New Cruises on Website

[kalos]

It would have been nice for one of the P&O ships to have called at Madeira on

New Years eve .We did a cruise that did a few years back and the fire works made

for a memorable cruise at New Year .

[Josy1953]

1 hour ago, Presto2 said:

I don't get paid for this but Celebrity are out for 2023 and Princess I think.

 

Have to say, that 21 day one on Arcadia looks different in August

Thanks, strangely we haven't received anything for Celebrity or Princess.  I will go and take a look now.

[Presto2]

Just now, Josy1953 said:

Thanks, strangely we haven't received anything for Celebrity or Princess.  I will go and take a look now.

Celebrity is definitely out and some from Southampton. Princess too I think 🙂

[Josy1953]

24 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

Celebrity is definitely out and some from Southampton. Princess too I think 🙂

Thank you, I have found 3 on Celebrity and 2 on PrIncess that are possibilities.  We are restricted because DH can't fly because of health issues.

[terrierjohn]

4 hours ago, amajaa said:

Is that the only Peninsula one? As I haven’t spotted any others either

You rarely get more than one per cruise ship, 2 if your lucky.

[terrierjohn]

37 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

Thanks, strangely we haven't received anything for Celebrity or Princess.  I will go and take a look now.

Both of their summer 2023 itineraries have been on sale for some time.

[cruisefan2012]

Thanks to Ulsteinvik finding the cruise interaries I have booked onto Arcadia J307 to Norway Iceland Northern Ireland ( I love Belfast )... I got it for a price I`m happy with

 

Havent been on Arcadia since 2009 - Wouldnt have been my first choice of ship but its going on a nice cruise that suits me...

[bee-ess]

Reserved ed a Caribbean for Feb 2024 - thought the price was OK, in fact cheaper than the similar 2022 cruise we have booked for Feb 2023.

[Splice the mainbrace]

Have people been registering direct online or via TA?

 

Can you select a cabin when you register? Or how does it work?

Edited November 5, 2021 by Splice the mainbrace

[sogne]

On 11/3/2021 at 9:03 PM, kalos said:

It would have been nice for one of the P&O ships to have called at Madeira on

New Years eve .We did a cruise that did a few years back and the fire works made

for a memorable cruise at New Year .

according 2 Madeira Port Authority Arcadia arrives at 2200 31/12/22 and departs 18/0123 I suspect she will lie off the harbour for the fireworks and then berth

[pete14]

38 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

Have people been registering direct online or via TA?

 

Can you select a cabin when you register? Or how does it work?

You can only specify the cabin grade when pre-registering. You will be informed of your cabin number on the day actual bookings are allowed, dependent on your peninsular club level. If you don’t like the cabin allocated, they will change it if you phone them and ask. Best to make the call sooner rather than later. We registered two cruises with P&O direct yesterday (separate calls at different times) and on both occasions encountered nothing but friendly informal professionalism from experienced knowledgeable staff.

[bbtablet]

10 minutes ago, pete14 said:

You can only specify the cabin grade when pre-registering. You will be informed of your cabin number on the day actual bookings are allowed, dependent on your peninsular club level. If you don’t like the cabin allocated, they will change it if you phone them and ask. Best to make the call sooner rather than later. We registered two cruises with P&O direct yesterday (separate calls at different times) and on both occasions encountered nothing but friendly informal professionalism from experienced knowledgeable staff.

My TA provides a better service than that.

You say "If you phone them and ask to change it", but you are already going to be some way down the queue on the first come first served basis by then and may even be unlucky with the grade and/or area you wanted.

If you contact my TA by email or phone you are assigned a personal contact and you can pre-register which specific cabin number(s) you ideally want with her/him.

 

For an earlier poster, the idea of pre-registering is that if you do it this way you can tell the TA exactly what you want in the days BEFORE booking opens. I even tell them my other requirements, including dining, which sitting and table size; bed configuration;  free car parking or OBC or Coach;: accept upgrades or not; so they do not have to keep going to and fro offering available cabin numbers on the first morning. This way you free up the TA to get on with other bookings on that manic morning rather than having to spend time on the phone asking you for all the details which could have been sorted out in advance.

- I often receive confirmation of my chosen cabin within a few minutes of booking opening and have only not got my first choice cabin number on one occasion over 20 years.

