P&O Cancelling Baltic Cruises

[Adawn47]

24 minutes ago, paulatsea said:

I didn’t  know Aurora had been in dry dock and a refit earlier this year -  were any changes/refurbishments made inside ?

2 cruises next year on her - end of August  Spain Portugal and Canaries beginning of December (great price and obc).

lovely ship.

We're on the December one as well and agree, the price is good (although not so much now) and the OBC is the most we've had, even on longer cruises. 

Avril

[paulatsea]

4 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

We're on the December one as well and agree, the price is good (although not so much now) and the OBC is the most we've had, even on longer cruises. 

Avril

Yes -  most OBC we have ever had - I booked it as soon as I saw it - select price.

Really looking forward to it - save on heating !

🤞

[Adawn47]

6 minutes ago, paulatsea said:

Yes -  most OBC we have ever had - I booked it as soon as I saw it - select price.

Really looking forward to it - save on heating !

🤞

I've literally just done a dummy booking and the select price balcony is now £625pp more and the OBC is only £65pp. We got a real bargain.

Avril

[molecrochip]

12 hours ago, carlanthony24 said:

How do you know the dates of each one? Currently booked on A326P. People have been saying they have confirmed for 2023 but no date is set. Azura only went dry dock in 2021 normally every 5 years they go. Which would make it 2026 for her next one. I feel it would make more sense to do the dry dock after this cruise since they have three days in Tenerife and could head up to Cadiz for it.

Apologies - I had missed that A326P had gone on sale. This would have been a drydock likely in Cadiz however as correctly pointed out, its been put back following the 2021 dry dock.

[Astrajet]

6 hours ago, paulatsea said:

I didn’t  know Aurora had been in dry dock and a refit earlier this year

Oh yes!  Our cruise to Norway and Iceland on Aurora was cancelled because she went into dry dock 🤕!  So disappointed.  Never mind, we will now look forward to our two cruises on her next year.

Edited December 7, 2022 by Astrajet

[carlanthony24]

32 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Apologies - I had missed that A326P had gone on sale. This would have been a drydock likely in Cadiz however as correctly pointed out, its been put back following the 2021 dry dock.

So I take it this cruise will go ahead?

[carlanthony24]

I don’t know what to believe so many conflicting reports

Edited December 7, 2022 by carlanthony24

[molecrochip]

4 hours ago, carlanthony24 said:

So I take it this cruise will go ahead?

I would expect so. I was looking at some out of date information.

[carlanthony24]

55 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

I would expect so. I was looking at some out of date information.

I will look forward to it some new places I’ve never been.

[terrierjohn]

Just had a glance at the replacement cruise for B315, it is a 14 nt round Britain cruise with 5 ports including 2 days in Liverpool, and the same grade cabin is higher priced than our launch booking.

Glad I didn't wait for an expected great deal ss we have booked a 14nt Sky Princess Baltic cruise which has 9 ports, most of which are new to us, and although the Princess plus price is higher than our original cruise, we are looking forward to seeing what Princess have done with their Britannia equivalent ships.

Quite surprised, but very pleased  that a 2023 cruise still had accessible cabins available.

[Hollers]

Where did you find the replacement cruises? We were on the June Baltic cruise that was cancelled, but have not received an email about the replacement cruises. Certainly won't be going on a round Britain cruise. 

[Pine Man]

11 minutes ago, Hollers said:

Where did you find the replacement cruises?

Go to P&O and search B315N

[Old_tilly_billy]

2 minutes ago, Pine Man said:

Go to P&O and search B315N

Terrible itinerary me thinks these may be cancelled too because of lack of bookings

👏 bravo P&O

[Britboys]

They had better hope that the Northern Europe weather doesn't cause a raft of missed ports again like it did this year.... The overall programme from Southampton is now heavily overloaded with cruises in Northern Europe (which obviously it was already before the cancellation of the Baltic ones...).

[Chrish2]

Overnight in Liverpool ... do you think they are considering embarking passengers in Liverpool?

 

It's unappealing for passengers who see Liverpool as something you can do on a day trip to instead travel all the way to Southampton just to spend two days down the road from home.

 

Itinerary of B315N for anyone curious

1	Southampton, UK	9 Jun 2023
3	Liverpool, United KingdomOvernight	11 Jun 2023	Early Morning
4	Liverpool, United Kingdom	12 Jun 2023		Early Evening
7	Greenock, United Kingdom	15 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
10	Kirkwall, United Kingdom	18 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
11	Invergordon, United Kingdom	19 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
13	South Queensferry, EdinburghTender	21 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
15	Southampton, UK	23 Jun 2023

[Host Sharon]

2 hours ago, Chrish2 said:

Overnight in Liverpool ... do you think they are considering embarking passengers in Liverpool?

 

It's unappealing for passengers who see Liverpool as something you can do on a day trip to instead travel all the way to Southampton just to spend two days down the road from home.

 

Itinerary of B315N for anyone curious

1	Southampton, UK	9 Jun 2023
3	Liverpool, United KingdomOvernight	11 Jun 2023	Early Morning
4	Liverpool, United Kingdom	12 Jun 2023		Early Evening
7	Greenock, United Kingdom	15 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
10	Kirkwall, United Kingdom	18 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
11	Invergordon, United Kingdom	19 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
13	South Queensferry, EdinburghTender	21 Jun 2023	Early Morning	Early Evening
15	Southampton, UK	23 Jun 2023

I've really enjoyed two or three round Britain cruises but that itinerary - no way! Wonder why they are tendering at Endinburgh too? I suppose the berths are already booked.

