Hello again – Carol here...

Thank you all for your comments, I have been reading them with great interest.

Before I respond to some of your recent posts, I thought you may like to hear that I recently sailed on Ventura for a few days. Passengers certainly seemed to be having a good time, and I met some interesting passengers who I had met on Ventura last summer, so it’s fabulous to note that she already has a growing number of followers. I also met several passengers who I have met before on our other ships - so it’s also nice to see our passengers trying our different ships - all still giving that P&O Cruises feel that our regulars enjoy so much. Whilst on board I was keen to thank our crew - especially the recent winners of our Outstanding Performers of the Month award, voted on by our passengers. I had the pleasure of having lunch with them, and finding out a little more about them and their families - it was a lovely gathering. They really are an inspiration to the rest of us!

Maureen, I’m delighted to hear you enjoyed Arcadia’s luxurious spa experience so much. We will look into your specific query and come back to you separately on this if that’s ok. I hope you have a fantastic time and enjoy a really memorable wedding anniversary on board.

There was an anonymous post regarding basing one of our ships in Scotland. You will note we are sailing more around the UK and call at several Scottish ports but as you will know our UK home port is Southampton and all our ex UK cruises depart from there. I'm afraid we don't currently have plans to embark passengers from other ports but thank you for your thoughts.

Alan, thank you for your feedback on the planning of our itineraries. We have more of our ships on northern itineraries at this time of year as this is the best time to go to the fjords and the Baltic and there is a huge demand for these cruises. There is a fairly short window for cruises to these areas due to the weather and so the only way we can satisfy that demand is to include several of our ships in that particular deployment at that time. As schools then break up and the focus turns to summer holidays to the Med we shift our emphasis as you have seen. Sorry to disappoint you - we clearly need more ships!

At present ship visits are only available on turnaround days in Southampton when passengers disembark and embark due to concerns that visits on port days could interfere with our passengers’ holiday experience. As you can imagine, such matters are a fine balancing act as we would like to enable as many people as possible to see our new ships but have always to be mindful of the passengers on board enjoying their holiday. The idea of offering ship visits in other ports around the UK is in discussion at present and we are looking into ways of ensuring the quality of our passengers’ holiday experience would not be compromised in any way, so watch this space!

Yvonne, I’m glad Flexicruise suits your needs. It is a great way to save on your holiday fare and by grouping the holidays as we have, you know you will be doing one of two itineraries and certainly going to the Caribbean. It’s a little way off yet, but I wish you both a great holiday.

Jules W, you raised the subject of our Customer Satisfaction Surveys. We find these an invaluable source of feedback and appreciate the time our passengers take to fill these in after their cruise. The questionnaires are reviewed in detail, comments logged and any matters are raised with the relevant departments on board and ashore in order to strive to continually improve your holiday experience. Your comments help us to shape your holiday and help pinpoint any tweaks needed to make your experience even better.

Jules, you enquired why passengers were not called to dinner on Azura as on the rest of the fleet and I’m pleased to be able to shed some light on the matter. We are currently looking at the best way to manage our dining times and passenger arrivals into dinner on Azura and are therefore trialling different ideas (eg not making announcements). It’s certainly not our intention to have our passengers arriving at vastly different times and in fact we have found in general this non announcement idea quite successful, with our passengers normally arriving within 5 - 10 minutes or so but not all at exactly the same moment, which is preferable. However, thank you for your feedback - we will continue to test to arrive at the best solution.

Thank you also for your feedback about your recent experiences on Azura and sorry to hear the change to show times caused you disappointment. We are looking into when the best show times are on that ship, depending upon what else is happening that day. We will continue to monitor passenger feedback on this.

I’m pleased to hear you enjoyed what Azura has to offer. A new ship is always exciting and her crew has worked extremely hard over the past few months to ensure she is a great success. They will be very pleased to read your comments and I’m sure you’ll find many familiar faces on board to welcome you come 28 September. Have a lovely time.

Last but not least, I would also like to thank whoever left the comment about our DVDs (posted as ‘anonymous’). I was sorry to hear you have felt some past purchases fell short of P&O Cruises’ usual standards. I will certainly be following up your comments. Our photography team has been working on a long-term project to improve the DVDs, and the feedback so far has been very positive. I have seen a recent example from Azura and I was very pleased with the results. The DVD is filmed, edited and produced in time for the final day of the cruise and as I'm sure you'll agree this is no mean feat. That said, we need to make sure they are professional productions and we will work to make sure of that with the team. I hope you'll find that our future DVDs ('my cruise diary' as it is now named) are indeed of a professional standard and quality, designed to capture the special memories of your time on board with us.

To anyone reading this ahead of their next holiday, I wish you a wonderful cruise. The summer weather seems to have gone on holiday itself today, so you might have chosen a good time to get away.

I’ll write again next week, until then have a good weekend.

Kind regards,

Carol