non fly cruise help please

supermum4

Hi i will get the details of the indy and let mam see what she thinks, thanks again for all the great advice guys plenty of ships to think about. cheers

travellerboy

nw_man wrote: »

Are you trying to provoke an argument ?

Get a grip.

What a Pillock ! Not worthy of further comment.

daveyjp

As examples given by others have shown if you book last minute you can get more for your money.

£700 is about enough for a one week cruise at brochure prices, which limits destinations if you don't want to fly.

I would recommend a Fjords cruise in mid summer - truly stunning scenery. Don't forget to add the costs of trips - in remote ports there's not much else to do. Budget £50-£100 per trip depending on half or full day.

Two_Hoots_3

For a first cruise I would advise P & O, the on board prices are in pounds with no added tax on top of the prices, the food and entertainment are suited towards British passengers and although no excersions are cheap if they wanted to book with the cruise line P & O's are more reasonable than some.

At the moment they are offering free transport to/from Southampton.

archiesdad

Hi try looking here http://www.bonvoyage.co.uk/ tey have a lot of great bargains I would certainly look at last minute bookings. My in laws go on a lot of p&o cruises ( they are early 60's) and can't rate them highly enough.

They are actually on one at the moment collect them from Southampton tomorrow, they booked approx 2 weeks before they left and got 15 nights for your £699 budget, so there are bargains to be had.

I am sure your mum will have a great time, we went on our first cruise this year with our kids and the rest of my husbands family 15 in total and we had an amazing holiday, husband wouldn't want to holiday any other way now while our kids are young anyway.

Good luck and if you have any questions about any P&o ships my in laws are pretty good as they have been on most of there ships now.

supermum4

archiesdad wrote: »

Hi try looking here http://www.bonvoyage.co.uk/ tey have a lot of great bargains I would certainly look at last minute bookings. My in laws go on a lot of p&o cruises ( they are early 60's) and can't rate them highly enough.

They are actually on one at the moment collect them from Southampton tomorrow, they booked approx 2 weeks before they left and got 15 nights for your £699 budget, so there are bargains to be had.

I am sure your mum will have a great time, we went on our first cruise this year with our kids and the rest of my husbands family 15 in total and we had an amazing holiday, husband wouldn't want to holiday any other way now while our kids are young anyway.

Good luck and if you have any questions about any P&o ships my in laws are pretty good as they have been on most of there ships now.

WOW thats a great price mam can go at short notice so this will be her best option i think ;)cheers guys

getmore4less

These super deals do go quick so you have to be on the look out and jump.

The P&O deal I think was around for 3 days before the cheap cabins sold out.

THere is a thread to post deals if you find any
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2713505

alanfcox

Christmas Markets Cruise – Balmoral 10th to 17th November 2011

My wife and I have travelled with most of the major cruise lines with the exception of Fred Olsen so when we noticed they were advertising a Christmas Markets Cruise to Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Amsterdam and Antwerp we thought that was an ideal opportunity to assess some of the very positive comments that we had heard from some of their previous passengers.

I booked direct with Fred Olsen because I had received poor service from some of the cruise agents and I was certainly impressed with the standard of paperwork that I received from them prior to the cruise. We were given a 14.00 time to join the ship at Southampton but when we arrived we were met with long queues and it took us just over 1 hour to get onboard but our first impression of the ship was that it was clean, the public areas were nicely decorated and presented and the staff appeared helpful, smart and efficient.

Our cabin 6101 was well located and the information in the cabin was also to a high standard but my first impression that something was not quite right was when I went through the paperwork and found one piece headed Christmas Markets Cruise and another Christmas Shopping but I though that perhaps they were combining some specialist groups. When we went to the first Port Shopping talk the presenter informed us that the Christmas Markets usually ran for a month before Christmas and knowing that it was more than a month to go I started to wonder if they would be open but thought that they wouldn’t have made such a mistake.
When we arrived in Hamburg we found that they had indeed made such a mistake and the markets were not open as was the case in Bremerhaven our second port of call. It was clear from some of the other passengers that they were as upset as us that the markets were not open but all we were told by the staff “was that it was out of their control”. What was also strange was that some passengers that had booked the cruise at short notice had not been informed that it was a Christmas Markets Cruise but a Christmas Shopping Trip and so they were not disappointed.

Another major disappointment came when we were due to leave Bremerhaven and the ship suffered a “technical fault” and was delayed leaving for 5 hours which meant that we had to miss out Amsterdam and go straight to Antwerp which many passengers thought was very convenient. One passenger that I spoke to who had been in the Royal Navy asked for an explanation and felt that he was insulted by the explanation that the first officer gave him and asked to see a more senior officer but still felt that the ship should have been carrying sufficient spare parts.

Whilst the ship was quite nice we tried the Ballindalloch Restaurant the first night and were not impressed with the quality of the food and drinks service and so we decided to eat in the Palms Caf! which we found suited our needs. The price of drinks were quite reasonable and the entertainment was good.

Unfortunately, this experience has not given us a very good impression of Fred Olsen which is a pity because so many people appear to like what is offered and have high praise for the ships and their staff. I have written to their Managing Director and look forward to receiving an explanation of how this sad state of affairs happened.

getmore4less

you posted this on cruises. as well

http://www.cruises.co.uk/508-cruises_rants/24358-were_we_missold_cruise.html

acording to he posts on that thread fredolsen did not call this a market cruise.

pehaps it was a TA misrepresenting it.

evian99

P&O have offer until 30th Nov - 20% off cruises and free regional flights. If they have another friend it brings down total per person as third adult gets 90% reduction!