[tring]

Regards Aurora, we left her on Friday after the round trip Caribbean cruise and have three other P&O cruise booked before next October, (12, 7 and 30 nights respectively), so have good reason to see her remain for some time, preferably allowing us to book even more cruises on her.

 

Despite our  concerns about her, I must say we found her to be in good condition and far from the very run down state Oriana was in for a cruise we had on her a little while before she was sold, which made us a bit more optimistic Aurora will stay a while.  They were constantly plugging extra onboard spend for future cruises booked on Arcadia throughout our four week cruise though, that offer lasted over our entire cruise and was for double the normal extra OBS given for booking future cruises on the ship.  I would be interested if that Arcadia extra OBS has been offered for future bookings made on the other ships, or is it something they seem to be offering just to Aurora passengers, which could seem a little ominous......

 

Sorry I am a little late to this conversation, but came back with a flare up of a medical condition I have and we have also been feeling exhausted.  We have still not unpacked the cases, but I am hopeful today will be the day that will be done, at least with some of our four cases 🙂

   

Edited December 13, 2022 by tring

[vitrocmax]

Hi everybody, I've been following this thread because I'm going on B312, which has not been cancelled. 

I was looking through the new Moments magazine and there's a feature about new shore experiences in Helsinki. I wasn't sure if we'd be staying overnight so I checked the P&O website, only to find the filter for Baltic destinations is not available. The URL given in the article simply states 'no search results are currently available '. Nothing for 2024 or 2025.

I searched B312 and it's available, but I wouldn't be able to find it without knowing the cruise number. It confirms we are staying overnight.

I did wonder if they have been taken off the site so that anyone booked on the one of the cancelled cruises who still wants a Baltic cruise can swap to a different date?

[tring]

We are also sad to hear of the cancellations of the Baltic cruises as P&O did some excellent 16 night itineraries IMO.  We would also prefer to skip SPB as we have done a river cruise from there to Moscow with a hotel stay as well, so having been able to go off on our own at will and at a far cheaper price than the organised excursions from cruise ships, we had no wish whatsoever to repeat a call there, even before the war (we had to have a full Russian visa for that of course).  There are so many wonderful ports in the Baltic without SPB though and certainly far better than the Med ports P&O keep churning around.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by tring

[Pine Man]

20 minutes ago, vitrocmax said:

I searched B312 and it's available, but I wouldn't be able to find it without knowing the cruise number

You can find it by searching for May 2023 cruises on Britannia but it's a bit worrying that Baltic doesn't appear in the search option.

 

I noticed that the title for the cruise is now Northern Europe And Scandinavia, no mention of Baltic, so maybe they've changed it. According to My P&O Cruises it is entitled Baltic as it is on websites other than P&O.

[tring]

1 minute ago, Pine Man said:

You can find it by searching for May 2023 cruises on Britannia but it's a bit worrying that Baltic doesn't appear in the search option.

 

I noticed that the title for the cruise is now Northern Europe And Scandinavia, no mention of Baltic, so maybe they've changed it. According to My P&O Cruises it is entitled Baltic as it is on websites other than P&O.

 

You do not actually enter The Baltic Sea until south of Copenhagen, so perhaps a change to include all cruises to that area in the one term, even if they do not go south of the Copenhagen/Denmark area now SPB is off limits, so not included with so many cruises.  The sea north of those locations is The Skagerrak.

 

[tring]

46 minutes ago, tring said:

 

You do not actually enter The Baltic Sea until south of Copenhagen, so perhaps a change to include all cruises to that area in the one term, even if they do not go south of the Copenhagen/Denmark area now SPB is off limits, so not included with so many cruises.  The sea north of those locations is The Skagerrak.

 

 

 I should have said The Skagerrak and The Kattegat are north of Copenhagen.

 

 

[Pine Man]

I think what probably happened is that they had to change the web site listing as it originally showed a visit to SPB on the itinerary map. Having done that they then probably also changed the title to encourage sales.

 

On 'My P&O Cruises' the map still shows a visit to SPB but the written itinerary does not.

 

Who knows what's going to happen? Certainly not P&O!

[vitrocmax]

I hadn't noticed that they renamed the cruise title since the tab label says 'B312 - Baltic Cruise'.

 

I think it would have been simpler to leave the Baltic option available and put a note on the search landing page to explain the itinerary name change. The Baltic Sea still exists, all the cruises in the area are passing through it, so why abandon the name?

 

We chose the itinerary because it doesn't go to SPB, we've still got 6 months before we sail and, as you say, anything can happen up to then. We'll have to wait and see. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by vitrocmax

[Megabear2]

3 hours ago, Pine Man said:

You can find it by searching for May 2023 cruises on Britannia but it's a bit worrying that Baltic doesn't appear in the search option.

 

I noticed that the title for the cruise is now Northern Europe And Scandinavia, no mention of Baltic, so maybe they've changed it. According to My P&O Cruises it is entitled Baltic as it is on websites other than P&O.

Cunard have also renamed all of the cruises to this region as Northern Europe and Scandinavia. The recently released 2024 cruises on Queen Anne also have this title. It appears to be a Carnival wide decision on name, although to date no Cunard cruise has been cancelled.