Aurora

[Bin man]

Not seen much on the aurora cruise at the moment on it's way back to Southampton via the north sea wonder hows it's been for the people onboard 

[CC71]

Yes, there has been very little news about this cruise. We are booked on Aurora, R005, just waiting for the inevitable  cancellation to be announced. 

[showingdiva]

Aurora currently due to disembark passengers at Ocean Terminal (46) on Monday morning, then has a planned movement to City (101) in the afternoon

[jeanlyon]

She's just between Margate and Dover

 

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:1.8/centery:51.2/zoom:10

 

I;ve put it on the other thread.

Edited March 15, 2020 by jeanlyon

[emam]

5 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

She's just between Margate and Dover

 

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:1.8/centery:51.2/zoom:10

 

I;ve put it on the other thread.

 

How do you know which ships they are.

[showingdiva]

17 minutes ago, emam said:

 

How do you know which ships they are.

 

You can put in a search for an individual ship or port .. or as a rule, all cruise ships (and ferries) show up in a royal blue colour (opposed to tugs which are pale blue, tankers which are red and general cargo ships which are green)

Edited March 15, 2020 by showingdiva

[HappyGiraffe]

1 hour ago, emam said:

 

How do you know which ships they are.

If you're on a PC you can hover over them with the mouse and/ or click to get more info about the ship, not tried it on a phone!

[Harvey1976]

Has anyone heard if R004 is cancelled due to depart next Monday. I imagine it will be but nothing on p&o  website.

 

[miniyorkie]

P.O are not confirming any cancellations, which is not at all helpful. I appreciate that they are overwhelmed but they could issue an official statement, as other lines have. Azura on Friday for the T/A has not been cancelled however I am sure technically it already has been. I hope to hear more today, but am not getting the suitcase out for packing.  

 

[white_bear]

We are on Aurora, awaiting disembarkation - following our North Sea cruise (!)  Although all Norway ports were closed, as far as we are aware, everyone is healthy.

The next cruise, R004, due to go on 23 March, is cancelled. Other than that, we don't know what is happening to the ship other than they are doing an intensive spring clean. 

[Cathygh]

1 hour ago, miniyorkie said:

P.O are not confirming any cancellations, which is not at all helpful. I appreciate that they are overwhelmed but they could issue an official statement, as other lines have. Azura on Friday for the T/A has not been cancelled however I am sure technically it already has been. I hope to hear more today, but am not getting the suitcase out for packing.  

 

I've just posted on another thread Azura is heading back to Barbados. looks like the cruise is ending. P&O to make a statement today apparently

Cathy

[miniyorkie]

40 minutes ago, Cathygh said:

I've just posted on another thread Azura is heading back to Barbados. looks like the cruise is ending. P&O to make a statement today apparently

Cathy

Thank you so much for that news Cathy. It is as expected,  as usual CC members are ahead of P and O information. Thamks for posting.

[Eddie99]

It’s on Twitter

Timed 15 minutes ago - 10am

(I’ll probably be admonished for mentioning that 🙄)

 

P&O announcement that all new cruises are cancelled till 11 April.  Plus a Paul Ludlow video clip, if you can stomach that

 

 

”Due to the continued impact of COVID-19, and following the recommendation by CLIA US for cruise lines to temporarily suspend operations for 30 days, we are suspending new cruises until 11 April 2020. Here’s P&O Cruises President Paul Ludlow with an update:”

Edited March 16, 2020 by Eddie99

[ann141]

On 3/15/2020 at 4:48 PM, showingdiva said:

Aurora currently due to disembark passengers at Ocean Terminal (46) on Monday morning, then has a planned movement to City (101) in the afternoon

We were on that cruise and disembarked this morning.We were told that Aurora will be sailing to Dover and based there at the moment.Impressed with P and O -We will all get a full refund after cruising the North Sea for 5 nights but feel for the crew who managed to keep smiling despite knowing that their jobs may be at risk

[showingdiva]

2 hours ago, ann141 said:

We were on that cruise and disembarked this morning.We were told that Aurora will be sailing to Dover and based there at the moment.Impressed with P and O -We will all get a full refund after cruising the North Sea for 5 nights but feel for the crew who managed to keep smiling despite knowing that their jobs may be at risk

 

She went to Berth 101 on Monday evening once Fred Olsen's Balmoral left (she's on her way to Fife for her lay up).   

Must be horrible uncertainty for all cruise ship crew at the moment, and I'm sure everyone on this forum, despite facing difficult times ahead themselves, will have them in their thoughts.

