Price drop before final payment

[wowzz]

21 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Can’t you find somebody else to go with? Although I have never met Mrs W, I am sure she is a very generous and reasonable lady and wouldn’t mind.

Not a bad idea, but Mrs W would probably not let me back in the house at the end of the cruise ....oh, hang on...!

[ann141]

Another reason we book Select fare is the option to transfer the cruise to one at a later date if necessary with no loss of deposit.I think we are due to go on the same 35 night cruise Jan 2021?

[Selbourne]

14 minutes ago, ann141 said:

Another reason we book Select fare is the option to transfer the cruise to one at a later date if necessary with no loss of deposit.I think we are due to go on the same 35 night cruise Jan 2021?

Good point. I’d forgotten about that and we have done the same previously. My lovely contact at P&O has even waived amendment fees for us!

[jeanlyon]

Selbourne, agree with all the points you made about Select.  We are happy to book 2 years ahead especially with the very low deposit.

[wowzz]

2 hours ago, ann141 said:

Another reason we book Select fare is the option to transfer the cruise to one at a later date if necessary with no loss of deposit.I think we are due to go on the same 35 night cruise Jan 2021?

You can transfer, but it has to be to a cruise of an equivalent value, which in all reality means another long cruise, which is what Mrs W now wants to avoid after our recent Oceana cruuse.

[Eglesbrech]

3 hours ago, Selbourne said:

I like the model used by some travel companies (non cruise) that the price never changes from release date to departure. If P&O adopted that model (which I know they won’t) then they would get a lot more business from us. 

I wonder if they would actually make more money by adopting this kind of model. People like you would book more often and if the price never changed others would not hang off waiting for last minute reductions.

 

We struggled to book 2 years in advance for a variety of reasons when we were younger and now that we are older health and travel insurance is the potential concern. A lot can happen in 2 years.
 

It would be interesting to know just how many deposits P&O (and other cruise lines) pocket each year for cancellations on early bookings.

[oxygenbanditnot]

AndyMichelle, the £50pppn cruise I quoted would not suit us.

We like sunshine hols only.

You would understand if you loved in our neck of the woods (North east).

The best we ever managed was £57pppn on our 2916 April cruise on Oriana.

Luckily, we were allocated freedom dining and our cabin was mid ship low down. Suited us fine.

I know you got a good deal on Iona in October if I remember correctly, but select prices like that are not very common I would think.

I did see 35 day cruise next Jan for £2299 but left it for various reasons. 

Hope to see that price again as it is my 70th next Jan.

[wowzz]

13 minutes ago, oxygenbanditnot said:

I did see 35 day cruise next Jan for £2299 but left it for various reasons

We currently are on that cruise. That price looks very much like a lead in price, for the cheapest inside cabin. Personally, we would never consider an inside cabin for that length of time.

[AndyMichelle]

19 minutes ago, oxygenbanditnot said:

AndyMichelle, the £50pppn cruise I quoted would not suit us.

We like sunshine hols only.

You would understand if you loved in our neck of the woods (North east).

The best we ever managed was £57pppn on our 2916 April cruise on Oriana.

Luckily, we were allocated freedom dining and our cabin was mid ship low down. Suited us fine.

I know you got a good deal on Iona in October if I remember correctly, but select prices like that are not very common I would think.

I did see 35 day cruise next Jan for £2299 but left it for various reasons. 

Hope to see that price again as it is my 70th next Jan.

Yes, we are still at the stage of doing lots of shorter 7-14 night bargain cruises and don't mind inside or where we go. It has worked out well so far. 

In contrast to you, our least enjoyable cruises have been the sunshine ones for various reasons. 

After the current booked ones, I think we will do more research and choose what we want and reduce the amount, quality over quantity. 

I will still be hunting for the bargains though. 

Andy 

[terrierjohn]

39 minutes ago, wowzz said:

We currently are on that cruise. That price looks very much like a lead in price, for the cheapest inside cabin. Personally, we would never consider an inside cabin for that length of time.

I noticed that next years, or maybe 2022, 35 night Ventura round trip Caribbean cruise, had balcony cabins advertised from over £5000pp.  This seems quite a hike from the prices of around £3000-3500pp that we paid for our last 2 cruises, granted these were booked at launch back in 2017/8. 

[pete14]

5 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I noticed that next years, or maybe 2022, 35 night Ventura round trip Caribbean cruise, had balcony cabins advertised from over £5000pp.  This seems quite a hike from the prices of around £3000-3500pp that we paid for our last 2 cruises, granted these were booked at launch back in 2017/8. 

I agree that it seems expensive although it is just under £150 per night. Of course your previous two cruises excluded gratuities whereas prices now include gratuities in the calculations of price.

[ann141]

4 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Good point. I’d forgotten about that and we have done the same previously. My lovely contact at P&O has even waived amendment fees for us!

P and O have fairly recently removed admin fees for transfer of cruises which is good 🙂

[ann141]

10 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I noticed that next years, or maybe 2022, 35 night Ventura round trip Caribbean cruise, had balcony cabins advertised from over £5000pp.  This seems quite a hike from the prices of around £3000-3500pp that we paid for our last 2 cruises, granted these were booked at launch back in 2017/8. 

