Will P&O now delay announcements for future cruise pauses?

[jeanlyon]

4 minutes ago, Dermotsgirl said:

A few days ago, the message was the the easing of restrictions would be data driven and not date driven.

 

Yet yesterday’s announcement was light on data benchmarks and heavy on dates. 
 

Now, a lot of people are gearing themselves up to dates - indeed, there are people on social media who are convinced that it’s over on 21st June. Everything open, no restrictions, no masks, no social distancing and a complete return to December 2019.

 

Johnson, ever the populist, is talking up his optimism for 21st June.

 

I think it’s going into over promising territory again..... and I had genuinely thought he had learnt from the last year 🤷‍♀️
 

To be honest, each date is subject to review and needs 5 weeks to confirm it.  I'm not getting over excited about dates.

[cruisenewbie1976]

1 minute ago, Dermotsgirl said:

I moved my remaining cruises to 2022, but I’m not booking anything new until I can be more sure that it will proceed, rather than thinking it won’t proceed. 

We've got a cruise in June that was booked pre covid and one that we moved from last year to this November. But we're not booking anything for next year. Might do a Scottish road trip as always fancied doing the coast up there. 

[zap99]

13 minutes ago, cruisenewbie1976 said:

I do agree but I think there'd have been uproar from a lot of people had he not given rough dates. It does worry me though given our experience from past promises. 

I think one of the over promising, underdelivering themes Christmas time was to do with vaccine rollout. It has proven to be world beating. Those comments have been proven to be just plain wrong.

[cruisenewbie1976]

4 minutes ago, zap99 said:

I think one of the over promising, underdelivering themes Christmas time was to do with vaccine rollout. It has proven to be world beating. Those comments have been proven to be just plain wrong.

That's true. Don't get me wrong, I'm optimistic (as you'd expect 😉) but with a hint of anxiety 🤣

[zap99]

Just now, cruisenewbie1976 said:

That's true. Don't get me wrong, I'm optimistic (as you'd expect 😉) but with a hint of anxiety 🤣

No, I do appreciate that and am a bit apprehensive too. This overpromising stuff gets to me. Even Macron and his Eurochums are waking up. Things are starting to look good and when folk start discussing their interpretation of things that weren't even said it just debases their credibility.

[hollyjess]

we Are P.O. Waiting for us to part with more money for unconfirmed cruises before making an announcement?

[cruisenewbie1976]

1 minute ago, hollyjess said:

we Are P.O. Waiting for us to part with more money for unconfirmed cruises before making an announcement?

I doubt they'll wait until 4 weeks before the next lot of cruises to make the announcement. I imagine there's a lot more to it than just making an announcement 5 minutes after finding out the latest from the government. I've got a couple of live events and hotel bookings for May and none of those have announced cancellations yet. I'm sure they're all busy behind the scenes though. 

[hollyjess]

We have a cruise booked for the end of June but will not cancel it as we would lose our deposit. If P&O cancel they will refund us (Do not want FCC)  We also have cruise booked for Christmas and New Year which we are more hopeful about.

[cruisenewbie1976]

Just now, hollyjess said:

We have a cruise booked for the end of June but will not cancel it as we would lose our deposit. If P&O cancel they will refund us (Do not want FCC)  We also have cruise booked for Christmas and New Year which we are more hopeful about.

We've got one booked for the end of June too. I'm not even sure it'll be included in the next announcement. We're happy to wait and see. There's certainly no benefit to them to make people pay and then have to go to the effort of refunding it all a week after. 

[Eddie99]

Are they hoping to synchronise the pause/cancellation announcements with the new brochure launch?  FCCs from cancelled cruises applied directly to ‘23 cruises and P&O get to keep people’s deposit money?

 

 

[cruisenewbie1976]

1 minute ago, Eddie99 said:

Are they hoping to synchronise the pause/cancellation announcements with the new brochure launch?  FCCs from cancelled cruises applied directly to ‘23 cruises and P&O get to keep people’s deposit money?

 

 

That would make a lot of sense! 

[Son of Anarchy]

If I didn't have a wedge of FCC sitting with PandO, I would be tempted to book a cruise departing before 17 May, and then pay the balance the next day.  Then use the 125% FCC to book for 2023.....

 

Or I could just buy more lottery tickets 🤣

 

 

[yorkshirephil]

1 minute ago, Son of Anarchy said:

If I didn't have a wedge of FCC sitting with PandO, I would be tempted to book a cruise departing before 17 May, and then pay the balance the next day.  Then use the 125% FCC to book for 2023.....

 

Or I could just buy more lottery tickets 🤣

 

 

The euromillions jackpot  is supposed to be the biggest ever tonight and I think it has to be won or be absorbed into lower prizes, win that buy your own ship.

[Son of Anarchy]

1 minute ago, yorkshirephil said:

The euromillions jackpot  is supposed to be the biggest ever tonight and I think it has to be won or be absorbed into lower prizes, win that buy your own ship.

I'm in!

[MX-Drew]

6 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

If I didn't have a wedge of FCC sitting with PandO, I would be tempted to book a cruise departing before 17 May, and then pay the balance the next day.  Then use the 125% FCC to book for 2023.....

 

Or I could just buy more lottery tickets 🤣

 

 

Why not pay in total when you book instead of the balance next day?

This is a genuine reason as I thought of doing the same to balance out the increased prices.

