molecrochip

Absolutely. One of the lessons learned from the Costa Concordia tragedy was that incident response announcements should go through the whole ship. These announcements over-ride all other PA including in the theatre and cinema etc. English half terms were w/c Monday 30 May. Its the one guaranteed to be the same across the UK as it falls in exam season so quite surprising so many kids were on board. Sadly, the plastic flags, streamers, and balloons of past are now banned across the fleet as part of the removal of single use non-recyclable products. As for the staff, a lot have had difficult contracts and are due to cycle off shortly. I hope that staff morale improves as new staff join. P&O introducing medallion would help improve service levels as the crew member knows who you are at the first interaction. All in all, your feedback is on par with what I'm hearing elsewhere. Please complete the survey when it is sent through - the comments do get read.

I generally find that Opal and Aqua are closer bunched together. They operate in a very much square pattern of tables laid out. Certainly in Aqua, there is an initial section of tables where one side is sat against the aisle. Pearl and Coral have some sweeping walkways and some sweeping dividers to break up the bigger space. This means that there can be more room around a table. I therefore think wheelchairs have more space in Pearl and Coral. Restaurant managers are very good. If you really want the same table, at the same time every night, go talk to them. They will do their best.

My personal take is that P&O is in the midst of change. Some things have changed permanently, some things have changed temporarily, and some things had already changed pre-pandemic. Depending upon people's last cruise date pre-pandemic some of those last category may not have already been in place therefore get blamed on Covid (like day one turndown going. Some items have been delayed (like chose-your-own embarkation time). People have not reset their expectations. There is an awful lot of 'in the old days'. Practically every cruise company ripped up their procedures and did a full route and branch review during the lay-ups. Some have returned very similar to before, some better. Some are struggling. Where P&O is really struggling is communications out to passengers, and their relationship with their travel agent partners. I'm thinking cancellations and refunds. Also P&O has not been good of late regarding announcing policies and procedures post covid. This is most certainly as they got burned earlier in the pandemic when the government made changes at the last minute which they then had to implement. A lot of passengers have not been sympathetic to the changing covid-regulatory I've also flagged that there is a specific bug which is stopping people receiving cruise related documentation. I know of a couple of passengers who booked direct and didn't get any paperwork but do get marketing information. Unsubscribing to the marketing information, then re-subscribing pushed their email address back to the booking system and hey presto it worked. Having to remove two ships from service so shortly after restarting was unfortunate but these things happen. Generally P&O is good at scheduling maintenance stoppages in advance unlike a lot of the American lines who just routinely announce a 3 week cancellation so a ship can go to dry dock. On a positive, for those following the Arvia build, a lot more information is being dripped out, compared to Iona.

Companies are required to prepare their accounts to give a true and fair view - this includes the value of their assets. Carnival depreciate their ships over a 30 year life assuming a 15% residual value at the end. So rough numbers, thats 2.83% a year x 8.5 years = 24% depreciation to date. The ships cost approximately €600m each, so Regal's value at the last year end would be €456m. The company have not detailed any material impairment of this valuation so it should be taken as accurate. This is where life gets difficult because if someone did come along and offer €600m today for Regal, the 'bean-counters' would advise that the offer is too good not to take - even for a modern ship. However, no one is likely to pay €600m for Regal. The truth is, ships rarely leave a group before they are 20 years old unless the group/company/brand is sold en-batch. Given that a Royal class ship has never come to market, nor has an equivalent size/age ship, its difficult to attribute an actual market value.

Appears that there was enough room given that Arcadia was not passenger carrying and therefore did not need access to the passenger facilities.

@Selbourne I know that my example is a vast over simplification however when considering the liquidity of a business, its assets less liabilities as you know. My point was that whilst there is media focus on the liabilities, there are vast assets which need to be factored into the equation when considering the full picture. An individual won't be declared bankrupt just for having an outstanding mortgage as long as the value of their assets is sufficient. With a lot of the older ships now gone, the assets represent good valuable young assets. Large corporates never really manage to borrow at the 3% personal loans are given to individuals. 5% - 10% in the same market have been usual for the longer term debt.

I can confirm that Arcadia is moving to make way for other calls in Portland. What is odd is that Norwegian Star was due to be docked and appears to have not done so. Might have tendered but it was due to be alongside.

Your final pricing will be based upon prices when you originally book. If there is cheap deposits, only book for one. Then it can be cheaper to cancel and rebook for two if there is a new promotion at the later time of adjustment. One word of warning. Each section of ship has maximum capacities. If cruise sells out and you've only originally booked one person, there is no guarantee that a second person can be added even if the cabin has the capacity.

For me, Aqua and Opal are darker however the flip is that one of these typically has the better sunset. Aqua and Opal also have more bench seating against walls and divides. I also find that their waiters stations tend to be closer to the diners. I find that Pearl and Coral tend to be noisier. I prefer the décor in Pearl and Coral. If you are in a wheelchair, then I find that Pearl and Coral tend to have easier access and more table options. They are all served from the same galley. Each restaurant has its own dedicated waiting team. Staff can move between restaurants but not daily, more like every 8 weeks to rotate.

