New Itineries

[MX-Drew]

17 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Obviously that suits you fine. Personally, I want to know exactly which cabin I am in, especially on any cruise over 7 days. There are some real "dogs" of cabins out there.

I'm amazed that you paid more with a TA - never found that to be the case. You wonder how TAs can stay in business with that sort of business model. 

Not all of them can stay in business. 

[MX-Drew]

11 minutes ago, tring said:

 

I appreciate what is said, but we have "pre registered" with P&O for Azura and have paperwork confirming everything, including flights, dining, bed arrangement and even ATOL certificate etc. - all as normal along with our booked grade (HB).  The confirmation gives what it says is a temporary booking ref along with an instruction we have to do nothing more, other than sit back and wait for them to confirm our cabin number and booking reference which they will do on the day.  As we would not be booking on the priority days  with an agent, I think we have done very well as the price could have gone up for us.  I also noted that P&O are saying they will match any cheaper price for bookings if you can get a written quote within 24 hrs of booking - I am thinking that may signal a change from P&O allowing extra discount if book with an agent.

 

The only con I can see is that presumably we cannot cancel this "booking", so if we are not happy with a cabin we may need to stick with what we can get, though there are oodles of cabin choice which we would be happy with in our chosen grade, so not getting too strung up about that.  Even if we could nit get a chosen cabin, it would be easier to try an change it at a later date, if other cabins become available.  

Whilst you can't cancel, if you booked select you could change to a different cruise if things looked so bad when you get your cabin number.

As I have booked on Our Vera who knows what is a bad cabin, just avoid near the late night venues and under the lido etc. I'm sure I will find a cabin that will suit and anyway it is a big ship to explore so I may not be in it much.

Edited April 7, 2021 by MX-Drew

[tring]

32 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Obviously that suits you fine. Personally, I want to know exactly which cabin I am in, especially on any cruise over 7 days. There are some real "dogs" of cabins out there.

I'm amazed that you paid more with a TA - never found that to be the case. You wonder how TAs can stay in business with that sort of business model. 

 

I am thinking the same and with P&O's price promise it does seem they are happy not to use agents at all.  Now that so many people are using the net, there is not much work for P&O staff to do as most of their products are pretty straight forward, even including flights where needed.  More work for P&O and less expenditure to agents will help to recoup a tad of what they have lost over the last year, and every bit will help.

 

I also thank you for posting the itineraries yesterday and if it is the October Malta to Tenerife you are looking at, we will buy you a pint as that is the one we have "booked", though may even see you earlier on Princess,

 

Barbara

 

PS - we would not be happy with the suites under the pool deck on Azura.

Edited April 7, 2021 by tring

[Eddie99]

56 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Despite what I said this morning, your post made me call my TA - Damn You 😀

Pre-registered for a B4 suite, on the Canaries - Malta re-positioning cruise, because as you say, the price for a suite is unbelievable. However, I have a sneaky feeling that when it comes to the actual day, the suites will all have gone to those in higher loyalty tiers.

So, just to sit and wait now for three weeks!

Sorry Wowzz

I wasn’t intending to book either 🙄

Oops - my credit card just slipped out ...

[wowzz]

27 minutes ago, tring said:

 

I am thinking the same and with P&O's price promise it does seem they are happy not to use agents at all.  Now that so many people are using the net, there is not much work for P&O staff to do as most of their products are pretty straight forward, even including flights where needed.  More work for P&O and less expenditure to agents will help to recoup a tad of what they have lost over the last year, and every bit will help.

 

I also thank you for posting the itineraries yesterday and if it is the October Malta to Tenerife you are looking at, we will buy you a pint as that is the one we have "booked", though may even see you earlier on Princess,

 

Barbara

 

PS - we would not be happy with the suites under the pool deck on Azura.

No, we've booked on the repo back to Malta in March 23.

I've specified that we only want an aft suite, as I was concerned about the location of the mid-ship suites, but that does limit our options. But I'd rather not cruise at all than be under the lido deck! 

You can still "buy" me a pint on Princess, but I'm not sure if that counts if you have bought the Princess Plus package! 

[Megabear2]

Has anyone actually completed one of these pre registration cruises with a travel agent? I wanted to use my friend who is an independent counsellor as she's had no earnings for over a year. She's been told she can't make a reservation for me until the on sale date for my Atlantic grade of 28th April and fluid pricing commences that day at 10.00am.  I've just spent 40 minutes with P&O who confirmed the pre registration booking guarantees I get on the ship at the price today. I can take a chance on my agent getting me on for 28th April but I may face the price rise.  You are also now not allowed to pass a P&O booking back to an agent.

