molecrochip

Not so, the voyages up to G218 have been amended on the website. There after, they still show. In the same way, that the cruise schedule has been updated to remove Iona, it can be updated to put her back in.

So, on a British Islands cruise, the quarantine requirement will be low. For, say, Azura sailing out of Malta, the Maltese administration and the countries that she visits still insists on a set % of cabins to be maintained for quarantine.

Unfortunately, Covid stopped the 'choose your own boarding time' development in its tracks. It will come back around.... eventually.

Currently up to and including G218 confirmed as missing Geiranger.

I believe its being looked at on certain cruises depending upon destination.

The nursery and night nursery have been closed since the restart of cruises. I believe this affects all clubs for children 4 and under.

As far as I'm aware, everything is on track for Arcadia to resume service again as planned. Arcadia has her previously schedule calls to Southampton during June alongside a couple of extended stays.

A number of Arcadia and Aurora cruises are completely full across the next couple of months.

P&O have been careful to include more family friendly activities, performances and shows on their ships whilst the kids club operates its cohort system. I’ve heard of science shows, nursery rhymes, arts and crafts, magicians, music etc which can be attended by the whole family.

Just to say, I understand P&O are working on a resolution so that Iona can call.

There has been an higher incidence of Covid on board over the last couple of weeks. Quarantine resource significantly used. No mandatory offloading though. Cleaning procedures stepped up. Public reminded more frequently to wash hands & wear masks. Not at stage that procedures need to be mandatory or intrusive but clearly taking extra work by crew. Procedures had been toned down to me more discreet compared to the very visible extra cleaning originally in place. It is one problem when you have rolling cruises in that you never get a fire break where you change all your passengers.

Azura may be obsessed with mask wearing… but that’s cause they have a Covid problem at present.

So I believe that the price has changed from £25 to £10. It will be by raffle with ALL proceeds going to charity. Gary is set to perform two performances on each cruise and I suspect these will be on the overnight port stops in Barcelona and Lisbon for G236 and G237 respectively.

During the pandemic the rates were up to about 15% and then sunk back to to around 6%-7% bearing in mind the Corporate borrowing rates are generally significantly more expensive than consumer borrowing. Also worth noting that global interest rates have moved since then and the world has practically stepped closer to war and recession (which is ironic as we should have had a heavy recession due to the pandemic but didn't because of the pent up demand for consumer spending). So I'd say that 10.5% isn't a fair commercial rate at present and likely to be renegotiated as soon as cheaper borrowing is available (as we saw during the pandemic). The other thing to bear in mind is that Carnival chose to borrow this but didn't need to. It could have used its own reserves. This has been bubbling internally for a couple of days however its obviously commercially sensitive. However I see it as a good thing that those who bought into Carnival at the hight of the pandemic are now keen to own a slice for real. This transaction could end up reducing the Saudi PIF % in the company instead of being undertaken for cash. Alternatively, it may end up as a Joint Venture for the time being (my suspicion). Seabourn, being a small niche operator, relies on the Corporate Group for its back-office support therefore its not as easy as just hiving off part of the business.

There seems to be some disparity between the plans on paper and the plans in practice. The suggestion I heard I’d that there have been changes to the mooring arrangements which then creates the situation mentioned by Sharon. I didn’t think Iona was ever scheduled to stop at Bergen….. but I could be wrong. I thought that was why Britannia was still doing the Fjords including Bergen.

Iona is the biggest ship to ever be scheduled to call at the SeaWalk. Unusually with the SeaWalk, the ship is at anchor rather than tied to the quay/moorings. Therefore, I believe the SeaWalk requires seas to be slight as the ships must also switch of their engines when alongside. Suggestion is that the sea conditions have not been right and there is now questions as to whether there will ever be the correct conditions.

And if it helps, I hear that those who test positive on board Azura, are not disembarked but remain on board in quarantine until they are negative and then generally fly back from Malta, the next time the ships calls.

I'm talking UK numbers. But I'm told that the ship's numbers are following the trends of the home port country. I don't have specific numbers.

Unlikely, the incidence of Covid has dropped dramatically. The latest reported data on positive cases were the lowest they have been since May 2021. You are now more likely to catch one of the nasty cough & colds that are going around than Covid.

This isn't uncommon and depends on scheduled / available berth. I can't remember the port but we were due to berth with the quay to our East. The wind was coming from the East and the captain deemed it too dangerous. There was a spare passenger dock which put the quay to our South East and this was attempted. The captain confirmed that by leaving his engines on, driving at the dock, he could safely maintain position. as the different angle reduced the force of the wind enough. The next ship in (smaller) couldn't dock at their scheduled position - and by now there was no spare passenger docks available. They missed the port. I can't confirm its a one-off but do understand its temporary and is related to the Sea Walk therefore outside of P&O control.

LNG tanker usually comes from just north of Bergen and transfer is undertaken at Haugesund. It’s the only port Iona calls at that they can bunker from a ship of sufficient size. At the moment there is no LNG facility at Southampton so still has to come in from another location. It was coming from Rotterdam. Whilst in Southampton, Iona bunkers diesel. The two operations cannot take place at the same time and there’s not enough time to do both on the same day.

Not unusual in hotel circles either. Most chain hotels are owned by third parties. When they change brand, usually a hotel is debranded the last day of operation for said brand. At midnight it leaves an unbranded hotel full of guests. In some cases guests are told in advance, but not always. At least one major operator keeps hotels on their website up until 23:59 local time as they profit from every direct booking. Oceana didn’t go to Newcastle for stripping - she went as it was cheap berthing. Same as Azura. Less crew required on static ship. Oceana was called back from Newcastle early to be unloaded in Southampton. Azura took her place. Not that much gets unloaded. Hotel IT/Stock/Branded items mainly. Most other stuff transfers and is included within valuation. I remember the sale of Oriana specifically including the 7 or 8 grand pianos! Aurora still expected to H&W for dry dock. I understand the rumour about cleaning, repairing and painting the hull may be true.

On Britannia there are on the portrait wall mounted TV screens for the current day.

Not so. ATOL requires a flight to be part of the package. ATOL then protects that booking by levying a fee which P&O pickup. Something like £2. Until you have a form booking, you don’t have a flight reservation thus no ATOL protection. The ABTA scheme is a bonding of the agent client account. If booking direct P&O act as supplier and Travel Agent. The bonding protects against failure whatever stage of the process holds the money. Both schemes were relaxed slightly to cover FCCs during the pandemic.

Lots of rumours about both adults only ships. No smoke without fire… hmm. What I will say is that sold doesn’t mean immediately going. If sold at all! Branding issues may also play a factor in the final reckoning.