molecrochip

Glad you had a good cruise. Do come back. The staff on board are not paid much in UK comparison terms. However, what they earn is significantly more than they earn back home. As the staff have free board, food, healthcare on board, they tend to send a lot of their money back home. Additionally, working on a cruise ship is a major leg up the career ladder in their home countries. Many crew who have done multiple contracts go home into senior hospitality roles because of the quality of their training. No taxpayer bailout funds is paid to crew. Never has been. Working off-shore they did not qualify. Yes - shareholders ordinarily take a cut but that's the purpose of any company (no different to say, Tesco). In fact, due to Carnival having to completely stop during Covid, any profits are paying down debt (which the company had to take on to survive).

It was suggested that Carnival didn’t know what a significant change was. I said that this was wrong. I never said or alluded to them having an internal policy document. In fact I said that as it would be a cruise by cruise consideration publishing criteria would be impractical. I said that you apply the facts of the change once confirmed to the specific cruise to then understand if it’s significant. I said there were guidelines that are applied, ABTA, Package Travel Regulations etc.

The water level is now lowered in rough seas/high winds. Doesn’t stop people intentional pushing water over the side.

There comes a point on some cruises where even a number of little changes, taken together, could be a significant change from what was booked. I can’t answer the specific question. If I could, I’d have done so. Clearly the Panama Canal is the feature point of the cruise hence why I identified that. There feels like a lot of port alterations post Covid. As with hospitality in the U.K., distant ports have found themselves short of staff for port operations, excursions, taxis etc. Also crew visa seem to cause more issues than previously.

Given it’s a cruise by cruise consideration, it’s not possible to crystal ball every scenario. Therefore it’s not possible to publish a list. Guidelines exist - section 3 of https://www.abta.com/sites/default/files/2022-06/Code of Conduct Guidance June 2022.pdf The approach is also detailed in the Package Travel regs para 11 & 15. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/634/made These are well tested and ultimately it comes down to character of the cruise. The tipping point will be different between a 2 night cruise, a 7 night cruise, a 14 night cruise. It will depend upon what replacements are offered and why the changes was made. I’m sorry that this doesn’t provide the clarity you wanted but I go back to the original post, the only point that a someone decides the threshold is breached is when the change has occurred that would cause the threshold to be breached. Until then the TA will always be seeking clarification.

The travel industry has guidelines as to whether it’s a significant change or not, it’s not a bean counters opinion, it’s implementation io those guidelines. This ensures that those trade bodies ABTA etc are supportive if complaints are raised. The decision is made with regard to the whole cruise. That means that passenger preference is not a part. Say you book a Caribbean Island cruise and St Lucia is swapped for Grenada, it’s not a significant change. If you’ve booked to specifically visit St Lucia then you may feel hard done by but you’ve still got a Caribbean Islands cruise. If you’ve booked a cruise to the Americas and New Orleans with two overnights in New Orleans, and New Orleans is cancelled, that would change the whole character of the cruise and be a significant change. These are not P&O specific guidelines.

I’ve accused no one of lying and was not suggesting contact hasn’t been made. The team your TA contacted will be awaiting details of any change to any future cruise. What I said was that P&O will know what threshold constitutes a significant change and that position has not been met. P&O have no definitive information that constitutes a significant change to your cruise. That may change, it may not. P&O and other cruise lines don’t divulge the threshold for a significant change in advance as it varies cruise by cruise based on length, location and character etc of the cruise. When a change gets made, someone considers whether that is significant.

There is an industry definition somewhere which talks about substance or character of holiday changing.

It’s not a copy and paste - it’s a TAs summary of the situation. In the TAs words. P&O know the answer to the question. It’s P&O’s policy to only talk about confirmed changes. They are just not prepared to talk about hypotheticals, nor should they have to.

But it isn’t significant. Two Caribbean ports replaced by two others. As far as itinerary goes, it’s essentially a like for like swap - even if they are different islands.

