O/T Cruising (on a ship)

[TipperaryBaggie]

Yes, river cruises are great as well, especially as you can moor up at the end of the street in a lot of cases. Done both the Danube and the Rhine/Moselle and much prefer the scenery down the Rhine. Fairytale castles around every bend. They do tend to be expensive though.

[animallittle3]

We went on our first cruise in May , we went with P&O on their new ship Arvia .

We did La Coruna , Palma , La Spezia ( Italy ) , Marseille , Barcelona and Cadiz .

We paid £900 each for the two weeks with an inside cabin .

I thought personally it was tremendous value for money , we had a good choice of restaurants as part of our package and you just helped yourself , eat as much as you want , the choices of food was outstanding , superb I thought .

We didn't bother with the drinks package , we both like a drink but I'm not the drinker I was as a younger man , three pints in the afternoon and a couple at night and that's me sorted these days .

About £5.50 a pint which is acceptable , however I'm a Yorkshireman , when we were ashore I brought bottles back from the supermarkets put them in our fridge and took em with me on the decks outside whilst Sun bathing , you can make it what you want as far as drinks are concerned .

Entertainment at night is part of the package , shows , singers , groups galore , cinema , pub quizzes , bingo , casino , you name it and it's covered .

The biggest rip off is the trips through P&O when ashore , avoid if you possibly can .

Make your own arrangements , a trip to Pisa from La Spezia was €70 each , we caught the train from La Spezia to Pisa , it was €8 each return .

Again you make it what you want it to be but do your research before you go with regard to the trips .

Only downside is I'd like more time when the cruise ship docks at port , tendency to keep checking your watch which I hate on holiday .

Other than that to see and experience what we did and ate what we did for £900 each is incredible value for money .

The Arvia is proper luxury , incredible ship , you can't believe the size of it but the facilities and luxury of it blows your mind .

For £900 even this Yorkie thought he was robbing them blind .

[Albionic68]

Caught a few ferries and I've taken in the scenic views from Gas Street Basin in Birmingham to Smethwich a few times on the Baggies Barge if that counts.

If not then I've windsurfed and used to do quite a bit of sea, lake and river canoeing; all at a decent cruising speed obviously. Even went on a pedalo a couple of times.

Oh, and I've gambolled across a boating lake in a giant transparent rubber balloon whilst pissed out of my nut and managed to avoid throwing up. Apologies if I've lowered the tone 😀 .

[TipperaryBaggie]

We went on our first cruise in May , we went with P&O on their new ship Arvia .

We did La Coruna , Palma , La Spezia ( Italy ) , Marseille , Barcelona and Cadiz .

We paid £900 each for the two weeks with an inside cabin .

I thought personally it was tremendous value for money , we had a good choice of restaurants as part of our package and you just helped yourself , eat as much as you want , the choices of food was outstanding , superb I thought .

We didn't bother with the drinks package , we both like a drink but I'm not the drinker I was as a younger man , three pints in the afternoon and a couple at night and that's me sorted these days .

About £5.50 a pint which is acceptable , however I'm a Yorkshireman , when we were ashore I brought bottles back from the supermarkets put them in our fridge and took em with me on the decks outside whilst Sun bathing , you can make it what you want as far as drinks are concerned .

Entertainment at night is part of the package , shows , singers , groups galore , cinema , pub quizzes , bingo , casino , you name it and it's covered .

The biggest rip off is the trips through P&O when ashore , avoid if you possibly can .

Make your own arrangements , a trip to Pisa from La Spezia was €70 each , we caught the train from La Spezia to Pisa , it was €8 each return .

Again you make it what you want it to be but do your research before you go with regard to the trips .

Only downside is I'd like more time when the cruise ship docks at port , tendency to keep checking your watch which I hate on holiday .

Other than that to see and experience what we did and ate what we did for £900 each is incredible value for money .

The Arvia is proper luxury , incredible ship , you can't believe the size of it but the facilities and luxury of it blows your mind .

For £900 even this Yorkie thought he was robbing them blind .

Was thinking of doing the Arvia in the Caribbean next year. A few friends who have been on the ship have said that the number of passengers made it difficult to book restaurants, shows etc. What was your experience?

[phild]

This year I managed to finally convince my wife to undertake a cruise. She was very sceptic after an awful sailing to The Shetlands a few years back which had put her off ships. We booked the Caribbean in January which I hoped would be reasonably smooth to get her confidence back. She enjoyed it so much that when we got back we booked another one to the Adriatic in June. She has now got the bug so hopefully there will be many more cruises for us. I will avoid subjecting her to crossing the Bay of Biscay so we will probably only do fly cruises for the foreseeable future.

We're booked on P&O for March 2024 - ship is called Ventura, I think. Its around the Med taking in Gibraltar which has been on my list for a while now. Ive been spoilt on all-inclusives with beach holidays so I usually end up paying a large premium for the drinks package. They want around £500 each for this one, which is a heck of a lot more since we last sailed in 2019

[TipperaryBaggie]

We're booked on P&O for March 2024 - ship is called Ventura, I think. Its around the Med taking in Gibraltar which has been on my list for a while now. Ive been spoilt on all-inclusives with beach holidays so I usually end up paying a large premium for the drinks package. They want around £500 each for this one, which is a heck of a lot more since we last sailed in 2019

The drinks package is well overpriced on P&O Phil. You would have to drink a huge amount to make it viable. The on board bar prices are quite reasonable for a captive environment and certainly comparable with a lot of pubs.

[animallittle3]

Was thinking of doing the Arvia in the Caribbean next year. A few friends who have been on the ship have said that the number of passengers made it difficult to book restaurants, shows etc. What was your experience?

We didn't bother with the restaurants you have to pay extra for so I couldn't say .

We didn't have any trouble booking shows , saying that we were quite flexible with the timings , it didn't bother us too much to catch the last one at 11pm for instance .

There was over 5000 passengers on our cruise but other than waiting for the lifts which were busy it was more than comfortable for us personally .

It was our first cruise so I haven't anything really to put it against , we heard quite a few saying it was too busy compared to years gone by and that the food isn't as good as it used to be .

The thing is its very affordable for such as ourselves on modest incomes when possibly it once wasn't .

[BARBaggies82]

“She who must be obeyed” and I have done 3. (P and O - originally Princess Cruises) The Med, Caribbean and the best by far…the Inside Passage…Vancouver to Alaska (Anchorage) - As an aside our trip coincided with the sad death of Princess Diane
The added attraction of the Inside Passage cruise, above the others, is that a lot of the time at sea provides a scenic view of snow topped mountains. (As opposed to views of the sea - horizon)
Recommended.

😆😆

Prando highly recommends cruising up the "inside passage" of, I mean "with", his missus everyone!

"The added attraction" of the inside passage is you get a good view of the massive peaks!!

Prando!!......you couldn't make it up!!

😆😆😆

[billsbest]

I've done P&O in the past but recently stuck to Marella, which are all inclusive and excellent value for money.