Aurora cruise report xmas 2023

#1

Hi just a quick cruise report on our xmas daliance on Aurora booking in was a disaster got there at 10 to 12 asked for assistance as usual I have been doing this since 2009 after my heart attack with no problems to be told I was not on the list and that p&o had issued new forms starting 1 december as we had booked this cruise 18 months before and had filled in the relevant forms at that time with Hays t/a staff as usual and had not had any notification from p&o that any thing was changing also pO staff told us they could not find the form and we would have to phone hays travel and ask them to email the forms to them the wife then had to spend 1hr 30min on the sorting this out when the forms arrived the p&o staff refused to accecp them as they said they were the old forms not the new ones which the t/a said they new nothing about so after another 30mins they said i could not have assisted boarding and I would only be allowed to board if I could walk aboard my self but quote if I had to grab at a rail to support myself I would be denied boarding.
at this point I was furious and felt like telling them were to stick there ship but the wife calmed me down a bit and we did we my wifes help make it on board but it certainly ruined the first 2 days of the holiday (there is a letter of complaint in the post to p&o already
to be contiued

#2

I can imagine your frustration, however you should have received an e-mail(s) from P&O advising you of the new system, and that the new form had now to be filled in online.
Unfortunately the e-mails were, IMO, not very clear, and could easily have been swamped along with all the other advertising material from P&O.

#3

I also find it hard to believe that Hays did not know about the changes as they (or at least their MD) has a "special" relationship with P&O

#4

towny44 I canassure you I look at all emails from p&o properly and never received any thing on this subject

#5

david63 we visited our local Hays branch the day after returning 30/12 spoke to the manager for at least 20 minutes and he assured us that ours was the first he had heard of this happening and that he had not been told about before hand and said if I send a letter to p&o they would also send a letter in support of us

#6

any way to continue our cruise report
all I would add was this happened on our first cruise as Caribbean members some brilliant welcome aboard.

any way we are now on board and the difference between p&o assistance staff at check in was was like night and day the staff onboard were great very help full even had help for people with mobility issues in the buffet with bibs on saying here to help what a difference from the embarkation staff.
still after 2 het up days we settled down and began all that Aurora offers with some lovely stops though Tromso had 3" of snow on the ground and there were a lot of people falling down but the scenery was lovely in aldesnese we went up in a cable car to the top and I can only say the view was majestic brilliant.
the next port of call was Alta were it snowed all day xmas eve and the temperature was minus 18 this of course froze up the pipe work on the heating system on our deck nearly all day whilst they replaced the pipes the high street of Alta was beautiful with the pavements have lots of Christmas trees with lights on them with every were covered in snow really festive then on the journey home the captain warned we would have bad weather with high winds how right he was first he said there were gusts of 100 knots hitting the ship then later said that the highest gusts had been 135 knots during which 2 of the sea doors blew open and water poured in but the crew were great and soon had everything back in control we really enjoyed everything on the boat made in a most interesting cruise but wish we could say the same about the fiasco at embarkation

Cruise Community Forum