[terrierjohn]

47 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

 

That's what we've done in the past for the TA to spring into action first thing on launch day. Just wondered what the advantage of registering is, just guaranteed the price? 

Prices should remain unchanged until mid morning on the general launch date, then fluid pricing kicks in, and is  subject to demand.

[pete14]

40 minutes ago, bbtablet said:

My TA provides a better service than that.

You say "If you phone them and ask to change it", but you are already going to be some way down the queue on the first come first served basis by then and may even be unlucky with the grade and/or area you wanted.

If you contact my TA by email or phone you are assigned a personal contact and you can pre-register which specific cabin number(s) you ideally want with her/him.

 

For an earlier poster, the idea of pre-registering is that if you do it this way you can tell the TA exactly what you want in the days BEFORE booking opens. I even tell them my other requirements, including dining, which sitting and table size; bed configuration;  free car parking or OBC or Coach;: accept upgrades or not; so they do not have to keep going to and fro offering available cabin numbers on the first morning. This way you free up the TA to get on with other bookings on that manic morning rather than having to spend time on the phone asking you for all the details which could have been sorted out in advance.

- I often receive confirmation of my chosen cabin within a few minutes of booking opening and have only not got my first choice cabin number on one occasion over 20 years.

All the things you mention in your second paragraph, I did yesterday with P&O, so they know what I want. The pre-registration document that was emailed to me has them all on together with the cost of the cruise. If prices go up on release, mine won’t. It is fixed at yesterday’s price.
I will not be unlucky with the grade I want because it is guaranteed. A specific maximum allocation of cabins in each grade, likely to be 50%, are reserved for those who pre-register. When / if a cabin grade reaches this allocation, the grade is considered full for pre-registration and no more are taken. The others are reserved for sale, through an agent or directly with P&O, once bookings open. Your agent cannot offer such a guarantee although, as they will be in touch with P&O early on the day bookings open, it is highly likely that they will get you the cabin grade you want. Those who do not have priority booking are sadly more likely to miss their preference.

There is no right or wrong way of doing it and both ways are likely to be successful. I was reporting my experiences yesterday in order to answer Splice the Mainbrace’s question. Nowhere did I  make reference to agents and nowhere did I offer a comparison. Please respect my right to choose how to book a cruise (I have done this approx 20 times in the last 10 years or so), without telling me a better way.

Edited November 5, 2021 by pete14

[bbtablet]

Clearly, only the first 6 lines of my post referred to you comment "You can only specify the cabin grade when pre-registering." For the benefit of those looking to pre-register I explained that this is not always true - you most certainly can, and it needed correcting

.

I then went on to  describe my experience, again for the potential benefit of readers who were not aware of how this works.

 

 

 

[pete14]

42 minutes ago, bbtablet said:

Clearly, only the first 6 lines of my post referred to you comment "You can only specify the cabin grade when pre-registering." For the benefit of those looking to pre-register I explained that this is not always true - you most certainly can, and it needed correcting

.

I then went on to  describe my experience, again for the potential benefit of readers who were not aware of how this works.

 

 

 

A genuine question with no agenda behind it. When one pre-registers with an agent, is that pre-registration passed onto P&O and a P&O pre registration notification issued, or does it remain with the agent until being acted upon when bookings open? No guesses please.

[pete14]

48 minutes ago, bbtablet said:

Clearly, only the first 6 lines of my post referred to you comment "You can only specify the cabin grade when pre-registering." For the benefit of those looking to pre-register I explained that this is not always true - you most certainly can, and it needed correcting

.

I then went on to  describe my experience, again for the potential benefit of readers who were not aware of how this works.

 

 

 

I really don’t want to be argumentative but I find it hard to believe that P&O would allow an agent to specify a particular cabin number for a client before bookings open but not allow those who pre-register directly with them to do the same. You can tell an agent which cabin you want, and they will request it when bookings open, but I cannot believe they could reserve or book it for you prior to bookings being opened. If I am wrong, I apologise in advance.

[bbtablet]

 

Absolutely no apology necessary - you are correct: P&O do not allow TAs to reserve specific cabins before booking opens.

I think we were just a little bit at cross-purposes.

 

I was merely saying that if you tell your PA the exact cabin you want before bookings open they will be able to go for it in the very first couple of minutes of booking and, in my experience, they have nearly always been successful for me by doing that.