Yes - she is moored at the Blohm + Voss shipyard. The portmap shows her as in floating dock 11 so it is likely that she is already in the dry dock.

Headliners, generally, don't switch between ships. This is because different ships have different shows and the Headliners learn a set roster of shows. When the Arcadia cruises were cancelled, some of the Headliners had their contracts terminated early as there was no where to redeploy them with their specific show set.

One off port changes can be for a variety of reasons: - Dock maintenance - Ship maintenance that can't be undertaken in previously scheduled port - Degraded ship performance - Local health restrictions - Weather - Tide times - Lack of port/tour staff - Lack of bus drivers / busses for mandatory shuttle service The last two are current favourites. A cancellation of the same port for the same ship repeatedly indicates a problem - but its not necessarily with the ship. I know of one incidence where a ship was due to regularly call at a port. The ship met all the conditions required by the port and the port had accepted the booking. Less than 48 hours before its arrival, when it was reconfirming its plans with the pilot, the pilot declined entry. Whilst the ship did technically fit, the pilot was not happy that there was enough margin to deal with any problems or variance in weather conditions. The ship owner and port owner had done all the right things but pilots are given final say on safety grounds for a reason. It costs a cruise line money to cancel a port at late notice.

H&W also made quite a fuss about advertising it. In fact its still on their website.

Those staying on Britannia are generally those whose contracts are up shortly, as I understand the movements.

Meanwhile another analyst said: The good news, though, is that Carnival's operating losses are projected to decline to just $816 million in the current quarter, after which it's forecast to deliver nearly $1 billion in operating profits in Q3. This means that Carnival really only has to survive one more quarter before it begins generating sufficient profits to service its debt again. Even if Q2 is as bad as the analysts forecast, the $6.9 billion it has in cash remaining (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence) should suffice to bridge the gap. Long story short, it looks to me like Carnival should be able to survive without needing to issue new shares. And if that's the case, then Morgan Stanley's warning about the risk of further stock dilution appears overblown. Its worth pointing out that Carnival have been advising that the above is the likely scenario for the last nine months. This isn't new news. What perhaps is new is that the recent debt borrowed was at a higher interest rate than expected. Lets look in detail at Carnival's debt: As you can see, a variety of different borrowing rates which is usual for a large multinational corporate. 10.5% is not an interest rate that is unusual for Carnival to negotiate. Once the company starts reporting profits and positive cash flow again, the rates that will be available to borrow at, will likely fall. At this point expect Carnival to refinance the more expensive borrowing. Additionally, debt is only part of the story: As you can see, £28Bn of Long Term debt but $38Bn of property (ships/buildings etc). If you were considering this in person scenarios, you might compare to a mortgage on a property at a 75% LTV (an oversimplification I know but my general point remains). Also importantly, the line of Retained Earnings. There is still $6.448Bn of historic profits which have never been paid out to shareholders and retained within the business. This has decreased by $9.5Bn - last year's loss. From a cashflow perspective this has been countered by an additional $1.4bn of capital, $6.4Bn of long term borrowings and $1.7bn of short term liabilities. The shares are not a great short term acquisition by any means. But longer term, the company is not too badly faired. One final point, cruise sales are weak compared to 2019 historic figures. If you compare to available capacity, sales are not too bad at all.

No it won't. The crew who were on Arcadia or were due on Arcadia and have been on other ships are heading back to Arcadia. They are being replaced by crew starting on each ship to feel the gaps. This is a necessary step otherwise you would have 100% new crew on Arcadia when she restarts.

As I said, P&O have been trying to resolve the issue. Because despite what the port website said, decision only been made this week regarding cancelling the rest of the season's calls. My understanding is that Iona should fit and is sized correctly/as required to use the Sea Walk. Its appears to be the local pilots who are not happy with something.

As far as P&O goes, Arvia has the most. It has an escape room, ropes course, crazy golf, enhanced waterzone https://www.pocruises.com/cruise-ships/arvia/entertainment#altitude

Yes but minimal compared to the cost of using Southampton. https://www.portland-port.co.uk/public/files/Port Tariff 2020.pdf

Its all done by computer when you scan on and off the ship.

During cruise season Southampton is busy and expensive, Portland is cheaper.

The new port guides for your specific cruise should eventually be available by the 'App'. As part of updating them, providing them electronically is a new initiative under the sustainability drive and enables you to take the with you to shore on your phone. Its taking time to roll them out.

Arvia will be best once she launches.

I wasn't aware that anywhere on the summer schedule was currently enforcing mandatory offloading for positive testing passengers. (Noting that situations do change and a significant outbreak on board ship/quarantine near full may get a different response from local health authorities).

The Daily Record incident was before Iona started her Norwegian Fjord cruises as it involved port terminal testing and was 2 weeks long. Its unfortunate as the couple had clearly jumped through all the correct hoops including the day before test to get on the coach. Since this incident, as you may know, the rules have changed with port terminal testing no longer taking place. Therefore no one on the coach should be tested between boarding the coach and the cruise departing. Therefore no more offloading of coach passengers should occur. One caveat here, is that if a coach passenger felt unwell with Covid symptoms between boarding the coach and the ship departing and took a test in Southampton, then this could create a close contact scenario however the chances are slim.