 

That's the problem with building bigger and bigger cruise ships.  No-one could have foreseen the current situation, but there are only certain UK ports that will be able to accommodate these ships.

Edited March 17, 2020 by showingdiva

[jh1809]

On 3/15/2020 at 12:43 PM, Bin man said:

Not seen much on the aurora cruise at the moment on it's way back to Southampton via the north sea wonder hows it's been for the people onboard 

I was on that cruise. Naturally it was very disappointing not to be able to visit Norway, but having a 5-day free cruise with £400 OBC can't be bad. My only expense was getting to and from Southampton, against which one can offset five days with no spending on food and heating back home. At least we were within easy reach of the UK, so the ship had no difficulty in returning to Southampton, as well as no coronavirus cases emerging on board meaning that we didn't needed to be quarantined. I wondered if they might want to take the temperature of everyone disembarking, but they didn't.

 

Ironically, it seemed to be the healthiest cruise I've ever been on, with far less of the usual coughing and sneezing. That may have partly been due to the shortened cruise leaving less time for germs to spread, but it may also be because anyone running a temperature when they arrived to embark was prevented from boarding and so those with feverish colds were weeded out.

[jh1809]

On 3/15/2020 at 4:48 PM, showingdiva said:

Aurora currently due to disembark passengers at Ocean Terminal (46) on Monday morning, then has a planned movement to City (101) in the afternoon

I heard that she will be staying at City until Thursday and then moving to Dover. There must be a major problem in finding sufficient berths for all the cruise ships being laid up around the world, when normally at any given moment at least 75% would have been at sea.

[showingdiva]

3 hours ago, jh1809 said:

I heard that she will be staying at City until Thursday and then moving to Dover. There must be a major problem in finding sufficient berths for all the cruise ships being laid up around the world, when normally at any given moment at least 75% would have been at sea.

 

Currently due to depart Southampton at 08:45 on Thursday

[margtee]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:41 PM, ann141 said:

We were on that cruise and disembarked this morning.We were told that Aurora will be sailing to Dover and based there at the moment.Impressed with P and O -We will all get a full refund after cruising the North Sea for 5 nights but feel for the crew who managed to keep smiling despite knowing that their jobs may be at risk

   We were on that cruise too and are awaiting the refund.  As a matter of interest have you got your refund yet? Shame cruise had to be terminated but better safe than sorry 

[ann141]

1 minute ago, margtee said:

   We were on that cruise too and are awaiting the refund.  As a matter of interest have you got your refund yet? Shame cruise had to be terminated but better safe than sorry 

We haven t had the refund yet but I was told that even though the letter from the Captain stated 1 to 2 weeks, the refund might take up to 45 days because they have so many to process.I dont mind as long as we get it eventually

[jh1809]

53 minutes ago, ann141 said:

We haven t had the refund yet but I was told that even though the letter from the Captain stated 1 to 2 weeks, the refund might take up to 45 days because they have so many to process.I dont mind as long as we get it eventually

Wow, that is a long time. Stupidly, I didn't keep the captain's letter, but my memory of it was that if you'd booked direct with P&O using a credit card the refund would be within about a week. It looks as if my memory of it may have been a bit rose-tinted. 

Edited March 23, 2020 by jh1809
fx typo

[ann141]

1 hour ago, jh1809 said:

Wow, that is a long time. Stupidly, I didn't keep the captain's letter, but my memory of it was that if you'd booked direct with P&O using a credit card the refund would be within about a week. It looks as if my memory of it may have been a bit rose-tinted. 

The letter stated that the refund would take a week if booked direct or 2 weeks if via a TA.I think P and O have had so many requests for refunds because of cancellations that they have had to extend the time it may take.I am hoping it will be nearer to the 2 week mark than the 45 days but as long as we get the refund within the time frame I will be happy 🙂

[margtee]

7 hours ago, jh1809 said:

Wow, that is a long time. Stupidly, I didn't keep the captain's letter, but my memory of it was that if you'd booked direct with P&O using a credit card the refund would be within about a week. It looks as if my memory of it may have been a bit rose-tinted. 

My memory was the same- 7 days for credit/debit cards!  However, as we are going to get a full refund it is understandable if it's over the original time estimate when they've got so many matters to deal with.   I think we were well looked after by P and O and cannot criticise their handling of our situation.    The main thing is we all got back safe and sound and now the icing on the cake will be having the money back in our accounts.  

[jh1809]

Has anyone had their refund for Aurora's truncated cruise yet?

[taylor1998]

No still waiting