P&O Cruisers - What are things like where YOU are?

[Roger88]

Its quite alright in here. Birds are singing, people are walking dogs and stuff. I dont notice any frustration among my fellow neighbors and relatives. I plan to go for a trip somewhere near by this week, might go hiking 

[kalos]

Morning folks seems like the temperature has also gone up to 3.c by now but

a fine drizzly day. Same as most of you I get to reading that some holiday 

companies as well as the cruise ones are trying selling holidays at over twice

the price.  Some will pay it but I fear a lot of us will not, Fluid pricing !! Some will

shout, and will go onto pay that price . I would be finding out my fluid boots and 

voting with my feet, same as Purdey you will always find alternatives if you look

for them. Yesterday I was looking at some plan B's for myself and looked at a well 

known coach company based in Rotherham with a Rotherham phone number,

named after a a local horse racing event. I selected Tours from Rotherham on their 

web site and one that came up was a Warner break on the Isle of Wight , half board

with a Island tour and a trip to Osborne house ,I like Ozzy & Shazz, very nice .So I

decided to do a dummy booking as the price was good . Now sorry if I sound a bit

like Mr Wilson in One Foot In The Grave but ... I Don't Believe It !!!   Sorry we do not 

do this tour from your town or any other God forsaken town in South Yorkshire for

that matter ,even though we are based in your town . Please select another tour ? 

Oh I know how's about a tour of Wickes DIY which is across the road from you ?

That way we can walk and saves using one of your coaches !! 

Hope you all have a nice day dreaming of your holidays , at a reasonable price of

course . but until that happens , stay safe everyone .

 

[kalos]

4 minutes ago, Roger88 said:

Its quite alright in here. Birds are singing, people are walking dogs and stuff. I dont notice any frustration among my fellow neighbors and relatives. I plan to go for a trip somewhere near by this week, might go hiking 

 

Sounds horrific Rodger "Birds are singing, people are walking dogs and stuff." 

As I read your post it's 9:30 am here so middle of the night in USA .

No wonder the birds are up singing if everyone's out dog walking and doing stuff.

I hope you all get some sleep soon ,especially the birds .

Take care and keep safe .

[purplesea]

Another bright, cold and frosty morning here at a current temp of 6oC and expected to keep rising - to the dizzy heights of 7oC!

Just another day here, nothing to look forward to except housework, which never ends. If someone has a housework fairy, may I please borrow them.😃

Have a good day everyone.

[Adawn47]

5 hours ago, Eglesbrech said:

Yes lots of examples of cruise prices going up but then so have staycations as well. Which were reporting that some U.K. holidays have gone up by huge amounts, the worst quoted was for Brighton which went up by 140%.

 

The potential season for holidays is getting less and less up here which is pushing up prices later in the year by the day. All being well self catering in England can open on 12 April for one household. We don’t even have indicative dates yet for any sort of holiday (or even travel to the next village!).

 

Add to that the fact that the much hated levels system is coming back at the end of April but with a twist: it is even more draconian than before. It means booking anything is a risk because your level may change and then you are locked into your local council area. It’s a nightmare for business.

 

It is all thoroughly depressing and people are sick and fed up with all the restrictions and lack of clarity for the future. I don’t know what is worse, being given potential dates that may not happen (but hopefully will) or being left completely in the dark and going so slowly that dates will probably be accurate but many, many months away and most of the spring/summer over.

We all seem to be in in a similar position at the moment, but the restrictions in Scotland sound much stricter than here, unless Boris is sugar coating the pill. It still is and always has been, 'wait and see'. Que sera sera.

How are you feeling now, health wise, much better I hope?

Avril

[pete14]

3 hours ago, Purdey16 said:

Eglesbrech I totally agree with you the prices have really gone up every where, we were going to hire a RV and travel right up to the top of Scotland and spend 2/3 weeks exploring but that’s out now or on the back burner for a while, so when we totally open up down here we are just going to join the national trust this year and do day trips all over .

Whilst it is an indisputable fact that the prices of cruises and other holidays (if there is such a thing) have increased, certainly with P&O, this is always the case with fluid pricing. It will be fascinating to see how the prices in the soon to be published new brochure compare not only to current prices, but more importantly with previous ‘launch prices’. Will the 10% reduction for previous cruisers reappear, will there be other incentives and how close are the published prices to prices in previous years? 
 

