Happy Anniversary P&O

Well after all the promotions and mass bookings it is here P&O are celebrating their 175 years in but a few hours time from now.

In celebration of this exciting anniversary, all seven ships of the P&O Cruises fleet will be together in their home port of Southampton on the same day, 3rd July 2012.

For the first time in the history of the company and the ships will be at seven different points in the port of Southampton together.

HRH The Princess Royal will be on hand to celebrate this historic event and I am sure there will be a huge turnout of well wishers wanting to enjoy the festivities and witness the ships together and sailing out one by one whilst a marching band plays. The ships will sail past in a procession from Southampton Water out into the Solent, accompanied by a display by the famous RAF Red Arrows aerobatic team. Out in the open water the ships will meet again, saluting one another before they sail onwards to their various exciting destinations.

It seems so long ago when these event was first launched back in April 2011 and I can remember
all the customers who were desperate to get booked on a cruise departing on this historic day.

We need good weather to make the day even better and I hope that all my customers have a fabulous
time whether they be sailing or just visiting Southampton to take part in the days events.

Happy Anniversary P&O and have a great day.

Gardening made fun make friends and get hints and tips from the experts

As many of you may or may not know cruise.co.uk/Victoria travel have been organising gardening tours for many many years.

I myself watched my father labour in the garden planting his veg and tending to his flowers since I was little but never really tried myself.

Over the last 12 months myself and my man have been trying to grow our own veg and try to be a little self sufficient and have had great success as you can see from the pictures above we now have a fabulous veg plot. We are still making mistakes but of course thats life and we have experienced a few failures here and there.

Now for those of you who enjoy their gardening whether it be flowers or vegetables what better way to spend your time having a relaxing cruise mixing with fellow gardeners and getting some all important hints and tips from expert gardeners on board who will share their experiences with you as well.

We still have some trips for this year and also an exciting new one for next year on sale flying to the Canary Islands.

      Balmoral – 28 August 2012 – Fjords – Gardeners’ World’s 21^st Birthday Cruise

  Balmoral – 3 November 2012 – Canaries & Madeira – 20^th Anniversary Garden Cruise for cruise.co.uk

Braemar – 7 September 2012 – Western Med Garden Cruise –

New 2013 promotion in Gardeners’ World Magazine – out now!

 Braemar – fly/cruise – Canaries & Madeira (Sun, Souks & Gardens) – 24 January 2013

 Includes:

·         Hosts – Will Giles & Matthew Biggs

·         FREE garden tour in Tenerife

·         FREE car parking at airport –

·         Exclusive on board Gardeners’ Programme

So why not join other like minded people on one of these delightful trips.

E- Ticket Blues

Last week I posted about excursion documents and how unfair it seems for cruisers who do not have the internet or printers...

This week I have received telephone calls from a number of clients struggling with printing out their
e-tickets..or finding information out about their cruise

Thank goodness we can print them out for them and send them else I think some customers would go out of their minds.

The problems are not just when clients do not have the facility to print themselves sometimes for whatever reasons the sites just dont seem to want to work when they should and frustrated customers
find that they cannot get the document to open at all,

Unfortunately technology can be too clever for its own good and customers who are OK using the internet get stuck when they are not sure that they have to allow pop ups or some computers seem
to protect them so well that they cannot fathom out what they are doing wrong...

All these things lead to so much frustration and people start asking if there is anyone they can book with who still send traditional tickets out. Unfortunely there are not many of these left...

I dont think that any of the cruise lines would revert back to traditional methods now , so we all have
to grin and bear it and do the best we can.

At least we are hear to help all our frustrated customers when they get into trouble on the world wide web.

Would you prefer to go back to traditional tickets let me know your thoughts...

Excursion Details if you dont have the internet!

I have clients who have just booked a P&O cruise, but on a special discounted price.

They want to access excursion information but neither of them have a computer at home and do not have family living nearby to print or show them the details. As they have booked a deal P&O will not be sending anything through the post.

Now as a company we of course have printed out the details and posted them to our clients to assist them, but I do feel sorry for customers when they feel helpless when they do not have the internet.

