heatherb1958

Beautiful photos. We have visited all those places on your tour when we hired a car when we holidayed on Lanzarote staying at Playa Blanca, twice !. I don't think the island deserves it's nickname of Lanzagrotty as it is just beautiful in a unique way. The story behind Haria if I remember correctly is that the town was saved/undamaged when a volcano erupted and the lava flow by passed it. In thanks thereafter for every child that was born a palm tree was planted ...

To the OP if booking a balcony on Iona definitely do not book GZ grade , be careful if booking saver rate and it mentions this grade as these cabins do NOT have sofas . We sailed Iona in Jan 2021 and had booked that grade not realising luckily I managed to catch it and paid £50 pp more to move up to the standard balcony GTY and ended up with cabin 14524. We have cruised equally with Celebrity and P&O, our most recent Celebrity cruise was on Silhouette in June 23 . The food on there in the buffet for choice was outstanding much better than in the dining room. The speciality restaurants are too expensive on Celebrity for us , on P&O they are very reasonable and we don't hesitate to go 2 or 3 times during the cruise , Limelight club is a great concept, meal and a show . The cabins , standard balcony , on Silhouette and Iona were both lovely , tea and coffee in cabins are standard with P&O . We never book drinks packages with P&O as you are allowed to take onboard a litre of spirits each for in cabin consumption and bottles of wine are not exorbitant in the restuarants plus they do wine packages which we always purchase. Gratuities are always included with P&O. At the end of the day itinerary and price win.

We disembarked Arcadia on 20th July . I loved the ship , our cabin , no issues at all with service but Freedom dining was chaotic . We like to eat early and the queue was round the corner and as far as the actual bar in Spinnaker some evenings . We prefer a table for 2 but there was no chance , saw a couple of irate people return the pagers back to the hosts in a not so gentile way. In the end we went the sharing table route and met some lovely people but the dining experience was not a relaxing affair . We booked last minute so getting our preferred early fixed dining wasn't going to happen but we had a lovely cruise on the ship and would go back on her again if the itinerary and price was right .

Just wanted to add as I don't think it has been mentioned, a big difference between the 2 companies is that P&O is predominantly British guests and Princess is a cosmopolitan crowd with a lot of Brits out of Southampton but you will also meet Americans, Canadians , lots of folks from Asia too. We prefer a multinational crowd, makes for more interesting conversations at the dinner table 😆.

Sorry this is happening to you OP. 1) Years ago I personally saw a sniffer dog at night onboard a Royal Caribbean ship patrolling the corridors seeking out drug users so yes they do live onboard , the cruise was in the Caribbean. I even saw their toilet box too , aft of the outside promenade deck. 2) I have never smoked and the sweet ,sickly smell of Cannabis makes me feel sick . My neighbour's EX Son in Law was a dope head. Whenever he smoked in the back garden I had to shut all my windows . Then one day the smell was something not of this world , absolutely disgusting. My neighbour on the other side could smell it and said it was Skunk . OMG not a smell I want to smell ever again 😫 so OP I feel for you having that permeate your cabin. Hope the culprits get found , off loaded and barred for life cruising MSC.

Yes that is a shame about the new changes with Princess, second or even 3rd major change in less than 12months .... We paid £30 pp per day for our Plus package last year on Enchanted , no Premium then. It was just for drinks,WiFi and gratuities . Then Plus went up to £40 and then £50 when they introduced Premium with extra bits for Plus and Premium and now it is changed again. As much as we were beginning to love Princess again moving forward we will only book when there is a deal on like the recent half price Plus package at £25 pp per day or a last minute cheap deal. Bad move on Princess's part they have alienated a lot of loyal customers .

You over pay for wine in pubs and restaurants on land in the UK, not counting Wetherspoons 😆. P&Os wine prices fare comparably with pubs and restuarants and are cheaper in some cases if you buy a wine package with the OBC . As far as buying chocolate onboard never ever would I buy that . We check out land prices for goods in the onboard shops and bought a camera , watches and anything left over buy a bottle of booze to finish it off . Never had a bill at the end of the cruise .

I agree whole heartedly about P&Os Atriums , they are so boring , they have no heart even though they are the heart of the ship . The only one we do like IS Britannia because at least you can grab a bottle of wine there at the Glass house and sit and people watch 😆. Princesses newer ships have a fab Atrium , I was up dancing nearly everynight to the bands playing there on Enchanted and Regal and with all the bars on different levels never had a problem getting a seat. We are on Britannia again soon followed by Sky a couple of weeks later . Will enjoy both I am sure but Sky will have the edge .

We have done many side to side cruises out of Southampton i.e. transferred from one ship to another as opposed to a 'back to back' where you stay on the same ship for the following cruise . In October 2021 we transferred from Anthem to Britannia, Anthem was at City Terminal and Brittania was at the Mayflower, P&O were still doing Covid testing at the dock then so what we did then is not the same as what we do now in 2023 . The idea for calling into the Holiday Inn on Herbert walker avenue and purchasing coffee etc is a good one whilst you wait but there is no guarantee for luggage storage whilst you go off into town for purchases and as others have said that hotel gets busy . Whichever way you look at it at some point a taxi is going to be required to get you to the second ship and also depends on your boarding time for the second ship. If we have a late boarding time for the second ship we take a taxi to the Standing order Wetherspoons on the high street , spend a couple of hours there taking it in turns to watch the luggage while each of us goes shopping for supplies if required, we have food and drinks then when ready take an Uber to the next ship. If we have an early boarding time for the second ship we just stay onboard the first one until last call then take a taxi to the next one .