 

The agent also told me it would be a 50/50 split on the pre registration jobs and anyone could reserve, no preference for those who travelled before. She mentioned demand on some cruises for pre registration was very high others not so much.  It was hinted that the percentage of the split could move if there was excess demand for pre registration. Thus reducing cabin availability further for anyone not top tier.

 

I'm now torn about what to do and feel guilty about my friend who tells me not to lose the best price.  

[wowzz]

7 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Has anyone actually completed one of these pre registration cruises with a travel agent? I wanted to use my friend who is an independent counsellor as she's had no earnings for over a year. She's been told she can't make a reservation for me until the on sale date for my Atlantic grade of 28th April and fluid pricing commences that day at 10.00am.  I've just spent 40 minutes with P&O who confirmed the pre registration booking guarantees I get on the ship at the price today. I can take a chance on my agent getting me on for 28th April but I may face the price rise.  You are also now not allowed to pass a P&O booking back to an agent.

 

The agent also told me it would be a 50/50 split on the pre registration jobs and anyone could reserve, no preference for those who travelled before. She mentioned demand on some cruises for pre registration was very high others not so much.  It was hinted that the percentage of the split could move if there was excess demand for pre registration. Thus reducing cabin availability further for anyone not top tier.

 

I'm now torn about what to do and feel guilty about my friend who tells me not to lose the best price.  

Imho, no TA can actually make a confirmed booking until the P&O reservation system opens up. How P&O then prioritise which registered "bookings" take priority is beyond me, once the loyalty tiers have been dealt with.

I have to say, that I have a sneaking suspicion that certain TAs have more clout than others, and unfortunately your advisor could be well down the priority list.

I applaud your sentiments,  but I think she is correct in her assumptions, and full marks for her honesty. 

[MX-Drew]

13 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Has anyone actually completed one of these pre registration cruises with a travel agent? I wanted to use my friend who is an independent counsellor as she's had no earnings for over a year. She's been told she can't make a reservation for me until the on sale date for my Atlantic grade of 28th April and fluid pricing commences that day at 10.00am.  I've just spent 40 minutes with P&O who confirmed the pre registration booking guarantees I get on the ship at the price today. I can take a chance on my agent getting me on for 28th April but I may face the price rise.  You are also now not allowed to pass a P&O booking back to an agent.

 

The agent also told me it would be a 50/50 split on the pre registration jobs and anyone could reserve, no preference for those who travelled before. She mentioned demand on some cruises for pre registration was very high others not so much.  It was hinted that the percentage of the split could move if there was excess demand for pre registration. Thus reducing cabin availability further for anyone not top tier.

 

I'm now torn about what to do and feel guilty about my friend who tells me not to lose the best price.  

Although this does not answer your question your comment seems to confirm my thoughts. Thoses saying my TA can reserve a specific cabin have got it wrong. The TA will pre register in the normal way then on the day they go on general sale the TA will ring up P&O and ask to change the cabin on such and such booking, going through their list.

Just my thoughts.

[yorkshirephil]

1 minute ago, MX-Drew said:

Although this does not answer your question your comment seems to confirm my thoughts. Thoses saying my TA can reserve a specific cabin have got it wrong. The TA will pre register in the normal way then on the day they go on general sale the TA will ring up P&O and ask to change the cabin on such and such booking, going through their list.

Just my thoughts.

If P&O cannot guarantee a cabin pre sale date I don't see how a TA can guarantee it, unless the TA can book blocks of cabins that can't be sold to anyone else, which I believe P&O don't allow? 

[MX-Drew]

12 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

If P&O cannot guarantee a cabin pre sale date I don't see how a TA can guarantee it, unless the TA can book blocks of cabins that can't be sold to anyone else, which I believe P&O don't allow? 

So we agree?🙂

[tring]

30 minutes ago, MX-Drew said:

So we agree?🙂

 

I do not believe it was Phil arguing with you on that.  Would seem though from the other information just given, that agents can still choose specific cabins before the P&O bookings are allocated cabins.  As we do not have priority booking we have no regrets.

[tring]

54 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Imho, no TA can actually make a confirmed booking until the P&O reservation system opens up. How P&O then prioritise which registered "bookings" take priority is beyond me, once the loyalty tiers have been dealt with.

I have to say, that I have a sneaking suspicion that certain TAs have more clout than others, and unfortunately your advisor could be well down the priority list.

I applaud your sentiments,  but I think she is correct in her assumptions, and full marks for her honesty. 

 

With previous info. mentioned from a member of staff of your agent, I was led to believe they have online systems which are in some way linked to the P&O systems.  That would mean you are right about some having more "clout" than others.  Sad for the smaller agents, but that is the world as it is.

