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

[yorkshirephil]

3 minutes ago, arlowood said:

Well the emails arrived as anticipated and our May and August cruises on Aurora are now toast. Have requested refunds on both since the deposits paid were small and made the FCC enhancement somewhat less attractive.

This whole pandemic has forced us to rethink our holiday strategy and we have decided to stick to one cruise per year. Consequently we are exploring the option of a SAGA cruise next June, just to see how they compare. I think we will end up paying a bit more in the end but it will be interesting to do the comparisons.

With P&O we normally take the free parking but that involves a hotel stop the night before departure and the fuel costs. With SAGA they will transport us to the port as part of the package. With P&O we normally have a wine package for evening meals and also eat at Sindhu or equivalent a couple of times. SAGA is all inclusive (though I don't know what wine options are on offer at meal times) SAGA include 4 excursions in the price. P&O charge for excursions. WiFi is free on SAGA - you have to sell your first grandchild to pay for the WiFi on P&O.

It will be interesting anyway. We may not like it but that is the point of the exercise - to try out some other cruise options

I think a lot of us will see things differently in the future, we had already started tiring of the same old same old and splashed out on a river cruise which we have moved from this June to next May. It will be interesting to see how people adapt to some of the changes.

[wowzz]

16 minutes ago, arlowood said:

Well the emails arrived as anticipated and our May and August cruises on Aurora are now toast. Have requested refunds on both since the deposits paid were small and made the FCC enhancement somewhat less attractive.

This whole pandemic has forced us to rethink our holiday strategy and we have decided to stick to one cruise per year. Consequently we are exploring the option of a SAGA cruise next June, just to see how they compare. I think we will end up paying a bit more in the end but it will be interesting to do the comparisons.

With P&O we normally take the free parking but that involves a hotel stop the night before departure and the fuel costs. With SAGA they will transport us to the port as part of the package. With P&O we normally have a wine package for evening meals and also eat at Sindhu or equivalent a couple of times. SAGA is all inclusive (though I don't know what wine options are on offer at meal times) SAGA include 4 excursions in the price. P&O charge for excursions. WiFi is free on SAGA - you have to sell your first grandchild to pay for the WiFi on P&O.

It will be interesting anyway. We may not like it but that is the point of the exercise - to try out some other cruise options

Which we have done (although we still have a P&O cruise booked for March)

But, it really does pay to book at launch with Saga, as they initially offer a 35% discount. I dread to think what price you will see for June 22.

[arlowood]

Well, the proof of the pudding and all that.

 

Emailed our TA at lunch time explaining our interest in a SAGA cruise. Just had a call back and we are now booked on the Spirit of Adventure for a 14 night Icelandic cruise in June 2022. The price did include a 30% discount according to the cabin availability page, so glad we have benefited from that in our tester cruise experiment

Praying that we have this pandemic fully under control by then

Edited March 3, 2021 by arlowood

[wowzz]

Just now, arlowood said:

Well, the proof of the pudding and all that.

 

Emailed our TA at lunch time explaining our interest in a SAGA cruise. Just had a call back and we are now booked on the Spirit of Adventure for a 14 night Icelandic cruise in June 2022.

Praying that we have this pandemic fully under control by then

Well done. The SoA will still be virtually new.

[davecttr]

4 hours ago, Adawn47 said:

My cruise has been affected Selbourne, and the only plan we have made is to make no more plans as they keep getting scuppered.😏

Avril

I am going to keep on booking provisional cruises with January and May pencilled in for next year and I am also considering a late summer one. There is now a lot of cruise cash sloshing about in my bank account and I need to spend it. 

[Selbourne]

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

There is now a lot of cruise cash sloshing about in my bank account and I need to spend it. 

Feel free to send it my way if it’s causing you anxiety Dave. We are having an extension next year and the cost is currently around four times what I paid for my first house 😱

[tring]

5 hours ago, yorkshirephil said:

They have banned them, I saw a piece in the news recently as to how they could get around the ban, I can't find the original piece but found this, this may be why P&O haven't cancelled the Canada cruise (yet)

Updated: Congress proposes solutions to Canada’s big-ship cruise ban: Travel Weekly

 

That is about a technical stop, without letting passengers off the ship on the way to Alaska.  The P&O cruises are East coast and up the St. Lawrence.

 

Apart from Canada having very big problems getting vaccines, the three East coast provinces have a policy of keeping the virus out, like the Isle of Man.  Newfoundland had a small amount of community transmission a couple of weeks back, (when I last spoke toy relatives), but all three coastal provinces have  very low numbers because quarantine required for all, including other Canadians who travel there.  Hence there is no way Canada will be allowing disembarkation of cruise passengers by September.

[MX-Drew]

Arrrrrgh, an email arrived from P&O with the subject "Find out what we have planned..."

 

Wow I thought that was sooner than expected, lets see if there is anything I like the look of as a "summer cruise"

 

Open the email to see 

Hang on in there!

Our new winter 2022/23  holiday collection is on sale soon

[FamilyCruiserUK]

6 hours ago, MX-Drew said:

Arrrrrgh, an email arrived from P&O with the subject "Find out what we have planned..."

 

Wow I thought that was sooner than expected, lets see if there is anything I like the look of as a "summer cruise"

 

Open the email to see 

Hang on in there!

Our new winter 2022/23  holiday collection is on sale soon

I know that feeling. Same with RCL emails

[yorkshirephil]