P&O Greed.

P&O have launched details of their 2014 cruise programme this week and  they have really let down families with their new family pricing.

Ventura is marketed as a family ship yet for her school holiday sailings the child reductions are appalling. She sails a 14 night Caribbean Christmas Cruise on the 19th December 2014 and originally they offered zero child reduction for children sharing a cabin with their parents. Faced with pressure from travel agents they have amended this and are now offering children a 5% reduction from the adult cost.

 'Rude' is how we described it at Cruise.co.uk today.

For the summer holidays the discount is not much better, P&O are offering Ventura's children a 20% discount.

Last year passengers booking for 2013 were offered 35% reduction from the adult cost for both August and Christmas.

Ventura isn't the only ship hit by this sharp increase in child prices, Aurora another family friendly ship is also only offering a 5% redcution for children on her 25th July Central Mediterranean sailing.

Personally I think P&O are being plain greedy with these child reductions. These children are occupying a cabin with their parents, do they really need to charge so much?

 Interestingly last year they tried to charge 100% single supplements on the Christmas sailing but quickly changed this policy following outrage from customers and agenst. It will be interesting to see if they change these discounts under pressure, before the sailings go on sail in April.

 Watch this space.

2 Adonia passengers shot in Barbados

P&O have confirmed that 2 passengers from Adonia have been shot whilst on a visit to Bridgetown, Barbados.

The details are minimal at the moment but the man thought to be in his 70's and woman in her 50's were believed to have been shot during a robbery and have been taken to hospital.

A Foreign Office spokesman has confirmed that they are aware of the incident and are investigating and providing consular assistance.

Adonia is currently on her 85 night world cruise and due back in Southampton on the 3rd April. My heart goes out to the family of the 2 people involved and to all of those passengers and crew still on board Adonia.

Ship runs aground in the Fjords

The Marco Polo has suffered damage to it's hull when it ran aground in a remote Norwegian fjord north of the Arctic Circle at the start of this week.

The 22,080-ton, 800-passenger  Cruise and Maritime Voyages vessel struck an uncharted rock as it was leaving Sortland, Norway, under the command of a local pilot.

Hugo Naess, Port Director for the Port of Sortland, expressed surprise over the grounding: "This has never happened before in the 15 years I have worked at the port, and about 2,200 different ships per year use the port. The Norwegian Coastal Administration are responsible for the correct charts, and they will be investigating the incident."

No injuries were reported in the incident, and Marco Polo immediately returned to the port for a damage assessment. Following inspection, preliminary repairs were made to the hull, and the ship was  origianlly cleared to carry on with the remainder of its 14-night cruise. However the cruise has since been terminated for the ship to be repaired and her passengers flown home from Stavenger airport.

This is the second incident in the Fjords in as many weeks. Last week the Hurtigruten ship Kong Harald also struck a submerged rock at the entrance to Trollfjord and needed to wait for the tide to come in before she could lift off the rock. Again the remainder of the cruise was cancelled whilst repairs were made.
Let's hope that is it now for maritime dangers in the Fjords, or indeed anywhere.

British cruising on the increase.

The Passenger Shipping Association  has recently released figures regarding our cruising habits in 2012 and it makes really interesting reading.

In 2012 1.7 million British passengers took an ocean cruise, with cruising accounting for 1 in 8 overseas package holidays. The popularity of river cruises also grew by 14% with 130,000 taking a river cruise.

The most popular destination for British cruisers was unsurprisingly the Mediterranean which accounted for 698,000 passengers. However there was a huge increase in passengers visiting Northern Europe with 443,000 visiting this region, 29% up on 2011. Nearly 50 % of these visited the Norwegian Fjords.

About half of British cruisers actually choose to cruise from a UK departure port and the continued growth in this sector is largely fuelled by the ease of cruising from the UK and the number of ships on offer. This summer Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Cunard, P&O, Princess, MSC, Cruise and Maritime, Holland America and Fred.Olsen all have ships based from the UK. The luxury cruise lines also account for 1.7% of British cruises passengers and Silversea, Regent and  Crystal all offer itinerariries from the UK.

There has also been a huge increase in the number of passengers visiting a UK port during their cruise with an 11% increase. The economic benefits of  customers from around the world coming into our country are great.

All in all it has been a great year for British cruising and the growth is expected to increase in 2013.
If you haven't cruised before perhaps you too should try it.

2014 on sale this month

Well it's that time of year and all of the Cruise lines are now launching their 2014 cruise itineraries.
There is a lot of debate as to whether you should book early or late but my advice is that you should always book early in these cases:

If you want to guarantee getting on to a particular sailing or need to sail on a certain date. If you leave it until late you may be disappointed.

If you require a cabin for more than 2 passengers - most cruise lines rarely reduce the fare on family cabins and the best deals are to be had early.

If you are a single passenger - some now have a handful of single cabins available at a reduced rate, paricularly P&O's Azura, Ventura and NCL Epic. These prices are again never reduced and do book up quickly.

If you require an adapted cabin - these again are small in number and therefore book up early.

If you want to ensure a certain position on the ship - ie midship. Most late deals are now on a guaranteed basis with the cruise lines selecting the cabin number for you, book early and pick your cabin number.

If you require a particular dining time - whilst you can still select your dining time with P&O and Cunard's Getaway fares (late deals), it is rumoured that in future you will not be able to select your dining, so if it is important to you book now.

Currently NCL are the only main cruise line on sale for 2014. With a handful of the luxury and river cruise lines too. Over the coming weeks we have:

Princess

The itineraries and prices have now been announced and can be viewed by clicking here

P&O and Cunard

Itineraries - Mid March

 

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity

UK itineraries and prices are being announced this week

Med itineraries expected next week.

 

If you are interested in sailing in 2014 on these or any other cruise line then please get in touch with me via phone or e-mail and I will keep you updated with all of the itineraries and prices.

 

0800 408 6088 or joc@cruise.co.uk