Topic: P & O Med Fly Cruises?

QUOTE:

For those of us living in the norh, flights from local airports are always an alternative to the journey to Southampton.

Especially when they're as good as Donny! ;)
Jo.

I'm aware too that this debate has gone elsewhere but from my perspective:
1.P&O don't actually give choice it's sailing from Southampton in the summer or nothing.There are now plenty of competitors who use Southampton but do fly-cruises as well,now that P&O has increased the fleet size it really is time it gave the passengers choice in the summer months,especially those who are not good sailors or who don't like the possibilty of poor weather for 4 days out of 14 or 4 days out of 7 for non-Med 7 day cruises.
2.Some of the ships aren't suited to sailing from Southampton e.g.Oceana which was built for the caribbean market and doesn't have enough internal lounge space on poor weather days and doesn't deal with rough weather well unlike Oriana and Aurora
3.For those in Uk for whom Southampton is a pain to get to flying direct to the Med is attractive as is a 7 day option.Many cruisers can't afford 14 days but want to do the Med.
I do believe P& O should trial a summer season basing a ship in the Med,I for one would try it!
I've been in recent years on the Sea Princess and Oceana from Southampton and from Barcelona on NCL and Royal Caribbean.
The weather and destinations were far superior on the Med cruises.If all the other big names offer it,isn't that a clue that it's worth considering?

P&O used to base the old Sea Princess/Victoria in the med in the 1990's and we joined the ship in Venice and Cyprus. The first fly cruise experience to join this ship was excellent, checking in luggage at the hotel in Gatwick rather than at the airport - but it was downhill from then on!

Fly cruising is fine is you like crowded airports, flight delays and flight changes, ridiculously early starts, cramped seats, luggage restrictions, aircraft food, and so on. The icing on the cake of course is having had a truly relaxing cruise, you have to face it all again for the return journey!

Of course, you can always take the scheduled flight option - and on the rare occasion when we fly cruise, that is what we do. But you still have the crowded airport to contend with, so for the time being I think we'll stick with cruising from our home port.

[QUOTE=Pat, Eastleigh;38587]P&O used to base the old Sea Princess/Victoria in the med in the 1990's and we joined the ship in Venice and Cyprus. The first fly cruise experience to join this ship was excellent, checking in luggage at the hotel in Gatwick rather than at the airport - but it was downhill from then on!

Fly cruising is fine is you like crowded airports, flight delays and flight changes, ridiculously early starts, cramped seats, luggage restrictions, aircraft food, and so on. The icing on the cake of course is having had a truly relaxing cruise, you have to face it all again for the return journey!

Hi Pat, I agree. We went on our first cruise last year because we were so fed up with the whole airport scenario. It always started to get to me in the last couple of days of our holiday that we had to go through the whole thing again. It was definitely better for us to drive to Southampton. It took about 3hrs 20 mins on a Saturday morning - bank holiday weekend. We loved our cruise and had a nice leisurely drive back home at the end of it. We will try to cruise from Southampton whenever possible. We have a fly/cruise on Ventura, next March - flying to Barbados and sailing back. I think that will probably be our last time flying to our destination.

It looks as though next season will offer plenty of choice for everyone with lots of extra ships sailing out of the UK (albeit mostly from Southampton) as well as lots more ships in the Med.

I do think P and O would capitalise if they did put a ship in the Med as there aren't many British lines doing Med fly cruises next season and any that do go out there should do well. Thomsons and Ocean Village have managed to put their fly cruise prices up considerably in the last few years which indicates current under capacity out there and of course without OV that only really leaves Thomsons of the UK operators left out there.

I am increasingly struggling to take a whole week away from work so sailing out from Southampton isn't usually an option for me. So I, and many others like me, grit our teeth and put up with the inconvenience of airports for the pleasure of port intensive Med itineraries with no wasted (in my personal view!) sea days.

I would keep out of the American market, the low standard of service would not be put up with by the Americans who expect and receive it on their own ships.

Looking at the cruises for P&O's new ship Adonia. From Nov 2011 there are fly med cruises during the winter months. Various start and finish locations in the med. Weather in the med can be very bad during the winter, so I don't know if there are any merits in doing this.

Val