Time in Port?

[JenniC]

After booking our cruise I had a look on the cruise personaliser and noted that 3 out of the four ports we are due to sail in the afternoon which is between 3pm - 6pm. On two of those days we are due to arrive in port in the morning i.e. 9am - 12pm and leave in the afternoon, so potentially could be 3pm, so worst case scenario only 3 hours in port - which has given me a bit of cause for concern

Would be interested to hear (from those of you who have already done 7 days in the Fjords) what the length of stay was in each port (if you can remember!!) We are going to Bergen, Olden, Andalsnes and Stavanger.

Thanks....

[oldbluefox]

We have never been to Andalnes but whenever we have been to the fjords the ship has always sailed around 5ish if I remember correctly. It was always late afternoon rather than early and left us plenty of time to saunter around and explore the ports.

Since you are on Azura which is a longer ship, and with the fjords being narrow you may have to leave earlier to allow them to tow Azura out of the fjord backwards.

[Dancing Queen]

I wonder if this is a ploy by P&O to only give you a half day in port without actually advertising it as such when selling the cruise, it will be interesting to see what happens "on the day"

I don't think it is just P&O that is adopting this, on our Xmas cruise we had a couple of ports where we sailed between 3.00pm - 4.00pm ... being cynical it must obviously cost them less in port charges .. another cost saving exercise perhaps

[GillD46]

We went to the Fjords on Arcadia last June. On each port day we arrived before 9am and left at about 5pm.

[davecttr]

I noticed when checking the Gibraltar port cruise schedule for next year that a lot of the P&O ships are only in port for a short time 3-4 hours. I wonder if this is a cost cutting exercise as I think we spent 5 hours there last year

[lioness]

I have noticed that times in loads of ports are getting shorter. I am most disappointed that on our cruise in September, time to leave Valletta in Malta is around 3 pm, whereas Cadiz, where most folk have been a million times is 5pm or later.

[Quizzical Bob]

Yes, I was annoyed enough to write a letter about reduced port times. On Oceana last November what was advertised as a 'full day' in Oporto would actually have been arrive 09:00, leave 15:00, with last shuttle leaving the town at 14:15 and advice that 'the last shuttle may be in high demand so plan your day accordingly' whatever that means so all my carefully detailed plans were thrown into disarray. In the event we couldn't make the port anyway, which is another of my beefs.

[daib GC]

On the other hand when on Oriana last month the captain stayed in gran Canaria until midnight when we were to leave at about 5.00. He informed us 2 days before.

Also noticeable that if we were due to leave at say 17.30 he would leave when the last person was on so that could be 17.15.

BTW excellent captain..... If only I could remember his name.



Gan Canny


Dai

[noddy10]

Majority of P&O cruises calls at Gibraltar have only been for half a day be it morning or afternoon ever since we started cruising in 1997 so the reason is not cutbacks.

[sunseeker16]

QB
You may remember that I was on the same cruise as you last November. I too wrote to express concern over the very short time scheduled in port. I never received a reply - did you? If so, could you share the gist with the forum?

[Quizzical Bob]

Hi SS99, yes I remember it well. I'll have to dig out the reply on my steam PC. Back in a moment.

[Quizzical Bob]

My correspondence as promised:

[email to reservations@pocruises.com, 16th December 2012]

Dear SIrs,

Please forward this email to the appropriate customer services department.

We recently sailed on the Ocean cruise E226 to the Atlantic coast of Iberia and Africa on the 12th November. A particular disappointment to us was the short duration of the stays in the ports. The time allotted for Lisbon did not allow us to undertake our carefully-planned excursion as we had to leave to be back on board by about 4:00. Even worse than this was the planned stay in Oporto with arrival at 09:00 and a back on board time of 15:00. Both of these visits were listed as a 'full day' which they certainly weren't. The last shuttle back from Oporto was at 14:15 with the caution that this was likely to be in high demand and that we should 'consider this when planning your time ashore', whatever that is supposed to mean. Once again, I had extensive plans for this visit which had to be discarded. In the event we did not even dock due to high winds but this does not detract from the fact that shortened stays of this nature seriously degrade the cruising experience. This must be a deliberate new policy because the ship sailed at a very moderate speed from one port to the next. Please can you confirm that port visits next year will be of the more usual duration which gives enough time ashore to make the most of the visit? If not then we shall have to give serious consideration to sailing with other cruise lines who provide much longer visits, in many cases spending the evening in port as well.

Yours faithfully,

[Quizzical Bob] [Reply from P&O (same day!)]

Dear [Quizzical Bob],


Thank you for your email.

I have passed your email to our Customer Services Team and an Executive will respond to you in due course.


Kind regards

Jess
P&O Cruises

[email reply from Joanne Kersey, 15th January 2013]

Dear [Quizzical Bob]

Thank you for your email of 16 December 2012 in respect of your cruise on board Oceana. Please see attached a copy of my response, a hard copy will follow in the post.

Assuring you of our best intentions at all times.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Kersey (nee Turner)
Customer Relations Executive

[and the attached letter:]

Thank you for your email of 16 December 2012 in respect of your cruise on board Oceana. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

I was sorry to learn you were disappointed with the length of time in port, in particular in Lisbon as you were not able to fully enjoy the things you had planned. I can advise that we do state in our brochure that a “full day” is normally a minimum of 7 hours and a maximum of 10.5 hours with the ship generally arriving between 7.00 am and 10.00 am and departing between 3.00 pm and 6.30 pm.

With regard to the cancelled call at Oporto, occasional cancellations or substitutions are an unwelcome but sometimes unavoidable part of the travel experience. On this occasion the ship was experiencing adverse weather conditions and the Captain therefore made the decision not to attempt to dock at Oporto and instead continued on route. As I am sure you can appreciate, our passengers’ safety and the safety of Oceana is the Captain’s priority at all times during a cruise, and therefore he will not enter the ship into any situation he feels may endanger this. I would also like to respectfully refer you our booking conditions, which states that we cannot guarantee that the ship will follow every part of the advertised route or schedule.

Mr [Quizzical Bob], I do hope that despite the above issue you did enjoy many aspects of your cruise and that you are enjoying your time on Aurora for her World Cruise.

[My further reply, 15th January 2013:]

Hi Joanne,

Thanks for getting back to me. The main point about the planned Oporto visit was not that it was cancelled, rather that it would have been a very short stay. The plan was 'Arrive 09:00, back on board by 15:00' which coupled with the transfer time into the city would have resulted in a short morning visit of 4 hours at best, which I would not consider a 'full day'.

Best Regards

[Her reply, 31st January 2013]

Dear [Quizzical Bob]

Thank you for your further email of 15 January in respect of our previous correspondence.

While I certainly appreciate how disappointed you were, I can only deal with matters that happen and not with what may have occurred if the situation was different. Nevertheless, I am again sincerely sorry that your expectations were not met and I would like to reassure you that your comments have been passed on to the relevant senior management for their information and future planning.

Assuring you of our best intentions at all times.

Yours sincerely

Joanne Kersey
Customer Relations Executive

So there you go, make of it what you will, we can only hope that the message gets passed up the chain.

[sunseeker16]

Indeed
Thanks for ressurecting all that for me!

I got quite a detailed questionnaire by email a week or so after the trip and took the opportunity to make the same points. As you say, we wait and see

[Sealion]

Have cruised in the fjords several times on various ships and the only port I can recall leaving early was Stavanger and there was ample time to take a tour or look round the town.
Gib is always a half day but I thought that generally short days were due to the fact that the ship had to cover vast sea miles until the next port of call.
if more half days are becoming the norm for no good reason they are short changing the passenger and the company (less tours likely)