I do understand that in this day and age there are alot of people who have printers and internet at home, but there are still many elderly people who for them they feel it is not something they want to start to learn.

It can be stressful to clients when they worry about their tickets and on line check in especially
when for so many years they were used to receiving everything through the post.

I do wish that the cruise lines would still send excursion booklets regardless of the deal, as the
customers will be booking these and putting extra revenue in the cruise lines pockets so you wouldnt think that the few extra pennies to send them would make alot of difference, I am sure it costs more in
time and money for clients who call them worried or asking questions.

I know things will never be the same as they used to be but maybe a little help would be better than none at all.

What is your opinion on this ?

I just dont believe it £399 for a cruise

Hi I am sorry I just couldnt believe the price of this cruise..so had to tell you about it


I was checking general availability for a gentleman this evening and out popped this deal.

P&O Oriana travelling on the 9th June for 7 nights.

Southampton, England

09JUN12

SAT

Embark

PIER: Queen Elizabeth II Terminal CHECK IN STARTS AT 1200P

At Sea

10JUN12

SUN

Bergen, Norway

11JUN12

MON

Full Day

Geiranger, Norway

12JUN12

TUE

Full Day

TENDER REQUIRED

Olden

13JUN12

WED

Full Day

Stavanger

14JUN12

THU

Full Day

At Sea

15JUN12

FRI

Southampton, England

16JUN12

SAT

Disembark

PIER: Queen Elizabeth II Terminal

 All of this for £399 per person for an inside cabin based on 2 sharing...

There have been so many deals around recently for anyone who didnt think they could afford

a cruise holiday this year then certainly this year has been the year for bargains.

Surfing on board at what cost !!!

With so many people relying on the internet nowadays, there are many customers/cruisers who want to check their emails and keep in touch with the family when they are away and of course send pictures to their loved ones and friends just to rub it in how wonderful their holiday is !!.

But with most hotels/shopping centres and restaurants offering free wifi connection it seems to me that the cruise lines are making the most out of their internet charges.

I was reading a newspaper article recently that was looking into the charges that each cruise line charged and to be honest it is quite a hefty sum.

It appears that it will cost you anything from 41p per minute when you are away depending of course
on who you are cruising with.

So you need to be very nimble fingered to get those emails typed and sent as quick as possible otherwise it may be cheaper just to use a phone and call your friends and family when you in port.

According to the survey I read here is an outline of who was charging what..

Celebrity 41p per minute
P&O 50p per minute plus £2.50 to send a single email.
Cunard 47p per minute
NCL 75p per minute

Of course the cruise lines packages of minutes but it still works out a fair sum.

Fred Olsen apparently are one of the cheapest on a pay as you go tarif of 20p per minute.

So cruisers beware check out the costs before you go on a surfing spree on your cruise holiday as we all know you can easily get hooked reading something on the internet and before you know it you have been on there 30mins or even longer.

Cruise Ship Entertainment re-cycled

I have been talking to a customer today who made some very interesting comments regarding cruise ship entertainment.

He had recently returned from a cruise and was disappointed not with the entertainment itself but with the fact that he had already seen the shows when he had cruised with the same company before.

Now what annoyed him was that if it had been during the same year and on the same ship then he could have understood that the entertainers are contracted for these perfomances all through the year and there may be no way of getting around this... BUT this was the same shows that he had seen a few years ago on the same ship.

Now with so many people who take a shine to a particular cruise ship who may want  to travel on her again the following year then I think that the cruise lines should ensure that they offer some variety to their passengers otherwise they start to feel a little hard done by or that standards are dropping and the cruise lines do not want to pay for new shows.

If part of your cruising experience is to enjoy the entertainment offered on board then you will of course
notice if the same old things are being re-cycled year after year. Personally I think that old customers should be considered as past guests do form a base for cruise lines business year on year and the more you look after them the more they will recommend you to others which is the same with most business;s.

So cruise lines please think of them otherwise they will move to pastures new.

If anyone has had a similar experience with their on board entertainment then I would love to hear from you.