Although the 35 night Caribbean cruises are popular and usually the best price is to book when first released occasionally if there has been hurricane damage during the autumn months, prices fall.I suppose its a case of supply and demand

[wowzz]

10 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I noticed that next years, or maybe 2022, 35 night Ventura round trip Caribbean cruise, had balcony cabins advertised from over £5000pp.  This seems quite a hike from the prices of around £3000-3500pp that we paid for our last 2 cruises, granted these were booked at launch back in 2017/8. 

We paid just under £5000 pp for a superior deluxe balcony, just after launch, for the 2021 cruise. From memory, standard balcony cabins were available around the £4200 mark, and probably less if you were prepared to consider a saver fare (which we don't)

[ann141]

2 hours ago, wowzz said:

You can transfer, but it has to be to a cruise of an equivalent value, which in all reality means another long cruise, which is what Mrs W now wants to avoid after our recent Oceana cruuse.

I think we would possibly have a similar problem as 35 nights will be the longest cruise we will have done.Also, whereas we often have an inside cabin, I have insisted on a balcony for so many sea days!

[wowzz]

1 minute ago, ann141 said:

I think we would possibly have a similar problem as 35 nights will be the longest cruise we will have done.Also, whereas we often have an inside cabin, I have insisted on a balcony for so many sea days!

The balcony cabin is a minimum requirement, and for this particular cruise we went for a superior deluxe cabin, for the extra space. We have done a 24 nighter previously,  but after our last 14 nighter on Oceana, Mrs W was getting bored with the menu choices. 

Also, we had three successive nights in the MDR surrounded by P&O "groupies", who engaged in point scoring battles about their loyalty status, ships sailed on etc, to such an extent that for the rest of the cruise we asked for a two top, which is something we have never done before. The thought of 35 nights with these sort of people made the decision to cancel even easier.

[ann141]

9 minutes ago, wowzz said:

The balcony cabin is a minimum requirement, and for this particular cruise we went for a superior deluxe cabin, for the extra space. We have done a 24 nighter previously,  but after our last 14 nighter on Oceana, Mrs W was getting bored with the menu choices. 

Also, we had three successive nights in the MDR surrounded by P&O "groupies", who engaged in point scoring battles about their loyalty status, ships sailed on etc, to such an extent that for the rest of the cruise we asked for a two top, which is something we have never done before. The thought of 35 nights with these sort of people made the decision to cancel even easier.

Thats one reason we always choose freedom dining.We did 28 nights last year and really enjoyed that

[jeanlyon]

Do you know, we always have inside cabins.  I have no desire to spend time in the cabin, so we spend most of the time out on deck, playing quoits or similar, sunbathing, reading.  My cabin is where I go to shower, change, sleep.  That's it.

[Adawn47]

My only issue with inside is I to have natural daylight. Outside or balcony depending on prices  at the time of booking suits me. We don't even close the curtains. I'm a bit claustrophobic. 

 

[Selbourne]

18 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Do you know, we always have inside cabins.  I have no desire to spend time in the cabin, so we spend most of the time out on deck, playing quoits or similar, sunbathing, reading.  My cabin is where I go to shower, change, sleep.  That's it.

Thankfully we are all different Jean and I suspect that almost everyone who books an inside cabin only uses it for the purposes that you state, as they certainly aren’t places you would want to be in for any other purpose. As I have said previously, there are just so many benefits of a balcony cabin that it makes the cruise for us. We wouldn’t contemplate cruising without one now, however cheap the alternative was. Sometimes the additional price of a balcony cabin over an inside can be relatively small and P&O aren’t daft when they upgrade people to them, as I should imagine that very few people would want to go back to an inside once they’ve had one. 

[ann141]

26 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Do you know, we always have inside cabins.  I have no desire to spend time in the cabin, so we spend most of the time out on deck, playing quoits or similar, sunbathing, reading.  My cabin is where I go to shower, change, sleep.  That's it.

We nearly always have an inside cabin, too Jean though now we are cruising in a couple of weeks time am wondering if we should upgrade in case we get confined to our cabin! We also like to have a balcony if we are doing a translantic or we had one once for the Fjords.Inside cabins tend to equal more cruises!! I think we are on the same cruise as you in October(inside cabin for a similar price you paid)

[Adawn47]

When we started cruising we had a balcony. Probably because that's what we always had on holidays. However one year we had an outside on Oriana because there were no balconies left and we wanted that particular itinerary. We came to realise that we hadn't been using the balconies as much as we'd thought, much preferring to be on the open decks and the promenade.

[wowzz]

I can just about understand having an inside cabin on a cruise in somewhere like the Caribbean, where you can be virtually guaranteed good weather, but  not on a winter cruise in Europe. On the last three days of our recent cruise,  we endured force 9 gales and heavy rain, so non of the outside areas could be used. As a consequence all the indoor public areas were packed. At least we could stay in the privacy of our reasonably  sized balcony cabin - the thought of having to either sit with everyone else, or be incarcerated in an inside  cabin would drive me to despair.

[eddie11]

Agree with that.

 

Could the company do more to provide spaces and activities for those (at least)first & last day ex Southampton - more in the darker months?  Non-stop cinema somewhere suitable, port talks & speaker talks repeated on big screens in suitable venues, ‘evening bars’ turned into (paid) coffee bars with coffee/cake deals?

 

Surely they could break even?  It would certainly provide a service

 

 

[jeanlyon]

Only do cruises to warm places.  No desire to be cold.  Got enough of that here!!  So apart from maybe Day 1 when it's a bit chilly, you are soon in the warm.  Actually I sleep really well on a cruise, probably because it's dark.