Re: Cruising.

Booked to do the Canaries on the P&O ship Britannia in September. Enjoyed a cruise on the Ventura last year round the Med (reports can be seen in Bob's Bits last May)

Surprised Mrs Fox on her sixtieth birthday with a cruise to New York on the Queen Mary 2 back in 2010. Love the relaxed lifestyle and the food but did find fitting the running in difficult.

This time I will run while on shore visits while Mrs Fox enjoys a coffee.

I must be a little strange because I would love to hear the engine purring away far below. In the past I have actually fallen asleep listening to the rhythmic hum of electric motors.

Re: Cruising.

Agree 100% on both counts. Aurora is the world's most beautiful ship, especially the aft tiered decks. We had two days in Istanbul once, where we had a late night sandwich and champagne 'picnic' up there, watching the lights of the city over the Golden Horn. Magical.

And we've just come home from an 18-night trip on Aurora, taking us round to Venice where we had an overnight stay. Venice and Dubrovnik are two of our favourite places to visit, never tire of them.

Our next cruise is next month on Oriana, which is similarly lovely to Aurora but has far fewer balcony cabins. Then it's back on Aurora in January for the world circumnavigation, followed by a visit to the fjords on Arcadia next September.

And if anyone is thinking "gosh, what a lot of cruises", I must say here that MOH will NOT fly anywhere, so ex-Southampton cruising suits us fine. Plus he also now writes books about cruising, so it's all research - well that's our excuse!

Re: Cruising.

Deb, so envious! I'd love a world cruise, but doesn't the tipping get expensive? That's the one thing holding me back from doing another cruise. I used to go on Ocean Village and gratuities were included in the holiday price, which was always pretty reasonable. I was gutted when the two ships were stopped under that brand. I know OV1 has been refurbished and is now sailing under a different company/name, so tempted to have a holiday on that!

Re: Cruising.

i went on a Mediterranean cruise last November and thoroughly enjoyed it, cant wait to do it again and made even better by being upgraded to a balcony room

Re: Cruising.

I think that is one of my reasons for not wanting to go cruising,too many people all in one space.

Re: Cruising.

Isn't that dogging?

Re: Cruising.

HI Carol, the most beautiful, memorable cruise I ever went on was also my very first ever cruise.
It was with Thompson Cruises and there were four of us, He who must obey, my brother, sis-in-law and me.
The ship which was called “The Emerald” was not a big ship, I believe it was formerly a Ferry and bought and converted to a Cruise Ship by Thompsons. There were only 300 or so passengers but almost the same number in staff to pamper and spoil us.
Mind you, to me, a first time cruiser, it still looked massive because it was the first cruise ship I had seen. It wasn’t until we moored up at the ports with the other cruise ships that I could see how small she was compared to all the other cruise ships.

There were no cabins with balconies but we had chosen an outside cabin with a porthole from a choice of outside cabins or inside cabins (which didn’t appeal to me as like to be able to at least see outside to see which way we are going or even if we are still floating or going down !!

I have to say that we were treated like royalty. Our cabin steward was an absolute joy, so helpful and spoiled us no end. Back then it wasn’t tips and gratuities automatically taken from your card at reception, We tipped as we wanted to and our steward hopefully was very happy with what we left him. He thoroughly deserved it. Throughout the cruise, happy, cheerful, helpful and always smiling staff on reception, the bars, the cafes, the restaurants, and in every service available to the passengers. It was the norm every day of the cruise.. I have never known anything like it. The food was simply to die for too, it was so delicious, fine dining but more than adequate servings for the men!!, the service was exemplary, wine waiters and food waiters,always attentive but never once intrusive. Seventh Heaven for us pampered passengers. Could not believe why we had never cruised before.

The Ports in which we stopped included Venice, Split and Dubrovnik.
All three are stops in which all I can say is that after visiting them and asked to describe to someone - they are each just too beautiful, too numerous in wonder to describe to you.You would have to visit them yourself, to sample the beauty and delights of all three port stops. All I can say is that upon visiting each of them I can put my hand on my heart and say that they actually made my heart soar!
At the time I would have stayed there forever given the opportunity.

That first ever cruise will be forever in my memory. We tried to book again the following year but were gutted to find that the Emerald had done it’s last cruise two months previously and had gone to the scrapyard in the sky. We were really choked !!

We have been on several cruises since but all on larger ships with Thompson, P&O and other cruise lines but no ship can begin to compare with the staff and service provided on that wonderful, select, friendly little cruise ship.

Bon voyage The Emerald. You may have only been a converted Ferry but you provided a 6 star service.
May you rest in Peace.

Re: Cruising.

