afcandrew

I hope you are right but will it depend upon how soon vaccination programmes start in other countries? Someone on another forum has suggested that France will not start a significant roll-out until April...?

Sorry to hear that David, but inevitable really. Is the 2022 itinerary identical?

I would prefer not to cruise whilst restrictions are in place and certainly wouldn't want to do so as a solo traveller. My cruise booked for next June is with a friend and is very port-intensive within Northern Europe. Fortunately, Fred Olsen are being very flexible in the current circumstances. I have pre-registered with P&O (via Bolsover) for a Med cruise on Aurora in 2022. I've decided I have to be positive about 2022 and believe that either Covid will be under control by then or we will have developed reasonable ways to live with it.

Hope it goes ahead for you David. The next one I have booked is a Fred Olsen to Northern Europe in June next year.

Well, it looks like P&O will have their new ship available whenever cruising is resumed. According to a normally very accurate source, the 5200+ pax Iona was formally handed over to P&O this morning. She is apparently not expected to come to her home port of Southampton until next year...

I'd keep your expectations low on the roll call to avoid disappointment 🙂. I will keep my fingers crossed for you but must say I am pleased in some ways that my next cruise is now due in late June next year (after having three cancelled). I really do hope cruises will be operating by next April, although I have a feeling at the moment that they might not be the ones presently scheduled...

It certainly does sound well-organised. Were you wearing masks when outside on excursions or just social-distancing? I am NOT asking the price but I would guess it was considerably more than an average mainstream cruise line. Whilst I can see this sort of system working on large ships, it still wouldn't be attractive to me when sailing solo.

It does seem strange that three out of four of the sun-class ships have been off-loaded when there are older ships in other fleets. Maybe they have been particularly costly to run or maintain? The only one left is sailing as Pacific Explorer for P&O Australia and it looks like she has been refurbished to provide quite a few extra on-board revenue streams...

But of course, ship-only excursions would only be one of a number of restrictions. It would undoubtedly be accompanied by social distancing on board, mask-wearing whilst moving around the ship and in many public areas etc. I will be choosing not to cruise until most restrictions have been lifted. I would rather go to a land hotel where you can escape properly during the day and only have restrictions at breakfast and in the evening.

Yes, I think many will agree with you. We will just have to hope that the Covid crisis eases to almost nothing by the middle of next year and that life can get back to a pretty good version of normal... 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

Typical P&O shoreside - left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing...

Would probably depend upon the date of the cruise and whether booked direct or through a TA. I know P&O were being flexible to pax who asked to delay balance payment recently but of course they denied it in public - as were one or two of the better TA's.

And Cunard with QM2 TA Crossings. They used to be Southampton-New York-Southampton. Now the have added in Hamburg, which also gives them short cruises Southampton-Hamburg-Southampton.

Thanks. Ah, the way of operating that P&O seem to have largely adopted from next year for all their bigger ships. Only Aurora and Arcadia now seem to have a truly varied set of itineraries.

A sensible decision. After their refund fiasco, which has brought tons of negative press on social media, they needed to do something. At least announcing this now has saved a lot of folk paying the final balance on their Christmas cruises.