[P&O SUE]

8 hours ago, cruisefan2012 said:

Wowzz

 

Thank you for putting up the Iona short break itineraries the other day 

 

I`ve managed to pre-register a cruise on Iona to Hamburg Rotterdam Bruges in February 2023 for a very good price 

 

I did look at Arvia for the Caribbean but was way more then I had expected for a single traveller 

 

Thank you again

 

Cruisefan2012 

I like the look of that one , just not sure about Hamburg in February! We went to Bruges and Amsterdam in February 2018 and I loved it! It was very cold but dry, Hamburg is that much further north, not sure!

[tring]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

No, we've booked on the repo back to Malta in March 23.

I've specified that we only want an aft suite, as I was concerned about the location of the mid-ship suites, but that does limit our options. But I'd rather not cruise at all than be under the lido deck! 

You can still "buy" me a pint on Princess, but I'm not sure if that counts if you have bought the Princess Plus package! 

 

Well we have just booked the March one, just so we can buy you that pint (well perhaps other reasons as well 🙂).  We are booked from 10th March for twenty nights.

 

Both of those together still leaves time for a land holiday to somewhere nice and warm sometime during the four months of Nov - Feb.

[bobstheboy]

My TA said she can't book a specific cabin until booking opens, she is very confident the price is locked in. She has looked at the deck plan and recommended certain cabins which I am happy with. Can't grumble about the service.

[Megabear2]

Poi

34 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Of course the lower down the Peninsular loyalty tree you are, the more likely you are to have to take 2nd or 3rd choices.

 As P&O explained it to me ANYONE booking and confirming on their pre registration is guaranteed the selected Grade. If you are looking at for instance a suite they offer 4 prices on pre registration based on the position/grade of the cabin. The higher the price the more obvious it is where the room will be - she pointed me to the very limited red coloured cabins at one price for instance. This was just an example but as she said the more limited cabins will sell to higher grade club members whereas pre registration guarantees you are on today in that grade at a fixed price.  Seems very unfair on any lower grade members that people who may never have been near a P&O ship get on but a loyal customer not in the top three categories may not.

[tring]

Just thinking about our new P&O "bookings".  There was no place on the P&O's website registration system to choose, "no automatic upgrade", which we always do if pre-registering through an agent or booking when cruises are fully on sale.  We have made big notes to make sure we have that in place once our booking is completed.

[ann141]

7 minutes ago, tring said:

 

We were thinking a trip to the Isle of Man would be good, but with your very low virus numbers, assume that will not be happening any time soon.  Do you think there is any chance of us getting there later in the year - perhaps autumn?  A twenty minute taxi ride, or even a local bus using our bus passes would get us to the IOM landing stage, so an easy one, but we have never done it. 

We had a lovely week on the Isle of Man a few years ago.We caught the ferry from Liverpool as foot passengers and toured the island by bus and train.Can definately recommend it

[tring]

1 minute ago, ann141 said:

We had a lovely week on the Isle of Man a few years ago.We caught the ferry from Liverpool as foot passengers and toured the island by bus and train.Can definately recommend it

 

Thanks.  It was a very popular holiday venue from Liverpool in the fifties/early sixties, not the my parents could afford it at the time.  Our family holidays were in a tent, once my Dad bought a vehicle, (mainly used for his work as a joiner) and before that was just a case of the odd day out to New Brighton or Southport.  A lot of my later childhood summer weekends were spent in North Wales.

 

I think a lot of us will reconnect with UK holidays after this year as we have had to think out of the box which says flight and/or ship 🙂

 

 

[Manx buoy]

16 minutes ago, tring said:

 

We were thinking a trip to the Isle of Man would be good, but with your very low virus numbers, assume that will not be happening any time soon.  Do you think there is any chance of us getting there later in the year - perhaps autumn?  A twenty minute taxi ride, or even a local bus using our bus passes would get us to the IOM landing stage, so an easy one, but we have never done it. 

At the moment I would say highly unlikely this year all major events TT, MGP etc. are cancelled and the Chief Minister has said they probably won’t be looking at lifting any border restrictions till September at the earliest. We’ve just had our worst bout of cases the last 6 weeks and hopefully will be coming out of lockdown in the next 2 weeks if things keep going the right way. 
You’ll love Azura plenty of space and always able to find a quiet spot somewhere we usually do the TA back to SOU on her but looks likely she’ll not be going to the Caribbean again. 

[tring]

40 minutes ago, Manx buoy said:

At the moment I would say highly unlikely this year all major events TT, MGP etc. are cancelled and the Chief Minister has said they probably won’t be looking at lifting any border restrictions till September at the earliest. We’ve just had our worst bout of cases the last 6 weeks and hopefully will be coming out of lockdown in the next 2 weeks if things keep going the right way. 
You’ll love Azura plenty of space and always able to find a quiet spot somewhere we usually do the TA back to SOU on her but looks likely she’ll not be going to the Caribbean again. 