Having chosen to take fcc rather than a refund has worked well for us maybe because replacement cruises we have booked have not risen in price as much as some others, especially the 14 night Azura Mediterranean cruise from Malta I booked last week to replace the Aurora 13 night cruise to Norway which is in the latest list of cancellations. The Azura cruise is significantly cheaper with a decent dollop of OBC thrown in, the 25% uplift in fcc from the cancelled one made it an even better deal.

[ann141]

6 hours ago, Eglesbrech said:

Yes lots of examples of cruise prices going up but then so have staycations as well. Which were reporting that some U.K. holidays have gone up by huge amounts, the worst quoted was for Brighton which went up by 140%.

 

The potential season for holidays is getting less and less up here which is pushing up prices later in the year by the day. All being well self catering in England can open on 12 April for one household. We don’t even have indicative dates yet for any sort of holiday (or even travel to the next village!).

 

Add to that the fact that the much hated levels system is coming back at the end of April but with a twist: it is even more draconian than before. It means booking anything is a risk because your level may change and then you are locked into your local council area. It’s a nightmare for business.

 

It is all thoroughly depressing and people are sick and fed up with all the restrictions and lack of clarity for the future. I don’t know what is worse, being given potential dates that may not happen (but hopefully will) or being left completely in the dark and going so slowly that dates will probably be accurate but many, many months away and most of the spring/summer over.

I think price rises vary according to agencies.We have booked a cottage in Weymouth for September through a large national company and prices rose by £100 overnight.However we booked an apartment in Devon for May with a local agency and haven't seen a rise in prices.We are about to book a weeks self catering in Largs (so we can visit the Isles of Bute and Arran)for July and the price of our apartment seems very reasonable.I realise Scotland hasn't set any dates concerning start dates but we have booked with the option to cancel up to 2 days before.Its lovely to have holidays to look forward to

[terrierjohn]

3 minutes ago, ann141 said:

I think price rises vary according to agencies.We have booked a cottage in Weymouth for September through a large national company and prices rose by £100 overnight.However we booked an apartment in Devon for May with a local agency and haven't seen a rise in prices.We are about to book a weeks self catering in Largs (so we can visit the Isles of Bute and Arran)for July and the price of our apartment seems very reasonable.I realise Scotland hasn't set any dates concerning start dates but we have booked with the option to cancel up to 2 days before.Its lovely to have holidays to look forward to

One point worth considering is that after finding a suitable property on an agency site, see if the property has its own website. My son booked a holiday let for this year but found it was 30% cheaper by going direct to the owners website, than via the agency.

[grapau27]

7°C here and pouring down.

I have been ringing customers and booked several calls for tomorrow.

Pauline doing her civil service work downstairs so time to make  us both a cuppa then back upstairs for me to watch the telly.

Take care everyone.

Graham.

[ann141]

4 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

One point worth considering is that after finding a suitable property on an agency site, see if the property has its own website. My son booked a holiday let for this year but found it was 30% cheaper by going direct to the owners website, than via the agency.

We have booked direct in the past and in fact got a cheaper price for our Devon apartment by booking through a local agency rather than the large agency that had the same apartment on sale.However sometimes if booked direct with the owner there are not the usual cancellation policies which for us at the moment is vital

[Son of Anarchy]

34 minutes ago, ann141 said:

I think price rises vary according to agencies.We have booked a cottage in Weymouth for September through a large national company and prices rose by £100 overnight.However we booked an apartment in Devon for May with a local agency and haven't seen a rise in prices.We are about to book a weeks self catering in Largs (so we can visit the Isles of Bute and Arran)for July and the price of our apartment seems very reasonable.I realise Scotland hasn't set any dates concerning start dates but we have booked with the option to cancel up to 2 days before.Its lovely to have holidays to look forward to

The Ole Lady used to live on Bute (many moons ago).  So we've been to Bute and Largs a few times.  Lovely places.

 

 

[yorkshirephil]

Its quite pleasant here now after a wet and windy start, still cold though.

[Peanut006]

46 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

One point worth considering is that after finding a suitable property on an agency site, see if the property has its own website. My son booked a holiday let for this year but found it was 30% cheaper by going direct to the owners website, than via the agency.

I agree with this, by ringing direct rather than using the agency I got the house we have rented £375 cheaper!!

