It's school holidays again

Well my son has only been back in school for 4 weeks since the last bank holiday and he's off again so it's time for me and him to spend some more quality time together. We are also lucky that after a month of wind, rain and chilly temperatures the forecast is good and I can hopefully get a bit of a tan whilst running round the park.

I'll be back in on Tuesday next week as school holidays are never just a week and in my abscence just call my colleagues on 0800 408 6200

Buy a Celebrity Drinks Package and win a cruise

Celebrity have just updated their drinks packages on board so to save you all trawling through their website I thought I'd give you the prices here. Plus if you do pre-purchase one of their packages you can then visit
www.celebritycruises.com/thirst1 and be in with the chance to win one of the following:

• Tickets to the Olympics including first class hotel, dinner in a leading restaurant and more
•  A 7 night Celebrity Caribbean cruise including flights and more
• A trip for two to the New York City Food & Wine Festival including flights, hotel, director’s passes and more.

Premium Package: $54 per day

Includes unlimited fountain and canned soft drinks, juices, premium
teas and coffee, all speciality coffees, smoothies, Evian®, Perrier® and
Pellegrino®, Red Bull®, Vitamin Water® and all non-alcoholic cocktails. Also
beers, wine by the glass, cocktails, frozen drinks and spirits up to $13.75.

Classic Package: $44 per day

Includes unlimited fountain and canned soft drinks, juices, premium teas
and coffee, all specialty coffees, smoothies, frozen drinks, non-premium
bottled water and beers up to $5.75. Also wine by the glass, cocktails and
spirits up to $9.25.

Premium Non-Alcoholic Package: $18 per day

Includes unlimited fountain and canned soft drinks, juices, premium teas
and coffee, non-alcoholic specialty coffees, Evian®, Panna®, Perrier® and
Pellegrino®, Red Bull®, Vitamin Water®, all non-alcoholic cocktails and nonalcoholic
frozen drinks.

Classic Non-Alcoholic Package: $14 per day

Includes unlimited fountain and canned soft drinks, juices, premium teas
and coffee and non-premium bottled water.

Soft Drinks Package: $7 per day

Enjoy Coca-Cola® fountain and canned soft drinks for the duration of
your cruise.

Bottled Water Package: $12 per day

Refresh your thirst from our selection of both still and sparkling bottled
water, including Evian®, Perrier® and Pellegrino®.

Wine Package

Try our Build Your Own Wine Package – buy 3 bottles at $75 or more and
receive 15% off. Starting from $191.25.

Don't miss the early booking offers

Just a quick reminder that P&O & Cunard's early booking offers expire at the end of May and so you must book before then to get the additional benefits.

Cunard

• Free car parking on all roundtrip sailings from Southampton of 5 nights or more.(excluding roundtrip transatlantics)
• On board spend on transatlantics, med fly cruises.
• Free child places on selected cruises
• Discounts from the brochure price

P&O

• Free car parking on all roundtrip sailings from Southampton of 7 nights or more
• On board credit on all med and Caribbean fly cruise for all customers
• On board credit on all other cruises for past passengers only
• Discounts from the brochure price
  

The other added benefit of booking in advance is the opportunity to select the cabin that you would like and not have to have take a 'guaranteed' cabin where you could be positioned anywhere.

MSC do the right thing

Customers on board MSC Opera have had an awful weekend following an explosion on board on Friday night and subsequent electrical failure. They have had a weekend of dark corridors, poor sanitation and no air conditioning. This must have been horrendous for them and my heart goes out to all those passengers on board who had no doubt saved for their holiday and were supposed to be enjoying a relaxing break.

MSC cruises though have led the way in customer service by automatically crediting everyone with a crdeit voucher for their full cruise, to be redeemed by December 2012. Giving everyone plenty of time to use it. This I think is great, they could have just offered compensation to cover the lost days, the cruise is due to finish tomorrow or imposed more stringent time constraints on the voucher. It's good to see in today's world of cost savings that some businesses still put the customer first.

Derren Brown to appear on P&O again - pre register now

All fans of Derren Brown, the psycological illusionist are going to be very excited as he is going to perform on P&O's Adonia later this year.  He played on Aurora in September 2009 and the cruise sold out within moments.  He will perform a great show and if you are lucky like one of my customers last time you will be asked up on to stage and hypnotised.

Adonia sails on the 12th December and for 3 nights from Southampton and offers a great pre Christmas shopping trip too. She calls in at Zeebrugge to give you chance to buy Belgium chocolates for Christmas presents and Le Havre to stock up on the champagne. 

Prices start at £299pp for an inside cabin, which is a great when you consider how much you would pay for a theatre ticket to see him. The cruise goes on sale on Wednesday 18th May and if you would like to sail on this cruise you will have to preregister, so please feel free to give me a call and I will get you booked on the day.

How do I get home after a repositioning cruise?

There are some really good cruise deals on repositioning cruises - ones where you fly out to the Med or thre Caribbean and cruise back to Southampton or vice versa.

However this can be complicated as your car is often parked at the embarkation point, generally the airport and you are dropped off at the port many miles away. Some cruiselines do provide a return coach if you book the cruise in advance however on the late deals you are often left to your own devices.

National Express offer a daily departure from Southampton to Gatwick from £27.40pp or Southampton to Manchester Airport for £36.30pp. They can all be viewed and booked via http://www.nationalexpress.com/

Alternatively you can take the train from Southampton Central to London Gatwick for £14.90pp or to Manchester Airport for £23.50pp. These can be booked http://www.thetrainline.com/. Remember that train tickets are cheaper the more in advance that you book them.