Maleth confirms end of P&O partnership

[Presto2]

Just now, Interestedcruisefan said:

745 return flight costs to Barbados?

 

Per person

 

I would imagine? 

I think I am being dense.

So P&O are offering cruise only offers now then?

I think I've lost the thread / plot

Help

[pete14]

30 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

I think I am being dense.

So P&O are offering cruise only offers now then?

I think I've lost the thread / plot

Help

I believe it has been an option for a while, just not a very good one because there is no difference in price.

[Interestedcruisefan]

35 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

I think I am being dense.

So P&O are offering cruise only offers now then?

I think I've lost the thread / plot

Help

No they are saying 7 night Caribbean fly cruise is 999 per person

 

Cheapest return flights away from cruising just to get to Barbados airport with nothing else included are 745 per person

[Presto2]

24 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

No they are saying 7 night Caribbean fly cruise is 999 per person

 

Cheapest return flights away from cruising just to get to Barbados airport with nothing else included are 745 per person

Gottcha both. Sorry, its all this retirement lark turning my brain to mush already ..

 

Its not worth the hassle to us to be honest, and if we were doing that we would pay more and go with another cruise line. What sold P&O is that everything is covered as someone posted above. Just get us from Manchester to the ship without any fuss. 

Does seem silly money for the cruise though, or does that show how little they are paying the carriers for the flights in the first place?

 

[terrierjohn]

3 hours ago, zap99 said:

Sounds like P&O have put this issue in the too difficult box. Book a cruise on RC, X, NCL to the med and the best price us cruise only. Book your own flights and get lots of flexibility and save a few quid. P&O should offer a realistic discount to the Caribbean fir cruise only. Folk could go anytime before the cruise and get a few extra days.

Since I assume that P&O do not receive a discount on the charter fee for unfilled seats, then why should they offer a discount to passengers wanting to arrange their own flights?

Of course if you could guarantee a regular number of own flight sales, possibly via a TA offering cruise and stay, that might be possible, but only if that reduced the number of charter aircraft needed.

[zap99]

18 hours ago, Leomins said:

Maybe they need to stop the 7 night itineraries until more flight seats are available? 

My simple mind thinks that means squeezing all those passengers into once a fortnight makes the problem worse.🤔

[Bill Y]

2 hours ago, doog442 said:

Exceptional value really, especially for the Caribbean in high season.

Indeed, Some years ago Fred was advertising what appeared to be good value Caribbean cruises then you read at the bottom "add flights for £800 pp". If people wish to combine a Caribbean holiday with an extension pre or post or a land based holiday in the USA etc, there are TA's that would put that together but it would not include a cruise with included flights.

[Pandamonia]

2 hours ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

745 return flight costs to Barbados?

 

Per person

 

I would imagine? 

flights were £400 for someone who did this in December. 

[9265359]

2 hours ago, Presto2 said:

Sorry am confused. Where does the £745 amount come from ?

 

The cost of a return flight from Google flights.

[Pandamonia]

I’m happy P&O does the flights. 
 

the alternative is worse trust me. Go look what a carribean cruise looks like from Royal inc a flight to Miami. Comes out double P&O. 
 

 

[Pandamonia]

10 minutes ago, zap99 said:

My simple mind thinks that means squeezing all those passengers into once a fortnight makes the problem worse.🤔

no it makes it better. Or they would need more charter flights and clearly there is a problem finding airlines who are willing to sell you a charter. 
 

makes me wonder why airlines do charter flights at all. The only reason I think is because TUi isn’t busy in the winter months. 

[zap99]

3 hours ago, Presto2 said:

We have done a number of cruises with Celebrity using their flights and also booking their own. Becareful what you wish for as it puts a considerable cost on to your cruise doing it this way. You could go for a cheaper deal with them but people have ended up with silly flights that go all around everywhere to get to their departure point. Eg Manchester to Rome via Germany. 

Re the Caribbean its a no brainer if you want an affordable cruise to go with PO or TUI as the flight costs are so high and you'd need to fly out a few.days or day early and book a hotel incase of delays.

PO was by far the cheapest when we compared it to TUI. 

 

This is our experience .. others may have had a different one. 

Nearly all if out med cruises on RC, Celebrity and NCL have been booked as cruise only. Looking at NCL today, the fly cruise was around £1k pp more than cruise only. We fly a day, or a few days before the cruise. The last Azura cruise we took in April last year was a package put together by a TA using BA flights.

[Froxfield]

I may feel different after our Arvia Caribbean cruise in March, but I am, at the moment, looking forward to it. We are some of the "lucky" ones as our flights still appear to be with TUI. But I have felt for some time that P&O make a rod for their own backs by the superlatives they use in their advertising. Of course, all holiday companies do this to some extent.  The introduction of Maleth is a case in point. Instead of stating the obvious about flight capacity and saying they had done their best and it was Maleth, who would provide an adequate service, they appear to have over-promised an excellent level of service (at the least). This does not really accord with the lack of in-flight entertainment announced in the email. Perhaps they could have offered some OBC as compensation? Managing expectations is important.

