Megabear2

Something for you to consider for the 35 night Iona to the Caribbean? She's just behind Ventura so will be interesting to hear how our friends in her are doing. Hopefully both ships will clear it all soon.

Hopefully the conditions improve soon. I see you have Iona and Sky Princess not so far behind you. Glad the MDR is working out for you. If you get a chance could you let me know what if anything benefits for onboard booking they may be offering, please? After you mentioned booking my Norway cruise later I thought I might hold off and book onboard Britannia in January, meantime watching prices and availability. I hope Lady S recovers from her sickness very soon and you can both start to get out together again.

You will need to do it online yourself. It's pretty easy. P&O have a dummy one you can follow which tells you what goes in each box. You should print a copy for your travel documents too.

Yes they had that in Limelight Club on Arvia. I love pannacotta but that was a weird thing.

Wowzz is alive and well and posting on an airline discussion site about his forthcoming Caribbean cruise in December. His last post was on 27/10 about Birmingham airport. I don't think I can say the website name but prunes are evident in the name!

Following that comment I looked for the UK rules. There is a 700 page document which covers the world. It mentions virtually every card worldwide, country by country. Importantly chargeback, authorisations etc seem to have the same basic rules and applications. I've not posted a link as I'm sure most would find it very tedious.

Sounds like my Healthy Wiltshire course. I'm on week 4 but now and 3kg lost as at weigh in last Tuesday which is a big plus. Strangely most of it has been done by myself as two out of four weeks were cancelled due to staff illness. However all is not lost as I'm now getting one to one from next Tuesday. Mind you a long way to go as they want me to lose stones not pounds!

Was quite a shock. At least the tickets were only £57.50 each so a bargain there and the flights were only £80 each as well. Been an expensive concert/hotel week for me. Elbow in May at the O2 bought on Thursday in the fan presale and now this one, the hotel in London was cheaper than Edinburgh and that's a Marriot!

Had a busy day booking our (my first) ever trip to Scotland. Three days in Edinburgh next July with the main event being a concert of Paul Weller at the Castle on the Saturday evening. Flying up from Southampton on the Friday morning and back late Monday afternoon. Hotels were difficult to source but I've found a Premier Inn on Princes Street at nearly £200 a night which seems about half the price of anything else so hopefully that will be okay. My husband has been before but only on business so never as a proper visitor. I'd be very grateful if any of our Scottish friends have any suggestions for things to see, places to eat and nice drinking establishments. Needless to say I'm very excited even this far out.

Sounds brilliant. Enjoy.

I read it that way too. I am unsure if it applies to P&O but my assumption has always been all cruise lines would operate under the Visa regulations or similar. Unfortunately I do not have sight of any for Mastercard but these Visa ones were first shown to me by RC after a mix up on Allure of the Seas with a double charge. They apologised and wrote off both my bills by way of compensation - my bill is never very large so it was a cheap and easy thing for them to do it.

Yes.

Which ship? I had an offer for my Britannia one for £1,130pp from a deluxe to a suite. It looks like some ships are getting far higher bid starting levels.

Yes. Special gate with small queue. We've never taken more than 5-7 minutes to go straight through and that's been Christmas, New Year and kids holiday times. If you're worried about time it's pretty good. I've just checked and unfortunately they've put the cost up since August. https://www.gatwickairport.com/premium-services/premium-passport-control-pps.html

Yes 2 hours as Alan said, no later. Might be worth buying the fact track if you aren't PE. It's,m £5 each in advance.

Have a safe journey. Enjoyed your reports, thank you for taking the time.

We normally take the 2nd daily flight leaving 11.30ish and our check in opens 8.30 or thereabouts, we have wandered along for a look at 7.30 and the preceding flight is taking stragglers before closing. Generally we drop our bags dead on 8.30 and go back to the on site hotel for breakfast. With fast track we go through about 1 hour 15 minutes before flight and more or less direct to gate. Had added benefits last year as there were serious delays so we stayed in hotel room rather than sitting in terminal.

This may be of interest to those who want to know who is responsible for arranging the pre authorisation. Although used in the USA it specifically refers to cruise lines. It is the Visa protocols on pre authorisation. In particular the following is a good explanation of how Visa see things working (my bold where it appears): "Authorization reversals Authorization reversals notify the issuer that all, or part, of a transaction has been cancelled and that the authorization hold should be removed and open to buy amounts may be adjusted. When to use To help ensure that cardholders have access to all of their available funds, merchants should process authorization reversals: • Transaction not completed: Entire authorized amount must be reversed within 24 hours of the earlier of when the merchant became aware that that transaction would not be completed or the end of the authorization validity period. • Completed transaction at a Vehicle Rental, Lodging or Cruise Line that included an Estimated Authorization and sum of the estimated authorization and any incrementals exceeds the fnal amount by more than 15%: (20% including tips for Taxicabs) the diference between the total authorized amount and the transaction amount must be reversed Other completed transactions where estimated authorizations are allowed, if the sum of the estimated authorization and any incrementals exceeds the fnal amount: the diference between the authorized amount (or amounts) and the Transaction amount must be reversed within 24 hours of when the transaction is completed" best-practices-authorization-and-reversal-processing.pdf

Which airport please?

Perhaps this guy is more soothing then

I'm devastated.

But you must report how the pole dancing is going ...

Yes, when I spoke to Cunard they confirmed QM2 had been one of the ships that missed out on a berth after the new arrangements. I was a little surprised as my experience has always been ports love to have her come in, particularly as it's very rare for her to be in Eurpean ports in the summer. I assumed her age/cleanliness was possibly a factor which was my worry with choosing another ship.

Have a great time. Looking forward to reading all about it.

Thank you. I was unaware about the butler being unused. As I said way back that cruise covers my 45th wedding anniversary and 70th birthday so I could turn it into a big celebration. I noticed it also has an overnight in Copenhagen but OH says he'd like to do something different so Aurora sounds like the winner at this stage, added to which every single member of the family from myb30 year old nephew to my 83 year old aunt swear she's tye best P&o ship bar none. As I say, I'll have a discussion with OH tonight, sleep on it and decide tomorrow. I might, she says very nervously, check some prices with a couple of t/as as well. I haven't used one since my friend retired but if there are any decent savings or Extras it might be sensible. Ironically both of these cruises are dearer than the original Cunard booking which I grabbed in the recent sale. Such is life.