You already do , have been for years , it is called an ESTA. Edit: Hubby was reading today that the delay in implementing the European visa is due to the Olympics being held in France and they don't want anything jeopardising tourists visiting during that period .

In our experience when there have been issues with charges , unless it is erroneous bar charges , the Guest services staff have no authority just to wipe it off. Investigations have to be made and reported back finally to be dealt with by GS. It would have been so easy for them to see what time the call was made , what time you boarded the ship and with the Medallion exactly when you were in your cabin, heck with that thing when looking for your travel party onboard you can even see when folks visit the bathroom !! I did when looking for my hubby on Regal one minute he was in a bar next time I looked he showed up on the map in the gents 😂 😂

Wow. Maybe the last occupants of the cabin used it to confirm their ride home .... 😆. Hope you get it sorted soon..

We asked our butler on Grandiosa to please relax and take a holiday from us as we have simple needs and didn't need checking up on but he did insist on finding us to escort us to reservations we had around the ship even though we repeatedly told him it was unnecessary. He said it was part of his job to do so. On disembarkation day in Barcelona he came to find us to ask what time we would like to leave the ship, we had kept our luggage stored in YC and told him 1pm after lunch . He found us , got our luggage and escorted us all the way through the terminal and even loaded our luggage onto the public port bus . I kindly thanked him .

This has been a very entertaining thread to read , needed a couple of laughs 😃. This has been our experience on 3 cruises in the last 12 months on Enchanted and Regal . Sitting with new friends on Enchanted we ordered drinks, all of them went on our account , the other couple did have the plus package but didn't drink alcohol so their drinks didn't get allocated towards the magic 15 number . We found the error as we check our account daily . On Regal hubby ordered drinks from a bar server we knew , hubby went to the loo , drinks were taking a while , I could see the bar server having animated words with the bar tender. Because hubby wasn't in the room his medallion wasn't showing up on the POS , bar server was pointing over to me gesticulating to the bar tender that I was sitting there waiting for the drinks !!

Yeh , just checked that on the website . We are good to go 😎. Shame about your blip 😔.

We booked a 2024 Arvia cruise through an online Travel Agent 2 days ago and got my P&O invoice from them today confirming £700 OBC plus the coach transfers . The cruise is 14 days and we booked a balcony. Hope it isn't a mistake and they take it off us !!

One side would close up approx. 10.30am so lunch display could be prepared then for a short while everything closed and opened up again for lunch at 11.45am ish. You really did have to get your timing right.

We just got off Silhouette on Saturday after 12 nights onboard to the Baltics with seas like a mill pond. It was only our 5th Celebrity cruise , last one being in 2009 , though we have done many cruises with other lines . I had always wanted to do a Solstice class ship and loved the physical ship of Silhouette with all the nooks and crannies with seating . Library- husband complained there were more books in German than English , he trawls the charity shops in Southampton before boarding so did have a good initial supply before relying on the books other folks had left 😆. Definitely Coke onboard 😆. We did not eat in any speciality restaurants , they are too expensive compared with other lines . Buffet food was very good but difficult to get a seat sometimes and we are prepared to ask to share . First morning , day at sea , we walked all the way around couldn't get a seat and ended up at the coffee shop with a coffee and croissant . MDR breakfast finished at 9am. We had cabin 8334 , one of the quietest cabins we have ever had , settee by the balcony door. I would go on Silhouette again but cruise fare only , we thought the drinks choices in Classic at each bar very limited . We get Elite status due to RCI level so will stick to Captain's club perks in future and save money.

That is why we love interporting, the whole ship isn't trying to embark/ disembark at once 😎. Embarking Virtuosa in Liverpool wasn't too bad with the interporting at SOU and Greenock. Yesterday when we embarked in SOU in the afternoon there were still 1,000+ people still to check in at 2.30pm... The young guy checking us in looked shattered....

Yes I know 2021 was a 'special' year 😂. Lost count the number of cruises we did and visited Belfast and Greenock 😎. 😂.

Not fully correct. Friends did a cruise with Fred Olsen on Borealis out of Liverpool earlier this year. There were several dates. They had a great time on her, first time with Fred Olsen. We find them expensive. We cruised on Virtuosa in 2021 out of Liverpool, that was bliss being a shortish train ride from Manchester unlike the 6 hours it took by train on Sunday to join the same ship yesterday. I wish MSC would do the interporting again like they did in 2021...

We haven't got anything booked for 2024 never mind 2025 !! 😁

Great prices and their current promotion is half price Princess Plus from £25 a day which includes WiFi, gratuities and drinks package , which is far better value than RCIs current promotion 50% off drinks packages. We are becoming bigger fans of Princess especially since we get shareholders now too. 😆. They also do free upgrade offers , we got a mini suite free upgrade for the price of a balcony for 23 nights , no upgrade bidding required !!

I noticed it too for our forthcoming Silhouette cruise but we have OBC so will use that to upgrade one drink at a time 😆. Might actually work out cheaper 😀 😉.

It is not a true representation of MSC if nearly all Americans are cruising only Yacht club so you only have their informed view when you want the views of those who have experience Bella,Fantastica and Aurea . That is my interpretation of the comment .