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, jeanlyon said:

To be honest, each date is subject to review and needs 5 weeks to confirm it.  I'm not getting over excited about dates.

I imagine that SAGE will have indicated the infection rates, hospitalization and death rates that they would be prepared to tolerate for each stage, as well as the increases acceptable at each stage.  So IMO the dates will be data driven, but the govt know that the more data they publish the more inane questions they will face from the media at each briefing, so best not to feed them too much info.

[Snow Hill]

1 hour ago, Dermotsgirl said:

A few days ago, the message was the the easing of restrictions would be data driven and not date driven.

 

Yet yesterday’s announcement was light on data benchmarks and heavy on dates. 
 

Now, a lot of people are gearing themselves up to dates - indeed, there are people on social media who are convinced that it’s over on 21st June. Everything open, no restrictions, no masks, no social distancing and a complete return to December 2019.

 

Johnson, ever the populist, is talking up his optimism for 21st June.

 

I think it’s going into over promising territory again..... and I had genuinely thought he had learnt from the last year 🤷‍♀️
 

Remember on July 17 last year Johnson said we would be back to normal by Christmas. My concern is with schools returning and the likelihood of children transmitting the virus to classmates and staff as was the case in the autumn. Ventilation, class sizes and social distancing are key to keeping numbers down, however many schools are not designed to allow that to happen. They should have kept schools closed until after Easter, thus giving opportunity to vaccinate staff and build some immunity before returning to class room. 
 

 

[arlowood]

We have a 19 night cruise on Aurora scheduled to depart 1st May. From Boris's timeframes, that will certainly not be going ahead, so I am waiting patiently for P&O to announce the cancellation officially. The full balance payment is now delayed until the end of March so still plenty of time. Not sure whether to take the FCC or ask for a refund as we already have a sizeable FCC from Viking that we may redeem in 2022.

We also have another cruise booked this year, departing mid August. It's a 16 night Baltic cruise - again on Aurora. I'm a little more optimistic about that one but not really sure if the cruise industry will be back to normal by then. It's more likely that initially they may run shorter cruises to "test the water" and a 16 nighter might be a step too far at that point. Currently the balance for that one is due late April, but hopefully P&O will adopt a balance extension policy as they have done for cruises with earlier departure dates.

I await developments with interest but I'm not holding my breath for any normal cruising resuming in 2021

[Britboys]

4 hours ago, Dermotsgirl said:

A few days ago, the message was the the easing of restrictions would be data driven and not date driven.

 

Yet yesterday’s announcement was light on data benchmarks and heavy on dates. 
 

Now, a lot of people are gearing themselves up to dates - indeed, there are people on social media who are convinced that it’s over on 21st June. Everything open, no restrictions, no masks, no social distancing and a complete return to December 2019.

 

Johnson, ever the populist, is talking up his optimism for 21st June.

 

I think it’s going into over promising territory again..... and I had genuinely thought he had learnt from the last year 🤷‍♀️
 

Sadly, it seems that some people believe what they want to believe. With the dates in the road map, it clearly states each date is "no earlier than". Some people are now rushing ahead choosing to believe the publish dates are fixed. Whilst numbers are continuing to reduce, they now seem to be falling much more slowly...

[davecttr]

3 hours ago, yorkshirephil said:

The euromillions jackpot  is supposed to be the biggest ever tonight and I think it has to be won or be absorbed into lower prizes, win that buy your own ship.

180 million but wait until it reaches the maximum of 210 million

[yorkshirephil]

2 minutes ago, davecttr said:

180 million but wait until it reaches the maximum of 210 million

It is at the maximum I think, 210 mill is Euro value, which will go up next time the limit is reached.

[majortom10]

I have a cruise booked on Arcadia in August Eastern Med 19nts and I am convinced it wont go ahead and even if P&O do start cruising by then I am sure it will be Iona first and Britannia and then Azura/Ventura. If P&O dont cancel soon so I can claim my deposit as a cash refund then I shall move my booking free of charge to Iona next March with no intentions of going on it. Then wait until 2023 Summer brochure is released hopefully in Sept/Oct and then cancel Iona and book a cruise of my choice in 2023.

[Dermotsgirl]

46 minutes ago, Britboys said:

Sadly, it seems that some people believe what they want to believe. With the dates in the road map, it clearly states each date is "no earlier than". Some people are now rushing ahead choosing to believe the publish dates are fixed. Whilst numbers are continuing to reduce, they now seem to be falling much more slowly...

At one time, my area was one of the highest in the country, when the Kent variant took hold. We were up to about 1100 cases per 100k in December. Today we have fallen back to 71 cases per 100k. We experienced some rapid falls in recent weeks but only slight daily falls in the last week.

 

It seems it takes a lot of effort to maintain this plateau.  

It seems we have to accept that cases will increase from 8th March 

 

[Snow Hill]

33 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

It is at the maximum I think, 210 mill is Euro value, which will go up next time the limit is reached.

I believe it is £190m cap (€210m) tonight’s jackpot is £180m, nothing on site to say it has to be won, tomorrow’s Lotto Draw is a must be won £13.4m 

[yorkshirephil]

Just now, Snow Hill said:

I believe it is £190m cap (€210m) tonight’s jackpot is £180m, nothing on site to say it has to be won, tomorrow’s Lotto Draw is a must be won £13.4m 

Guy in paper shop said it had to be won, maybe he was meaning tomorrow's jackpot