Bargain Holiday Secrets

[david63]

Channel 4, Tuesday 20:00.

The first episode of this series is about cruises - might be worth watching, or preferably recording to fast forward through the adverts.

[Cheshire Cruiser]

The TV pages from the newspaper show a photo of Britannia which suggests P&O will feature!
What tips will they give, inside cabins are generally cheaper than outside which are generally cheaper than balconies etc?

Presented by Jasmine Harman, will she turn to the camera and whisper some apparently good news like on A Place in the Sun?

It quotes an average £2000 pp for a holiday abroad, sounds expensive and many are advertised for much less but it is years since we did one so I would not know. If correct it does make some cruise prices sound very competitive.

And a double header with the Cruise Ship Murder to follow at 9pm on Ch5, harmless enough fun and they are always overnight in port otherwise the murders would never get solved - or Jack and Kate would get left behind, perhaps no bad thing. .

[Stephen]

Programmed ready.

[Cheshire Cruiser]

Watched it but felt there was very little info of any use in terms of ex UK cruise bargains.
Yes, they admitted early bookers get the best prices but no proper mention of late bargain fares (other than poor cabin position), and suggesting best time to book Jan Feb Mar, no way, that may be true for the USA but having checked current prices for those summer 2026 and 2027 cruises we have already booked (and not all booked early) they are all considerably higher than our fares.

Spending £1000 on board presumably per person on a 14 night cruise? Our gross on board spend (i.e. before taking off OBC and loyalty discount) for two doesn't reach £1,000 on 18/19 night cruises and a good bit less on 14 and we do not hold back! (Mrs Cheshire recognised the Spa as a rip off years ago).

One interesting point was one of the Industry Insiders talking about how important Tours are for revenue and particularly profit. We were amazed on our last two P&O cruises (Sept 24 and June 25) how little effort there was to sell tours on board, maybe the odd (one, maybe two max) in cabin flyer for one or two specific tours but no in cabin list of what is a available across the cruise - saving on printing cost resulting in loss of profit! These were provided in summer 23 and did tempt us to book one further tour in addition to those pre- booked.

An intersting watch but certainly little or no benefit for anybody new to cruising looking for tips

[Stephen]

Yet to watch it.

As for tours, we rarely booked any.

A. Too expensive

B. We prefer to do our own thing

[david63]

That's another hour of my life that I won't get back - told me absolutely nothing that I did not already know.

Surprise, surprise the cruise lines make mega bucks from upselling when onboard.

[Cheshire Cruiser]

As for tours, we rarely booked any.

A. Too expensive

B. We prefer to do our own thing

We often do our own thing too but given Tours are a signficant source of revenue and profit it was a surprise P&O were no longer making any real effort to sell them on board.
As I said on another thread, queues at the Tours desk seemed to be mainly people seeking to complain when their chosen tour did not deliver.

[CaroleF]

I watched the programme over the weekend. I felt it gave a very muddled picture of booking a cruise. They made it look incredibly complicated. I hadn't seen an example of a Celebrity ship before and it was certainly very party, party but maybe that was just how it was presented. When I saw the Ship's own island that really put me off. It looked like a mini Disney world on an island. The only so called private island I've been on, a good few years ago was Catalina which was ok. However, that wasn't a permanent, established stop. Everything was brought from and taken back to the ship. I did give up on the programme before its end. I don't know what someone who'd never been on a cruise, never researched going on one, would have made of it. Years ago P&O made their own videos of some of their ships. I had one called 'The White Sisters', that was Oceana and her sister, the old Adonia (previously Sea Princess). The video gave a really good picture of the two ships and their differences - Adonia was adults only. That would have been about the year 2000 I think. Times have certainly changed, so has the selling of cruises.

