Megabear2

ICF I thought that was on Iona and you only used buffet and The Quays on Arvia? Remember on Arvia you can reserve MDR table up to 6.30pm in advance as it's a different system.

The flights are timed to coincide with the departure so very doubtful you'd have a problem, in fact I can confirm on one cruise we stayed in Barbados an extra day to wait for a delayed flight. The Birmingham flights are all apparently being operated by TUI. If Gatwick is better have you checked if these TUI flights are full? They are not all being operated by Maleth.

Yes just like the big spread in the Daily Mail by Paul Ludlow last week.

Maleth planes do not have a TOM prefix code. If you look further back in this thread and on the videos they are prefixed MLT. This is not a code share or a Wamos swap like last year - those flights did have the TOM prefix because they were TUI in disguise so to speak - the flight crew were apparently TUI on those planes. Your flight opened for check in, you've selected and booked seats both ways so you are on a TUI flight. There are according to the list mainly Arvia passengers on Maleth, you are Britannia. Unless someone tells you differently I don't think you need to worry at this stage. Remember 70% of all the flights are TUI.

Crumbs. Do people actually watch this rather annoying man on a weekly basis? Joking apart, he hasn't actually said what he expects P&O to do if the "normal" airlines won't charter them a plane. It would appear all he's saying is he wants to pay less than anyone else - he mentions Birmingham flights for instance. Well since I started taking these cruises some 11 years ago Birmingham always has a premium of £100 per passenger as does Cardiff and Glasgow. Therefore he is paying less to start with plus, of course, TUI are a Birmingham based airline. He assumes rather a lot on the food, drinks service as well but he doesn't really know. The provision of these items will be a contract provided by P&O, ie a food and beverage supplier chosen by them to service the aircraft. For instance the TUI service on the P&O charter flights is not the service TUI offer on their own non chartered services. The offering is what P&O contracts for and offers; there's no reason they will not be using these same suppliers with the same offering on these aircraft. "In cabin service" is totally different to the inflight entertainment and if the same quality offering is being made available it isn't a fib to state the same in cabin service on these flights. Last year's debacle with Wamos planes being swapped in last minute for TUI aircraft the food and drink service really was diabolical but that was a TUI swap not P&O. There is absolutely no reason to assume P&O are not organising for these planes to be fully loaded with amenities such as food and drink, snacks etc. So my question to Jamie would be would you rather they cancel you?

That's the problem, in all the talk in the press and online everyone is missing the point it's a percentage of around 30% and mainly affecting Arvia from Manchester. It's only 1 in 4 Gatwick flights and no Birmingham, Cardiff or Glasgow ones affected. It is extremely unusual for there to be any PE available on any flight at this stage of the booking process as those seats are normally snapped up way before the Caribbean season starts. I bought the last two available PE seats on any flight from anywhere for last Christmas in mid August last year and the agent I was using for that booking was astonished they remained. This is the reason I say it's a planning/overflow problem from Arvia coming on stream. I'll happily bet my bottom dollar we may see the same again next year and hopefully by 2025 it will have eased back to one operator (not guessing which one mind!)

There are 70% of this year's cruises using the TUI flights and now that the flight schedule is known P&O or your travel agent will be able to tell you which flight/airline you would be on enabling you to choose a cruise which isn't operated by Maleth. These flights are operating from November until the end of March only at present.

There are seven aircraft, two of which are apparently going to carry P&O passengers so no doubt conversation will be going on. I do find it interesting that to date nowhere either here or on social media has anyone actually come up with an idea or suggestion of what alternative P&O could have offered. That's probably because short of cancelling the cruises or at the very least the 30% of passengers they are having to offer these flights to there really doesn't seem to be an alternative they could offer.

Thank you I hope your granddaughter has had a lovely day.

What your wife!!!??

Enjoy. I'm joining her for 35 nights in January 2025.

It's been a glorious, hot sunny day here. Very rarely am I at home on my celebration day (my 68th birthday today after bring told 30 years ago i'd most likely not make 40) so someone has been smiling on me. I mentioned I bought a lot of roses a couple of weeks back, all of which had been heavily pruned. This afternoon while having a wander in the garden I found this beautiful bloom on one of them. Strangely it's called "My Lovely Dad" so I think he's sent me a present!

