molecrochip

Post Covid, the focus was on getting people back on ships. This included enticing a new generation of cruisers acknowledging that some will never want to cruise again. Low prices have been used to fill ships to capacity. Two years on, now that we’re booking 2 years out, that new generation has been found and will actively chose to return (hopefully). Carnival have spoken about the need to raise prices across all brands - it was also an area that the market analysts said Carnival needed to try harder at. So the approach pivots. Say launch price is £500, it reaches £700 following sales. Recently the late fare was £350 which annoyed people. Now the focus is on quality bookings over quantity. A late price could stay at £700 in which case you only need to sell one cabin instead of two to generate the same fare revenue. Alternatively, you drop to £500 and still make more money on the one cabin compared to £350, but you might just sell two cabins and be £300 better off. It’s an over simplification of the revenue model, which aims to maximise fare revenue across the ship, but it gives you an idea.

Winter 2025/26, hence why it’s in this thread 😉

Some very well sold cruises over last couple of days eg. Arvia Xmas cruise has sold all 3rd/4th berths.

Due to bad weather, the pilot is not expected to be able to board at the Nab Tower. Britannia heading to Falmouth to collect pilot. She is expected to dock in Southampton late. ETA not yet confirmed so proceed to Southampton as planned if boarding tomorrow.

It was announced onboard yesterday morning that they would call at Gibraltar tomorrow instead of Lisbon today. This is due to the forecast bad weather/strong winds.

You should have heard by now. Port team pass details to P&O on a cruise by cruise basis. I would chase up via the email mentioned above. I’d also give details of call and time so the poor customer service call can be followed-up.

A cruise can, broadly, be sold in one of two ways. Firstly as a definitive published fare product. This is where the cruise is sold direct to you as a customer with no changes from what P&O are offering, for the advertised price. It can be sold direct or via a travel agent but if problems occur, you claim against P&O's ATOL/ABTA registration. This is not the same as an agent that agrees to give up part of their commission as cashback or a reduction on your price. Secondly, a net fare product can be sold to a travel agent to be used as part of a package. The travel agent may add flights, hotels transfers etc, and then wraps the package up in their own ATOL/ABTA registration. The travel agent is now responsible for delivery of this package as a whole - not P&O. A net fare cannot be sold straight through. The second option places risk on the Travel agent hence the price is lower. The way that agents earn commission from net fare arrangement is also different. .

Always been the way but P&O now actually applying the rules.

CCL runs many short voyages and has a demographic which are fond of e-readers, or not reading. Therefore it makes sense to remove the libraries. This is not a Corporation wide change. Cunard, has a very different demographic, and voyages that are, on average, significantly longer. I understand that there is no plan to remove their libraries. In fact, Queen Anne will have a decent sized library on deck 12.

Tui's were, and I believe still are, a mix of 32" and 34" which allows them to market as 33". Tui can't actually go any tighter on their planes as they already carry the maximum number of passengers certified for the type of plane. Other airlines can go 30" or 31" in economy because they then stick a few rows of lay-flat business class at the front, thus reducing total number of passengers carried. 31" is the most common long-haul economy standard. Tui and Emirates stick out as better than that.

I've never actually been on a Princess cruise where they have done that. As yet Princess don't have any ships the size of Iona & Arvia. We'll see if it works when Sun Princess arrives. Its also worth considering that on a lot of Princess cruises, you don't have whole ship turnarounds (especially outside of the UK).

Let me manage expectations, this is the legally required dry docking of the ship. Its required every 5 years so is scheduled at 4.5 year intervals. The primary purpose is to fully stop the ship, do a hull check, a repaint, an 'mot' on the ships non-stop working parts. It allows maintenance on equipment such as propellers / thrusters/ stabilisers as appropriate. Obviously, with a ship out of the water, the opportunity is taken to do a refurb - in most cases this is painting, carpets, new furniture, other repairs. For example, if you had a wooden dance floor, this might have a full refurbishment. It's also an opportunity to do work in the galley areas without disrupting dinner service, and the pools without forcing one out of action. The lifeboats are also offloaded and serviced. As I've said before a lot of the physical ship is designed to last 30 years without major maintenance. Re: Andersons: it really is the one thing missing. Re Disembarkation: The biggest restriction is the number of people you can push through the terminal. Although the ships have got significantly bigger than Cunard's, the luggage hall capacity has not. That is largely why disembarkation feels so bad on Ventura and bigger ships. In this respect, MSC are lucky in Southampton in that they have a new larger terminal.

It’s worth reading the Wikipedia article. Travel City Direct was independent and using old 747s bought post 9/11. Then part of XL before they went bust. Virgin then bought the brand and used their own aircraft before finally retiring the brand.

Refub - you are correct re April. I’ve heard nothing to suggest that Club (fixed) dining is being removed on Britannia.

There is one lounge, it gets busy and is not up to UK standards. That said, can still be preferable to the departure lounge.

P&O don’t use Jet2 long haul.

Expect it to be 31”

P&O specify the level of service - they have no reason to specify anything different to what they have specificied for the Tui Charters.

I was reading some stats and IFE usage on some flights is now as low as 25%. Many people prefer to take their own streaming devices/iPads/phones etc. On my last four flights, I've not used the IFE. I don't think anyone is suggesting no food & drink.

This is the list you want. https://www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/pdfs/PO Accessible Cabin List.pdf Mobility scooters can go in any Accessible cabin but not Partially Accessible cabin.

Your TA should take all of the blame here. There are no conservatory suites on Arvia or Iona which can accept a mobility scooter. This is common knowledge amongst travel agents and has been made clear time and time again by P&O. You may have now upgraded to a full suite however if its one at the front of the ship, they are not suitable for mobility scooters as they have a kink in the corridor just after entering the cabin which most scooters cannot navigate. Even the deck 8 family suites have a 90 degree turn straight after entering the cabin.

Probably the best, most accurate, comment I’ve read on here this year!

The website automatically charges everyone in the room when buying a drinks package on the website in advance. If the adults are buying the two top packages, the children's package are discounted. If you want to only buy a package for the first two guests in a cabin, then you need to do it onboard on days 1 or 2. No one is forced to buy the package.

Here is the thread

The ability to spend your OBS before stepping on ship is coming… I don’t yet have a date though.