[oldbluefox]

Based on what I have read on here I haven't bothered watching it but on the subject of tours over the past few years I agree there has been little by way of information about the ports you are visiting or the tours you can go on. Online you can download port information but this is of no more use than a chocolate fireguard and consists mainly of shops, cafes and restaurants, many of which are nowhere close at hand.
I can remember going into the theatre for port talks where one of the tours people would tell you about the port, the region, the language, the culture, how to get around and what to see. They then went on to describe the various tours they were offering. Our last few cruises had none of this so we expected they may have done much the same thing but pre-recorded it and put it on the in-house TV. If it was there we didn't find it.
If there is anything of interest we will do a tour especially if it's a distance away but in the main we like to explore the port itself and if they are not particularly interesting we are soon back onboard and next time we visit we will book a tour.
If P&O are not too bothered whether you take a tour or not maybe they are making their money in other ways and no longer rely on that revenue stream. Personally I find the lack of information simply underlines the direction P&O have been taking over the past few years. I once read that before long the ship will be the attraction and they won't bother visiting ports any more. What a sad day that will be but seeing the ships Royal Caribbean are sailing it may already be virtually here.

[david63]

If P&O are not too bothered whether you take a tour or not maybe they are making their money in other ways and no longer rely on that revenue stream

Interesting thought. Perhaps they make more on passengers buying drinks onboard than going on an excursion.

[oldbluefox]

I think the phrase I heard was “The ship becomes the destination “. Will we in future see more and more optional extras on those aspects which we previously accepted as standard and included?

[Cheshire Cruiser]

I watched the programme over the weekend. I felt it gave a very muddled picture of booking a cruise. They made it look incredibly complicated.

Years ago P&O made their own videos of some of their ships. I had one called 'The White Sisters', that was Oceana and her sister, the old Adonia (previously Sea Princess). The video gave a really good picture of the two ships and their differences - Adonia was adults only. That would have been about the year 2000 I think. Times have certainly changed, so has the selling of cruises.

Yes, no useful guidance for the would be new cruiser.

On Saturday we attended a cruise show organised by a travel agent in Prestbury a few miles from us - we have never used them but sense they are mainly in the luxury end of the market and by no means crusie specialists.
Many major cruise lines attending and also river cruise lines which was where our interest lay this time. Nearer the time they sent an updated list of lines attending and a timetable of presentations - P&O were on the list of attendees although not on the list of presentations. On the day we overheard the lady on the P&O desk explain to a would be cruiser she worked for the TA, not P&O, they had not come! Maybe they had realised their target market would not be found in one of the most affluent villages in Cheshire - and possibly the whole of the North West! We bumped into a couple we knew from our village and they were trying to decide whether it would be Oceania or Azamara for their first cruise!
Virtually all of the public attending were 50s 60s 70s, and it appeared most had not cruised before - questions like 'is there a Doctor on board' 'what about seasickness' what about the Bay of Biscay'?
Anyway, in addition to attending a couple of River presentations, we also went to those of Cunard and Fred Olsen, both of who will see us on their ships this year (and next). We felt the Cunard one was a bit high level, she mentioned the Grills, but not how they fitted in the charging and dining structure although one comment which stuck was 'we are always seeking to elevate the on board experience'. We felt Fred Olsen one was pitched much more at the new to cruising audience, and as well as background info she went through the various cabin types, showed some sample itineraries, mentioned recent dining developments and we felt generally did a good job of selling their product - which does hark back to those P&O videos (we still have a couple somewhere).
Later on we spoke to one of the TA seniors and in discussion she suggested we should book with them rather than our trusted Cruise specialist. 'We get lots of exclusive cruise offers' does she not realise probably most TAs get these exclusives, but the real surprise for her was when we said 'we get extra discount on top of the cruise line offers'!

Online you can download port information but this is of no more use than a chocolate fireguard and consists mainly of shops, cafes and restaurants, many of which are nowhere close at hand.

100% agree, absolutely useless and I did feed that back to P&O.

Interesting thought. Perhaps they make more on passengers buying drinks onboard than going on an excursion.

But, do they make more from the Drinks Package customer who is seeking to maximise the value they get, or from the 'pay as you' go ordinary passenger? I suspect there may be a middle ground of profitability from people who have taken the package without realising for them it will not be good value.