A standard tipping fee is now automatically added to your account on P&O cruises but you can ask to have it removed if you want to tip personally. It's an emotive area tipping, and sadly there are still a great many cruisers out there who really have no idea or appreciation of the life of a cabin steward or restaurant waiter, or any of the other unseen roles. They see tipping as a negative thing and try to fins ways to tip less or not tip at all ! Really unbelievable and quite sad. Most staff on cruise ships are appallingly paid and they have to work horrendous hours. They work contracts which are typically about 9 months in length so they are away from their families all of that time.

I think the benchmark for P&O is around £3.50 per day but you need to think realistically about what the staff are doing for that money. Your cabin steward cleans the cabin every morning, cleans the toilet, the sinks, wipes out the bath or shower, changes your bed sheets and pillow cases, clears away dirty crockery and empties the bins. Seriously would you clean someone's toilet every day for a few quid? I think not.

People also have to understand that tips are a HUGE proportion of the steward's overall salary. They are not extra bonuses. Their basic salaries are an absolute pittance for the hours they work and that is done deliberately by the cruise lines because they expect passengers to pay tips.

Sadly some a**hole passengers will find any excuse not to tip. For example if the steward fails to put fresh biscuits by the tea/coffee making facilities each day some cretins may mark them down and tip less.

Tipping is a pleasurable part of the cruise for me. A chance for me to really make a difference to the lives of hard working but exploited staff. A chance to give them some extra money to make phone calls home when they are next allowed off the ship (which isn't every port). It's also nice to give them presents if you are on a Christmas cruise bearing in mind they are away from family.

In short, tipping should be the least of your concerns when considering a cruise. One should fully expect any cruise to involve an element of gratuity for the hard work of the staff.

Re: Cruising.

Sorry Realist , when we go to Mauritius yearly we tip as we see fit .
It"s all very well to provide all this enormous amount of food to relieve the boredom of being at sea [as I see it ].
Perhaps the Cruise companies should pay better wages . why should the passengers supplement their meaness.T
To me having to be told what to pay as tips is a darn cheek plus the supplements on drinks !!.

Just saying

Re: Cruising.

Ok so that's a fair point. Thinking it through though, if the cruise line were to pay them a higher salary then your cruise ticket price would go up. Lots of cruisers would then complain.

It comes down to marketing and kidology. Currently they can (and do) offer very low ticket prices and do so on the basis that they don't pay the staff much and on the basis that they will receive lots of tips. The cruise line uses this as leverage with staff saying that IF they do a sterling job they will get tips so it provides the incentive for a regime of high performance targets.

We can debate the rights and wrongs of that situation till the cows come home but the fact WILL remain that this IS how the cruise lines operate and the people suffering at the heart of that system are the staff. Those valiant people dare not put one single step wrong because if they do, it is instant dismissal and back home to families in shame. All it takes is one heartless, ignorant and largely stupid passenger to make some kind of complaint and a staff member can be severely reprimanded.

So, imo, we have to recognise the situation that DOES exist rather than dream of a situation we would like to exist. The staff are poorly treated. We are there being waited on hand and foot, by staff working utterly ridiculous hours, having maybe 4 hrs sleep, working 9 month contracts under a very strict regime. We are on holiday expecting everything to be perfect, and although we have a right to expect that given the cost of the cruise ticket, we must not let that sway our understanding of the plight of cruise line staff.

To turn our heads away and say "it's nothing to do with me, it's up to the cruise line to look after their staff" then we are imo being rather heartless. If we don't tip, or tip poorly, then those staff suffer and if we all did that then ultimately there would be no more staff and no more cruises.

Some years ago, this whole tipping issue came to a head with P&O staff. On a cruise to the USA a large contingent of the staff rebelled, and made a protest on the dockside telling P&O that the tipping system was unfair and unjust (as so many a**hole passengers didn't give the expected tips) and that they demanded a more stable and consistent salary structure.

P&O's response was to summarily dismiss most of them. A poor response imo. But some years later P&O DID change their system to have tips automatically added to passengers accounts. Passengers have the option to remove them if they so choose but have to fill in a form explaining their reasons. As most passengers just leave the tips on the accounts for an easy life, the staff have a more consistent tip income. However P&O only pay them those tips IF they perform to an acceptable standard and that is something like 97% !!! The assessment of the standard comes from the questionnaires that passengers complete at the end of their cruise. Sadly, again, many passengers don't understand how that questionnaire affects the staff payments and so some of them put stupid things on there like marking a cabin steward down for not bringing enough biscuits. Really petty and heartless/ignorant.

So the situation is still very far from ideal imo. For that reason I tend to tip manually myself to ensure that MY cabin steward and waiters get a good reward for their sterling service. This helps to negate some of the income they lose through a**hole passengers marking them down for no real good reason.