P&O Update 2 October 2020

[Snow Hill]

An announcement from P&O on their Facebook page this morning 

[Eddie99]

Blah, blah, blah

 

Who’d want his job though?

I’d take the redundancy package!

[grapau27]

7 minutes ago, Snow Hill said:

An announcement from P&O on their Facebook page this morning 

Thanks for posting.

[Manx buoy]

I wonder if you’ll have the option of cancelling and a refund if you don’t fancy the new protocols🤔

[jeanlyon]

Was just thinking the same thing!

[alsa]

This is the framework from the uK Chamber of Shipping

https://ukchamberofshipping.com/latest/industry-comes-together-develop-new-covid-19-framework-cruise-operators/

interesting reading.

[Dermotsgirl]

26 minutes ago, Manx buoy said:

I wonder if you’ll have the option of cancelling and a refund if you don’t fancy the new protocols🤔

Cunard have already withdrawn their flexible cancellation policy for cruises that sail after their 2021 restart dates, so I’m guessing the answer to that question will be ‘no’.

 

 

[wowzz]

I posted this in the vaccine certificate thread already, so as to avoid a new thread. Can the mods merge the two threads?

[Snow Hill]

8 minutes ago, alsa said:

This is the framework from the uK Chamber of Shipping

https://ukchamberofshipping.com/latest/industry-comes-together-develop-new-covid-19-framework-cruise-operators/

interesting reading.

From reading the summary appears to draw heavily on the EU Healthy Gateways Document issued in June. 

[purplesea]

Thanks for posing.  Will still have to wait and see what it involves.

[jeanlyon]

26 minutes ago, Dermotsgirl said:

Cunard have already withdrawn their flexible cancellation policy for cruises that sail after their 2021 restart dates, so I’m guessing the answer to that question will be ‘no’.

 

 

yes, but problem being that a lot of us booked 2021 cruises in 2019!!

[jeanlyon]

31 minutes ago, alsa said:

This is the framework from the uK Chamber of Shipping

https://ukchamberofshipping.com/latest/industry-comes-together-develop-new-covid-19-framework-cruise-operators/

interesting reading.

Reading that it looks as if you have to prebook tables for food and can only dine with family members.  Not for me I'm afraid.  

[zap99]

28 minutes ago, Snow Hill said:

From reading the summary appears to draw heavily on the EU Healthy Gateways Document issued in June. 

Probably the same people on the committee's. That tends to happen in lots of Euro/ Industry bodies.

[alsa]

This is the framework from the uK Chamber of Shipping

https://ukchamberofshipping.com/latest/industry-comes-together-develop-new-covid-19-framework-cruise-operators/

interesting reading.

 

16 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Reading that it looks as if you have to prebook tables for food and can only dine with family members.  Not for me I'm afraid.  

Yes it appears that way.  The part that I found strange was that you must not of ‘come from’ or ‘travelled through’ a place that is on lockdown.  Can you imagine if you live up north and want to travel to Southampton at the moment?  Not possible!

[Dermotsgirl]

24 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

yes, but problem being that a lot of us booked 2021 cruises in 2019!!

Exactly.

 

I’m in that position myself.

 

i booked a Queen Victoria cruise for October 2021 in October 2019, so I feel a bit stuck at the moment.

 

Also, if P&O go down the same route, I have an Arcadia cruise for January 2022, also booked in October last year. 
 

However, in an ongoing pandemic, they will probably find that they will have no option to be flexible, so I think we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. 

[Dermotsgirl]

12 minutes ago, alsa said:

This is the framework from the uK Chamber of Shipping

https://ukchamberofshipping.com/latest/industry-comes-together-develop-new-covid-19-framework-cruise-operators/

interesting reading.

 

Yes it appears that way.  The part that I found strange was that you must not of ‘come from’ or ‘travelled through’ a place that is on lockdown.  Can you imagine if you live up north and want to travel to Southampton at the moment?  Not possible!

I wonder what would happen if it was Southampton itself in lockdown 

[Converted to cruising]

Mmmm.....could be a lonely cruise for solo travelers 🤔🤔

[P&O SUE]

I’ve just seen that on Facebook myself, I would have thought we’d get an email but I haven’t.

[majortom10]

Cunard have also released exactly same statement word for word except changed P&O for Cunard so I should imaging it is written by somebody higher up in the food chain of Carnival UK and the presidents just release it parrot fashion.

[Adawn47]

2 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

Was just thinking the same thing!

......and me. Great minds.

Avril

[Adawn47]

1 hour ago, alsa said:

This is the framework from the uK Chamber of Shipping

https://ukchamberofshipping.com/latest/industry-comes-together-develop-new-covid-19-framework-cruise-operators/

interesting reading.

 

Yes it appears that way.  The part that I found strange was that you must not of ‘come from’ or ‘travelled through’ a place that is on lockdown.  Can you imagine if you live up north and want to travel to Southampton at the moment?  Not possible!

Which would affect us. Like many on here we booked our 2021 cruise in 2019, well before covid reared it's ugly head. Therefore, I would hope that after the PR debacle of refunds, that P&O would not want to impact their credibility further by refusing  to allow free cancellations to those who had booked in good faith. I think a close eye needs to be kept on the T'& C's now as they may mysteriously change, and not to our benefit. When did I turn into such a sceptic?

Avril

[Dermotsgirl]

1 minute ago, Adawn47 said:

Which would affect us. Like many on here we booked our 2021 cruise in 2019, well before covid reared it's ugly head. Therefore, I would hope that after the PR debacle of refunds, that P&O would not want to impact their credibility further by refusing  to allow free cancellations to those who had booked in good faith. I think a close eye needs to be kept on the T'& C's now as they may mysteriously change, and not to our benefit. When did I turn into such a sceptic?

Avril

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Cunard have already changed their conditions back to the standard cancellation policy, so it would be a strong possibility that P&O will do the same, and with no fanfare either! 

[Denarius]

6 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

Was just thinking the same thing!

So was I. If the cruise experience is substantially different to that offered when booked a full refund must be available to those not prepared to accept the changes.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Denarius

[Denarius]

5 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

Reading that it looks as if you have to prebook tables for food and can only dine with family members.  Not for me I'm afraid.  

Nor me. As a solo traveller, eating each evening in a "dining bubble" of the same passengers would be just about acceptable. Eating on my own every meal would not. Were to be the case, I would cancel even if I lost my deposit.

[Britboys]

I've only looked through the one aimed at Passengers (thankfully they haven't used the ubiquitous "guest" terminology) and tbh, there doesn't seem a lot of new info. The bit about agreements with Key Ports for those testing positive and having sufficient, dedicated quarantine areas on the ship is new and welcome though. Much about the on-board experience is delegated to individual cruise lines.

It certainly hasn't changed my view that I will choose not to cruise whilst restrictions such as social distancing and mask-wearing are in place.