Significant change will vary from cruise to cruise and will also depend on the details of the cruise at the point you booked. The first post is the TAs wording. It states that this is not a significant change. That will be a P&O decision. It’s not they don’t know, it’s that P&O are not crystal ball gazing to say “if you loose this” or “that” then it’s significant. The are not required to tell you from a commercial perspective. If something further does change snd tip the balance then they will say. I agree that this isn’t but would also agree that if f you do lose the Panama Cannal then that’s likely to be significant.

P&O should charge the end bill against the pre-authorisations, but don’t. Instead they put the entire bill through as a fresh charge. The bank is correct, the authorisations time out at 30 days unless the merchant (P&O) cancels them. P&O don’t have a process to cancel the pre-authorisations. There is literally nothing you can do but wait. Pre-authorisations work differently on a credit card so would always recommend using one.

Give them a call and they can change the setting.

Yes, was extended to every booking including via TAs. Not everyone will receive them as if the ship is too full, they won’t send them.

There have been a fair few which have been hampered by storms in the Channel on Saturdays recently. That’s just luck of the draw. If Southampton departures had been Wednesdays then Iona would have missed them all. The Geiranger issue is frustrating but the port should have supplied the correct information in the first place!

Yes, Iona still in the North Sea so won’t make Stavanger. Straight to Olden. Don’t know reason at present.

Slightly odd case as he self referred himself to the police: https://beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/12987/tom-binns-issues-statement#:~:text=Following news of his court,a short period of time. He pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing this month.

John, that’s just not correct. At embarkation people have wheels cases, medications, winter coats, valuables etc. That’s exactly how Ocean Terminal works John. At Ocean they have two/three people unloading at a time. One arch per two conveyors. The difference between airport snd cruise terminal is passenger mix. At an airport you have leisure/family passengers mixed in with quicker business/frequent flyers. At a cruise terminal everyone is leisure/family type of passenger.

The only shows bookable will be shows in the theatre. They appear as one show per day and when you go through there are multiple showings to choose from. Warning, unless it’s been fixed, you can only book for yourself unless you are lead booking passenger then you can book for yourself plus others.

That would be Tom Binns as Ivan Brackleberry. His show was funny but rightly P&O severed ties.

People bring a lot more stuff on at embarkation than when reboarding. This is the difference in timescales.

The Carnival U.K. team are one of the best in the business. They fulfil a variety of day to day roles across the business but have all had specialist training to perform the care team role. I know someone who was sat in Southampton doing their job, saw the request for support for a couple on a world cruise. Dropped everything, went home grabbed a case and was at Heathrow within 2.5hrs waiting for a flight to the other side of the world. The care team are there to look after the person not-directly affected, liaise with authorities, hospitals, insurance companies. Exact duties depend upon exact scenario.

Ocean terminal was a joint venture. It gives Carnival priority but not exclusivity. Same with the last major upgrade to Mayflower. The new Horizon terminal was a joint venture between MSC and Norwegian. Again, they have priority but not exclusivity. The port owns the land and terminals are long leases. All terminals are operated and managed by ABP however each cruise line supplies its own check-in/baggage staff through an agency. Carnival use Intercruises. Iona can only currently home port at Ocean Terminal. As you may be aware, on a rotational basis the cruise terminals close across winters for refurbishment. I understand that 2025 is the turn of Ocean Terminal to close mid January - end of March. It’s possible that Horizon terminal will be used for her three turnaround days. Not a co-incidence that Iona has a 35 night cruise and dry dock during that period thus reducing the number of turnaround days in Southampton.

Other than more security points it’s not an easy fix. You need to remember that the terminal is used by many cruise lines, some which have more traditional check-in processes. So it’s not just a case of removing seats and adding security points.

Look for shows at midnight tonight. For some reason they were dropping at 13 days not 14! When you first arrive at CPS show them your blue badge and advise you need a luggage porter. They are now reserved for people with special assistance requirements. - everyone else gets trolleys! As your wife is a wheelchair user, you should get to wait in the foyer not the queue. But at midday I don’t expect a problem. The queue really is designed for those who turn up 1-3 hours early.