 

Michelle

[zap99]

2 hours ago, kalos said:

 

Sounds horrific Rodger "Birds are singing, people are walking dogs and stuff." 

As I read your post it's 9:30 am here so middle of the night in USA .

No wonder the birds are up singing if everyone's out dog walking and doing stuff.

I hope you all get some sleep soon ,especially the birds .

Take care and keep safe .

Sounds like down here. Birds coughing first thing. Dogs stuff. Even cat's stuff on my front garden. 🤣

[grapau27]

Boris briefing this afternoon.

[mrsgoggins]

10 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Boris briefing this afternoon.

Thanks for that - I’d have missed so many of these briefings had it not been for you 👍😊

 

I wish they just had regular fixed briefings rather than what often appears to be ad hoc!

[Harry Peterson]

2 hours ago, purplesea said:

Another bright, cold and frosty morning here at a current temp of 6oC and expected to keep rising - to the dizzy heights of 7oC!

Just another day here, nothing to look forward to except housework, which never ends. If someone has a housework fairy, may I please borrow them.😃

Have a good day everyone.

 

 

Housework fairy? Maybe one of these?  Dubious when we bought it, but the wife now loves it, and it really works.  It even has a pet name, like a family pet!!!

 

[Eglesbrech]

2 hours ago, Adawn47 said:

We all seem to be in in a similar position at the moment, but the restrictions in Scotland sound much stricter than here, unless Boris is sugar coating the pill. It still is and always has been, 'wait and see'. Que sera sera.

How are you feeling now, health wise, much better I hope?

Avril

Thanks for asking Avril. I’m still not 100%, very tired all the time and still a bit naucious but at least still moving in the right direction at least.

 

The rules up here are getting ridiculous now. Infection levels are low, vaccines are moving on at a pace, ICU units emptying out yet the rules are getting more strict.
 

The old “levels” meant you had to be below 150/100,000 to move into level 2 which offers some freedom eg travel across council boundary, hospitality open more than just a few hours a day etc. Now it is below 50/100,000 so most of the country will go into level 3 on 26 April which is virtually lock down just with some shops open. Even those in level 2 will have little freedom as they can’t go to a level 3 or 4 area which is most of the country! It’s keeping families apart.

 

At least you potentially have some light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Eglesbrech

[Eglesbrech]

2 hours ago, ann141 said:

I think price rises vary according to agencies.We have booked a cottage in Weymouth for September through a large national company and prices rose by £100 overnight.However we booked an apartment in Devon for May with a local agency and haven't seen a rise in prices.We are about to book a weeks self catering in Largs (so we can visit the Isles of Bute and Arran)for July and the price of our apartment seems very reasonable.I realise Scotland hasn't set any dates concerning start dates but we have booked with the option to cancel up to 2 days before.Its lovely to have holidays to look forward to

That sounds like a nice trip. If you go to Largs make sure to drive to the  Electric Brae which is not far from it. Well worth seeing.

[kalos]

35 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Sounds like down here. Birds coughing first thing.

 

 

 

Same around here Zapp ,we have the lesser spotted Woodbine Cadger 

 

 The King sized Marlborough Magpie 

 

 The Low Tar Smoke  Signaled Sparrow 

 

Like the Red Arrows first thing around here 

 

 

 

[yorkshirephil]

57 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Sounds like down here. Birds coughing first thing. Dogs stuff. Even cat's stuff on my front garden. 🤣

You can tell its warming up though, back to skidding on dog turds rather than tripping over them😁

[kalos]

2 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

You can tell its warming up though, back to skidding on dog turds rather than tripping over them😁

 

Research has shown that they can also help prevent covid infections .

Simply massage into your hands for at least 20 seconds .

People will keep their distance from you and will not shake hands .

You will be less inclined to touch your face and you will always 

remember to wash your hands before eating . 

[Adawn47]

1 hour ago, grapau27 said:

Boris briefing this afternoon.

Any idea what time Graham, or have I missed it?

Avril

[grapau27]

2 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

Any idea what time Graham, or have I missed it?

Avril

BBC 1 from 15.45 briefing 4pm.

Graham.

[Adawn47]

3 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

BBC 1 from 15.45 briefing 4pm.

Graham.

Thanks Graham, I'll be there with my box of tissues and a stiff drink.😏

Avril