You said "You will be informed of your cabin number on the day actual bookings are allowed" which I took to mean it could be any cabin in the grade you specified and you have no input in that decision except to then reject it and hope for a "better" one.

 

Exact location within a grade can be important for me, so I am keen to secure a specific cabin if at all possible, and my TA works with me successfully to achieve that almost every time.

 

Let's hope our exchanges have clarified our respective expreiences for anyone interested enough to wade through them!

[Britboys]

Well, having checked the price for the only cruise I was interested in, I still only have one P&O cruise in my locker (for next summer) and wonder whether that might be my last with them. As my preference is for the two smaller ships and less standard itineraries, unless P&O come up with some different 2 week itineraries, it is looking unlikely there will be anything to interest me. Next year could bring the end of my 24 year association with them...

[Splice the mainbrace]

3 hours ago, pete14 said:

You will be informed of your cabin number on the day actual bookings are allowed, dependent on your peninsular club level. 

 

We are only Atlantic tier so can't book straight away, I think. So I doubt that we'll get the launch price anyway.

 

Strange thing is that when the P&O and Princess loyalty schemes went their separate ways some years ago we ended up in the 2nd from bottom tier Atlantic with P&O but 2nd from top Platinum with Princess. Even though we had accumulated 49 nights with P&O and only 10 nights (1 cruise in 2004) with Princess 59 nights in total, each tier starts at 50+  nights!

 

And the top tiers are 150 nights for Cunard and Princess but 250 for P&O  and 201+ every 3 years after that (that takes some doing). I know that the 'benefits' for each are different but it's a big difference in number of nights required.

 

 

[yorkshirephil]

3 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

 

We are only Atlantic tier so can't book straight away, I think. So I doubt that we'll get the launch price anyway.

 

Strange thing is that when the P&O and Princess loyalty schemes went their separate ways some years ago we ended up in the 2nd from bottom tier Atlantic with P&O but 2nd from top Platinum with Princess. Even though we had accumulated 49 nights with P&O and only 10 nights (1 cruise in 2004) with Princess 59 nights in total, each tier starts at 50+  nights!

 

And the top tiers are 150 nights for Cunard and Princess but 250 for P&O  and 201+ every 3 years after that (that takes some doing). I know that the 'benefits' for each are different but it's a big difference in number of nights required.

 

 

I think you still get launch price, or you used to, you have to wait an extra day or so to book so have less chance of getting a cabin you want. We are Caribbean and have to wait till 23rd Nov as opposed to sales opening on 22nd.

 

I remember the odd things that happened when Princess and P&O changed their loyalty schemes, if you cruised with P&O you only got half points with Princess but full points with P&O if you booked with Princess. I also seem to remember that you lost half your points with P&O if you didn't cruise within 3 years? Princess loyalty scheme is much better for us now that we don't drink much so don't really get the benefit of the 8.5% discount on P&O. You win some you lose some, I would never book a cruise based on the loyalty scheme but we only have top level with MSC so don't get all the benefits some higher level guests do with other lines.

[pete14]

28 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

 

We are only Atlantic tier so can't book straight away, I think. So I doubt that we'll get the launch price anyway.

 

If you pre-register when it becomes available to you, you will pay the fare that applies when you pre-register. This could still be the launch price (dependent on the popularity of the cruise). 

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, pete14 said:

A genuine question with no agenda behind it. When one pre-registers with an agent, is that pre-registration passed onto P&O and a P&O pre registration notification issued, or does it remain with the agent until being acted upon when bookings open? No guesses please.

My understanding from Dai, the P&O expert on all things  is that TAs get 30 minutes advantage over their in house agents, to register and book their clients, which could account for their success in getting their clients the best cabins.

[Josy1953]

22 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

My understanding from Dai, the P&O expert on all things  is that TAs get 30 minutes advantage over their in house agents, to register and book their clients, which could account for their success in getting their clients the best cabins.

We have always managed to get our preferred cabins when we have booked directly as soon as the booking opened for the higher tiers.

[pete14]

49 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

We have always managed to get our preferred cabins when we have booked directly as soon as the booking opened for the higher tiers.

We are the same. I just hope the winning streak continues because we have two pre-registrations for 2023-24. For each, there are only a small number of cabins in the grade we have pre-registered for so there shouldn’t be a problem because we would be happy with any of them.