 

Thanks, good to have a bit of insight.  My brother is in Newfoundland and they along with the other two Eastern Coast provinces have kept numbers very low with lock downs if a few cases arise.  His daughter in Montreal, Province Quebec, reports high numbers and a very different approach to the pandemic, which is likely about all the can do with the international travel that is not easy to avoid there.  Hence, even though they are both in Canada, she would not have been able to visit her dad before Christmas when he had a stroke without quarantining before going to see him and she could not miss that much time at work.

 

We will keep an eye on IOM, may be able to have a few days towards the end of the year as we should both be fully vaccinated and likely have had boosters by the autumn.

 

Cheers, 

 

Barbara  

Edited April 7, 2021 by tring

[majortom10]

4 hours ago, MX-Drew said:

Although this does not answer your question your comment seems to confirm my thoughts. Thoses saying my TA can reserve a specific cabin have got it wrong. The TA will pre register in the normal way then on the day they go on general sale the TA will ring up P&O and ask to change the cabin on such and such booking, going through their list.

Just my thoughts.

I have pre registered with the same TA for 5 maiden cruises on P&O ships and they cannot reserve a specific cabin. What the difference is that unlike with P&O where you can only specify cabin grade you can give your TA 5 or 6 specific cabins that you would like to book and they can try on day of sale to book one of those cabins. Up to now they have been successful on every occasion with my first choice of cabin.

[wowzz]

4 hours ago, tring said:

 

Well we have just booked the March one, just so we can buy you that pint (well perhaps other reasons as well 🙂).  We are booked from 10th March for twenty nights.

 

Both of those together still leaves time for a land holiday to somewhere nice and warm sometime during the four months of Nov - Feb.

We've got a gap between a Saga Baltic cruise in September and this one. I think 3 weeks in Lanzarote may be the answer! 

Looming forward, hopefully,  to my pint! 

Edited April 7, 2021 by wowzz

[wowzz]

I received this e-mail, shown below, from my TA tonight.

Seems very clear - I have made a request,  but I have not as yet got a confirmed cabin. It also makes clear that I have agreed to buy a certain cabin grade (but not a particular cabin), and that if I don't like the cabin I have been given, then,  tough!

Shows how important it is to check the deck plans in advance. In my case, I specifically only want an aft suite,  otherwise I could have been allocated a suite under the lido.  The downside of course is that I won't get a suite at all

 

". I confirm that your specific requirements are noted and these are now held on file as an 'Advance Registration' until the booking process commences in due course.

The launch timetable starts on Monday 26 April for Caribbean, Baltic and Ligurian Tiers and from Wednesday 28 April for all other clients. We will proceed with your reservation on the earliest day that P&O Cruises will allow in accordance with their published timetable and confirm your booking following the instructions you have given. I must reiterate that P&O Cruises will only accept bookings on a definite basis and we will be unable to cancel the booking with them afterwards, so the full deposit will remain payable should you cancel for any reason after the booking has been made. Therefore, if your plans change prior to the cruise going on sale, it is very important that you contact our Reservations Department to avoid an unwanted booking being confirmed. "

[terrierjohn]

3 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I received this e-mail, shown below, from my TA tonight.

Seems very clear - I have made a request,  but I have not as yet got a confirmed cabin. It also makes clear that I have agreed to buy a certain cabin grade (but not a particular cabin), and that if I don't like the cabin I have been given, then,  tough!

Shows how important it is to check the deck plans in advance. In my case, I specifically only want an aft suite,  otherwise I could have been allocated a suite under the lido.  The downside of course is that I won't get a suite at all

 

". I confirm that your specific requirements are noted and these are now held on file as an 'Advance Registration' until the booking process commences in due course.

The launch timetable starts on Monday 26 April for Caribbean, Baltic and Ligurian Tiers and from Wednesday 28 April for all other clients. We will proceed with your reservation on the earliest day that P&O Cruises will allow in accordance with their published timetable and confirm your booking following the instructions you have given. I must reiterate that P&O Cruises will only accept bookings on a definite basis and we will be unable to cancel the booking with them afterwards, so the full deposit will remain payable should you cancel for any reason after the booking has been made. Therefore, if your plans change prior to the cruise going on sale, it is very important that you contact our Reservations Department to avoid an unwanted booking being confirmed. "

Maybe our need for a specific cabin gets us preferential treatment  wowzz, but the same TA agent never takes our payment until she has our approval for the cabin selection. We have never needed to refuse a booking but I am very certain we could from all our regular discussions.