She was correct in that last year was indeed Virgin to Antigua and mostly TUI to Barbados. She no doubt had no further information than that. What a lot aren't taking into account either is that last year only Britannia had a full Caribbean season with Arvia not joining her out in the Caribbean until.after Christmas. Organising flights would have been.much easier. This is Arvia's first full season and even then she's going late. The non availbility of flights caused her to do two extra Med cruises rather than as planned. Alarm bells must have been sounding back then.

I appreciate your sentiments however when booking with P&O there is no named airline. Yes they let people book PE and it's unfortunate there isn't any, however they were refunding that cost and offering OBC as well. These cruises are planned 3 years in advance and sold 2 years out. It is simply impossible to promise who you will fly with. Airlines go bankrupt (Thomas Cook/Flybe etc). It would be impossible to day you will fly with such and such. I note your comment about sailing from Southampton rather than flying. That's lovely for you but a lot of people who booked these.holidays can't take a 28 days cruise because of work. I'm delighted you are pleased with your choice, but the fact remains that aircraft get changed out regularly particularly since the pandemic and anyone saying they won't fly if they have to go economy or because there's no.in flight entertainment will have to do as you've done and cancel with loss or go on the new plane. I think P&O announcing this before most people's final payment date has been pretty honest because those like you have lost only your deppd. Sadly there will be people sailing before 29 December who have already paid and are locked in. Those people I do have some sympathy with, but again it's extremely naive to believe aircraft aren't at risk of change.

Actually the economy as 2-4-2 should be popular as well. Not so many being split up.

PH-EFS and 9H-RTU show photographs of what appear to be the old first class. Assumedly still there if they photographed them. 64f711f3e62eeaded941b02c_MALETHAERO_A332_9H-EFS-1.pdf

I flew on Silver Airways. Fort Lauderdale to Orlando. Tiny little prop plane with a bench seat at the rear and single seats either side of the aisle. We took off and the massively tall, I'd say 6'7" plus black guy stood up and pulled a pinafore over his head. He promptly had to stop but produced from behind a curtain a coffee pot and proceeded to stop by about a foot to move down the cabin giving everyone a cup of coffee. It was totally surreal.

Unfortunately my Arvia experience says not good at keeping breakfast hot. Dinner was okay but breakfast often lukewarm and took forever to come. Never had cold breakfast on the other ships. I recall the discussion about fried eggs on Azura when we did the tour and a couple of the guys demonstrated their technique- very, very impressive!

Indeed tiny cabin, but a real thrill to fly on. I'd have happily sat with my head to my knees to fly on one! For a working class oik like me growing up with tin baths and outside loos QE2 and Concorde were the ultimate dream and actually setting foot on both was the dream come true.

This was in 2018 on Azura in the Caribbean. Plated food was being served then. The kitchen was very modern and surprisingly compact. I doubt very much it has been changed as it would cost a fortune. Interestingly that kitchen provided food for everywhere bar Epicurean- presumably because that had it's own one although I can't say for sure. Perhaps they'll bring back the kitchen tours. You pay for it but you get a very substantial lunch with wine after the tour. If they do I volunteer you to investigate Iona and Arvia's kitchens!

Aircraft change can be a bonus too, though. In the days of the Heathrow shuttle to Glasgow when you just turned up and they put on a plane as required, I arrived to be told the flight would in in 30 minutes as they were preparing the plane. Imagine our shock when we were directed to a gate with Concorde awaiting us. Apparently they needed to move it to Glasgow for some special event and decided to send it up with the shuttle passengers onboard. No supersonic flying but an experience like no other.

Never done a kitchen visit on the three new ships but on Azura I was surprised how much is still done by hand and baked/roasted in proper ovens. The Executive Chef who led my tour had just swapped from Aurora and informed me size/number of covers made absolutely no difference.

Hi Jean, As a person who flew crew how often on average would you guess this happens? I've had it happen quite a few times over the years, most notably with BA but with TUI creeping up there since the pandemic. Several have commented I must be very unlucky so I'm intrigued if I am! I normally fly scheduled, would that make my experience more common for instance? I've had changes of everything from internal Air Canada propellor aircraft swapped to ones that you can't take hand luggage on to BA A380's and just assume it's fairly normal if an aircraft needs maintenance.

A big speciality on Celebrity, it's often a very large portion too.

Hairy bodies too! Not only very wet towels but the inevitable shed. Maybe P&O could offer gentleman full body waxes on day one in the spa.