Afternoon departures

[Meg 50]

Thinks - when are eurostar introducing their St Pancras - Marseille direct services?

Avignon is already direct, so Marseilles is already possible

[Mervyn and Trish]

P&O's problem is made worse as there are only so many destinations you can get to from southampton without large time penalties. Even their Baltic cruises have further to sail than those cruise lines using east coast ports. Southampton is about 140 nautical miles further away from Norway than Harwich. That translates up to an additional sea day on those cruises.

True Dave, though it you want to operate from a single port in the UK Southampton is closer to the majority of the popular destinations than any of the Northern ports - either east or west coast. The ideal would be to leave from a south coast port for the med, canaries, caribbean etc, and an east coast port for Baltic/Norway. But unless you commit a ship to being based in say Harwich and doing a whole season of north bound trips that means the inconvenience and cost of a repositioning cruise from time to time. Of course some lines originate their Baltic/Fjord cruises in places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, which then makes it a fly/cruise, which doesn't suit many. No easy answer really.

[Manoverboard]

P&O's problem is made worse as there are only so many destinations you can get to from southampton without large time penalties. Even their Baltic cruises have further to sail than those cruise lines using east coast ports. Southampton is about 140 nautical miles further away from Norway than Harwich. That translates up to an additional sea day on those cruises.

True Dave, though it you want to operate from a single port in the UK Southampton is closer to the majority of the popular destinations than any of the Northern ports - either east or west coast. The ideal would be to leave from a south coast port for the med, canaries, caribbean etc, and an east coast port for Baltic/Norway. But unless you commit a ship to being based in say Harwich and doing a whole season of north bound trips that means the inconvenience and cost of a repositioning cruise from time to time. Of course some lines originate their Baltic/Fjord cruises in places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, which then makes it a fly/cruise, which doesn't suit many. No easy answer really.

Easy answer .... ?

Provide the option, for example, to join / leave the ship in Stockholm / Copenhagen else Lisbon / Barcelona etc.

Those who require six days bobbing about in the ocean could have them and thems that don't could have their Port intensive cruise ... lost revenue to be cost adjusted to the sea day travellers of course.

Simples ... lubbly jubbly

[Gill W]

On balance I'd rather have a few less hours in port, than flying to meet the ship.

[Mervyn and Trish]

No such problems on Riverboat Cruising ...

....But do you get more port time/pay less if you choose to travel downstream?

The short answer is yes. Our recent river cruise operates both up and down stream and the price is the same. However, although the notional itinerary is simply reversed apparently the experience is different going downstream with longer stays in some ports and less early starts.

What about QM2 transatlantic crossings? That ought to be cheaper one way than the other. It's the same number of days each way but because of time zones in one direction they're 23 hours long and the other 25 hours.

[Ranchi]

Agree with many others about not liking early departures. It certainly puts us off using local transport (rail or bus) to explore outlying districts.(I suppose that increases the uptake for ship's tours.)
There is something special about an evening in port. We love to go ashore after dinner and stroll around and soak up the atmosphere.The ports change as the bustle of the day dies down. Families out for 'La passeggiata', bells and chants calling to the faithful, all add to the atmosphere as the sun goes down. ( On the down side, the mosquitoes can be pretty aggressive!)

Getting off the spirit of the post (a little), I was reading one of our children's school diaries from the late 1980s and I see that depature from Southampton was frequently after 7:30pm. I can remember coming out of 1st sitting to listen to the band. It really goes to show how slick the disembarkation and re victualling of ships has become. I also remember the way that suitcases where brought aboard in cargo nets using the dockside cranes. There always seemed to be one case that was hanging half out of the net, threatening to plunge into Southampton water.(Fortunately, they never did...at least not while I was watching!)

Steve

[Holiday Planner]

Looking at comments on Facebook this evening, it looks as though a number of people who had made complaints have been phoned to say their port times have been reinstated. An interesting U turn.

[oldbluefox]

Apologies Angela. I have just posted something to this effect on 'Keeping their heads down' before I saw your post here.

You beat me to it!! ..........but it's good news nevertheless.

[Holiday Planner]

Apologies Angela. I have just posted something to this effect on 'Keeping their heads down' before I saw your post here.

You beat me to it!! ..........but it's good news nevertheless.

Haha! Great minds, and all that...

[oldbluefox]

I'm going to bed before I cause any more mayhem!!!

[Meg 50]

Looking at comments on Facebook this evening, it looks as though a number of people who had made complaints have been phoned to say their port times have been reinstated. An interesting U turn.

indeed, but there's more complaints this morning, so it may be they're only reinstating if peeps make a fuss

[daib GC]

Looking at comments on Facebook this evening, it looks as though a number of people who had made complaints have been phoned to say their port times have been reinstated. An interesting U turn.

indeed, but there's more complaints this morning, so it may be they're only reinstating if peeps make a fuss

Now it appears that the short port times have been reversed on a number of cruises. No idea how many as we did not know how many were shortened. Our 3 short ones have gone back to as they were.

In our case Aurora to the USA they were all evening departures so it will effect few people as most would be back on board having dinner anyway. My experience of evenings in port is that few people take advantage and stay off.


Gan Canny



Dai

[Gill W]

Just an update.

I was reading on another forum about departure times reverting to the original times.

I've checked our itinerary today, and our departure times are back to how they were originally.

This means either

They have listened to customer feedback

Or

They have no idea what they are doing

I hope it's the former and not the latter.

I think I'll just wait an see what happens when we're on board!

[david63]

At the end of the day they can say anything that they want pre cruise - it is what happens during the cruise for "operational" reasons that could become interesting