 

As Jamie said, some of the worst of it was a lack of honest communications. I thought almost the worst thing, he described, was leaving a single member of the entertainment team to handle the increasingly restive passengers in the theatre at muster for departure. Where in the name of all that's wonderful were the captain and senior officers? When we had a horribly slow disembarkation from DCL in Puerto Rico on one occasion (entirely the fault of the port) the ship's senior officers were well in evidence, trying to sort things out, apologising and dealing with irate customers.

 

I reflect that P&O could not have chosen a worse person to aggravate than Jamie, given his following. Actual video footage will be all over the place in due course!!!

 

 

 

[9265359]

30 minutes ago, Pandamonia said:

flights were £400 for someone who did this in December. 

 

Well they aren't now.

[Leomins]

50 minutes ago, zap99 said:

My simple mind thinks that means squeezing all those passengers into once a fortnight makes the problem worse.🤔

It would be better as you would need less seats overall. The flights for Arvia would still be carried out weekly from Antigua and Barbados, spreading the load.

[Megabear2]

Just been catching up on all this.  FYI my friend currently on Britannia has met Manchester passengers who were due to fly Maleth on Friday 29th but asked to volunteer to miss a day, travel down to Gatwick, overnight at Maleth's cost and be given £500 plus their out of pocket expenses. 

 

Seems the replacement plane again had no seats. So.not an Arvia exclusive.  Not sure who paid the money, could be either.

[CarlaMarie]

You can understand Jamie's view that to him, and I imagine many others, the compensation doesn't make up for the lack of transparency, honesty and communication. 

[doog442]

6 hours ago, 9265359 said:

 

Well that's effectively what they are offering.

 

Currently you can book a 7 night in January for £999 and the cost of the flights there and back on the cheapest scheduled airline would £745 - so the cost of a 7 night cruise is £254.

 

£582 with Virgin to Barbados in Jan (£498 with just hand baggage- I know hardly applies for a cruise) flight prices are dropping like a stone.

[Presto2]

1 hour ago, CarlaMarie said:

You can understand Jamie's view that to him, and I imagine many others, the compensation doesn't make up for the lack of transparency, honesty and communication. 

No idea who this Jamie is. Just out of curiosity how old is he?

[Cash123]

3 minutes ago, Presto2 said:

No idea who this Jamie is. Just out of curiosity how old is he?

he has loads of videoa on youtube, would imagine hes mid to late 40's, he has a few videos on Arvia.

[9265359]

39 minutes ago, doog442 said:

 

£582 with Virgin to Barbados in Jan (£498 with just hand baggage- I know hardly applies for a cruise) flight prices are dropping like a stone.

 

The £999 cruises are flying into Barbados and flying out of Antigua - hence £745.

[pete14]

1 hour ago, Cash123 said:

he has loads of videoa on youtube, would imagine hes mid to late 40's, he has a few videos on Arvia.

It doesn’t necessarily make his opinions, comments or reports any more authoritative or valid than anybody else’s. How is his cruising lifestyle financed?

Edited January 2 by pete14

[Presto2]

35 minutes ago, pete14 said:

It doesn’t necessarily make his opinions, comments or reports any more authoritative or valid than anybody else’s. How is his cruising lifestyle financed?

Just concerns me that some of the people who complain so loudly and make things out to be soooooo terrible have limited experience or been fortunate that all has gone smoothly in the past. Yes it was not a good experience but in the great scheme of things .... and being a blogger doesn't make them an expert. 

[carlanthony24]

52 minutes ago, pete14 said:

It doesn’t necessarily make his opinions, comments or reports any more authoritative or valid than anybody else’s. How is his cruising lifestyle financed?

Surprising his a teacher and has so much time off.

[DryDocker]

The biggest issue for me with this recent delay seems to be the poor communication from P&O to passengers about the nature and length of the delay, and lack of 'care of duty' for affected passengers.

It appears it was known the cabin crew would be out of hours and need rest, and so a significant delay was to be expected.

 

As it's been noted delays are not a new thing, but it seems Maleth have less slack in the system to resolve issues in a shorter timeframe. I would therefore have expected better contingency planning around duty of care etc for when things do go wrong.  

 

Do people have experience of long delays with P&O flights home in the past and what kind of response should be expected, especially for overnight delays?

 

Knowing what to expect means you can plan and act accordingly yourself, and potentially book your own accommodation if available and it's not forthcoming from elsewhere. Thinking of when traveling with elderly relatives etc, even a few hours comfortable rest could help. I guess there would be a question mark on if this could be claimed back on top of the flight delay compensation, but that in itself would hopefully cover any costs.