz - and walked extensively - on a Sunday morning even the smallest side street was being hosed down by the cleaning crews. For part of the walk we also followed a youngish man walking a little dog. He may have let it relieve itself at every corner, but at least he had a spray bottle of disinfectant in his hand and religiously sprayed every puddle! lol :D

If by the picturesque district you mean the Alfama (medieval, narrow streets, tiled buildings) it really isn't far to walk from Praca do Comercio at all. If you start walking up Rua Augusta and then branch off into the side streets to the right, you're there, although some of the streets are a bit steep. Unfortunately it's no longer as picturesque as it once was (IMHO) - visited 20 years ago and it was gorgeous. Now it looked tired, dirty and run down and a lot of the tiled buildings have been allowed to become very dilapidated. Also the whole area seemed to have turned into a public toilet - there wasn't a street that didn't smell vile. I was so looking forward to showing it to my children...

You can use this link to check where your ship will be docking in Lisbon.

http://www.portodelisboa.pt/portal/page/portal/PORTAL_PORTO_LISBOA_ING/CRUZEIROS/CRUISE_TERMINALS

We were on Azura at the start of August, and docked at the Jardim do Tabaco, which is absolutely brilliant for the centre of town/shops and Alfama, being a 5-10 minute level walk to Praca do Comercio and the Rua Augusta Arch. You can see the arch and building façade from the berth. Unfortunately, as we were there on a Monday, most things were closed apart from the Castle and Cathedral. I know the attractions at Belem are closed then.

Forgot to say that on the routes, when you get to an important building or monument, they have plaques in English and Spanish on the walls that provide very interesting information. Also loved the fact that from open street doors we could see into the courtyards of apartment blocks, all tiles, fountains and tropical plants - very Moorish!:D

We were there on a Sunday morning, Essexlass2, a couple of weeks ago (is it really only that long?:() and followed the self-guided tour, which was just great. If you go out of the port gate and walk left, you soon pick up the orange and purple routes. IIRC there was someone from the tourist office in Azura's atrium who had a stack of maps with the routes on them We did all the purple route, a bit of the blue and green, and got to see loads of the old buildings and streets.

It was around 9.00, the streets had just been washed and it was very quiet because the natives weren't up, so there were unimpeded views, then gradually there was the odd person walking the dog, going for the newspaper or to the bakery for their morning rolls. Because the streets are quite narrow it was also shaded a lot of the time, which made for very comfortable walking. Around 10.30/11 the shops started to open, so we browsed, and finished off the morning with a couple of drinks in a large square facing the sea and just a short walk from the port. I think it was possibly my favourite port of the whole cruise.

Just wanted to thank rubydoobydoo, cruisefan2012 and scorpio41 for their tips. Magnets for pinning up Horizon, kid's club schedule and ship's newspaper were brilliant, only availed myself of free cake from the Costa coffee shop twice but thoroughly enjoyed it. Forgot all about E deck until very near the end of the cruise, told OH about it who duly went and investigated, then took us all. To be the only people standing at the very prow of the ship on a beautifully, sunny calm day was quite a special moment and yes, our son did feel obliged to attempt to re-enact the scene from Titanic!

davedex - there was no sign whatsoever of cartons of milk anywhere, at any time, on our Azura cruise last week. The only milk available was large jugs at breakfast by the cereal, or the "urn" at the drinks station.

Quite agree with mattylondon that walking along the deck was frequently the quickest way to get from, say the MDR to the Playhouse

Thanks so much for the tips about Java and E deck bow on Azura. Will be sure to check both out next week!

Dai,

I have no particular axe to grind with P&O, nor do I particularly favour travel agents. I've cruised 4 times in 18 years, 3 with P&O, one with RCI, decisions governed by available dates, destinations and things we are interested in.

But I know what P&O implied in its letter to me, and what the person in Customer Service said/implied during our telephone conversation when I phoned to ask whether I really needed to send a copy of cleared cheque/letter from bank/original cc statement/original cash receipt with sworn affidavit, when the fact that they had received the balance payment had already been confirmed. Whether the TA had done anything to upset P&O or not, I think it would have been more professional to simply say "We have taken a business decision to longer work with this TA because we want all bookings to be made direct with us".

I am sorry for the TA because, unlike others I have dealt with, they are courteous and efficient, but the main things is my hard-earned holiday is safe and in a little over 6 weeks I shall be boarding Azura!

Re P&O and travel agents. We booked last autumn with a travel agent for a cruise this August. We'd used the same travel agent previously and they had been able to obtain some discounts for us when booking with P&O, but this time they said P&O were cutting everything to the bone and would not allow the TAs any leeway. The best she could do was get us free parking AND onboard credit.

Then, out of the blue, last month we received a letter from P&O saying that they were no longer dealing with the travel agent, and that henceforth we should regard our booking as being direct with them and address any queries direct to P&O. There was a very unpleasant tone about the letter, which suggested that the TA had gone bust. We were asked to send all kinds of documents to confirm that we had paid the holiday balance, when in fact we had actually received confirmation that P&O had received the balance before the letter came from P&O.

A couple of days later I was contacted by the TA, who was most apologetic about the way everything had been done. She said that without any warning P&O had said it no longer wished to do business with them, as it wanted to handle all bookings direct. She was particularly upset because letters and phone calls from P&O to other PAX who had booked through the TA implied fraud, money going missing, the possibility that people might lose their holidays... none of which was true. Last I heard the lawyers were getting involved.:(

IMHO P&O has treated the TA very shabbily, and the nasty insinuations it made in its letters and telecons do it no credit at all. If this is the company's attitude then it's no wonder the majority of PAX feel things are going downhill and I, for one, will think twice and three times before booking P&O again.

Marsaxlokk is really just a shopping opportunity, although the stuff we bought there (table linen) was very well made and reasonably priced. My mother-in-law uses the tablecloth we bought her every Christmas. The Blue Grotto is great, although on the day we did it there was a strong breeze and therefore heavy swell. The boats that came out after us were issued with life jackets (we weren't!) and just as we returned they stopped all boat trips altogether because it had become too rough. Very beautiful, though, well worth it, and in our course very exciting with the sopray being whipped in our faces and coming over the prow!

Mdina is a long drive out, in the middle of the island, and there is not that much to see there. Interesting buildings, views from the top of the fortress, and lace/glass shops.

You chan check this by looking in the How Can we help? section on the P&O website. Just type in "Captain?" in the search box and it will come up with details of the current captains and who will be replacing them on the next rotation.

I believe Aurora's current captain is Neil Turnbull, who was in charge when we sailed on Aurora this August. He is a lovely man - very friendly, humorous and approachable. He creates a really nice, family atmosphere on ship, and the crew seem to hold him in very high regard too. His announcements had my kids in stitches and some of his sayings have gone down in family lore. I am really hoping he might be on Azura when we sail on her next year.