P&O new check in procedures

[Stephen]

Are we still talking about the same thing Merv.....or have we moved onto the dress code

[qbman1]

No we skipped that and went straight on to smoking !!

[Mervyn and Trish]

Are we still talking about the same thing Merv.....or have we moved onto the dress code

No we skipped that and went straight on to smoking !!

and children and sunbeds.

[david63]

and sunbeds

Don't tell me that you have to check in your own sunbed now

[qbman1]

and sunbeds

Don't tell me that you have to check in your own sunbed now

....but only at the allotted time !!

[Stephen]

Now there's a thought.

Guaranteed sunbed and you can chill out while waiting to board.

[towny44]

Now there's a thought.

Guaranteed sunbed and you can chill out while waiting to board.

Hmmm, will that mean you have to carry it onboard and put it through security?

[Mervyn and Trish]

At least you can lie on it in the departure lounge while you're waiting for all the queue jumpers to board!

[Jean W]

Following my e-mail concerning the changes, I had a reply today. No change - 3.00 pm and that's it!! We can, though, drop our Luggage off and then go into Southampton - I can see that happening - NOT.

The reply stated that from the amount of Cruises we had done, we will appreciate the new method of boarding!

We are staying overnight, but for the first time, are taking advantage of the Hotel parking and being Taxied in. I'll let you know how it goes.

First holiday since 2011 - are we ready? - you bet we are.

[Ranchi]

Dropping luggage & disappearing into town. Can see a bit of a flaw in that system.

[wolfie]

We cruised last November, in May this year and again in September, all with P&O, and have been back less than a week so just my take on it.

We had our boarding time, and yes, we also have priority embarkation due to our Peninsula tier but also a disability, (we don't use this perk unless necessary due to a fluctuating medical condition), AND all passengers booked in, as and when, with no queues, each of the 3 times.

For a few years, when allocated boarding times were stated on our e tickets, we have never abided by them because way back we drove down, stayed the night before in Winchester for an early arrival at port, and now we are driven to Southampton so we arrive around noon and check in straight away; NOT because we are more important than anyone else . It serves better to check in people, as and when they arrive and thus not create a queue.

I can't see what all the fuss is about, do what you have always done, it works, P&O will also see that it works. If it ain't broke then don't fix it, comes to mind.! How many moaners have not yet experienced the supposedly NEW process and are just speculating on the possible problems without actually having experienced them, rather, anticipating them???

I can't believe that this thread has gone on for so many pages, speculating on what may or may not happen. when the facts are out there.

[The Tinker]

Yes - haven't bothered to read all the posts on this subject but surely P&O are just making it harder for themselves? People will arrive early - no-one wants to miss the boat (no pun intended) - if arrival times are strictly enforced it will make the terminal lounges more busy as being British we will all sit and wait!

So everyone will arrive at their usual earlier times and result will be CHAOS - saw a piccie on FB last weekend to this effect (not Ventura I might add who was late into port). The only bonus I can see is the Mayflower Terminal now has seats instead of having to queue for up to 40 minutes plus stood up.

[david63]

A possible solution for many would be if P&O had a luggage "drop off" point somewhere in the city - say at the railway station. That way those arriving by train could drop their luggage off and spend time in Soton, those arriving by plane could get a taxi to the station and drop their luggage off. Those driving down/staying overnight could drop their luggage off.

The luggage could then be taken directly to the ship which may be even easier and quicker than the "hole in the wall". Passengers would then be able to spend time in Southampton before going to the terminal at their allotted time. A lot of problems solved with minimal cost to the cruise line. Simples!

[Manoverboard]

Perhaps they could have a drop off point in M&S or John Lewis ... any drop off point will be devoid of security and will result in a bottleneck in somebody else's patch. No chance.

Drop them in the usual ' Hole in the Wall ' and then get on P&O's ( new ) Shuttle Bus to n fro the City .... simples.

[towny44]

The reason this thread keeps going is because people keep coming up with possible options that might make it easier for P&O to operate to a strict timetable, city drop offs or port drop offs and going into town for a browse round the shops, and lots of other stupid suggestions.
The main issue is why P&O cannot operate a slick system like Celebrity/RCI, who seem to manage the boarding of their ships, some of which are much bigger than P&O, and allow all loyalty club members to choose their own time without pi***ng customers off, and as a result display much higher customer service standards.
Maybe its me who at the best of times hates unnecessary regulations, but especially when on holiday where I expect the cruise line to go out of its way to make my holiday stress free.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Our experience of Celebrity is limited so I'll have to take Towny's word that it works better. Certainly the once we did try it we were on board and in our cabin quickly, but that turned out to be at the expense of disembarking at 7am at the other end!

Perhaps Celebrity's sophisticated passengers behave better? Nothing P&O tries will ever work all the time passengers come up with endless excuses why it doesn't apply to them. It takes time to board a large ship. If all 3,000 or 4,000 passengers insist they must arrive together and early it is inevitable there will be long and frustrating queues.

[qbman1]

I don't know about the rest of you but I have never yet suffered any stress at all in checking in to any of our 20-odd cruises so far over the past 11 years or so. That is as ordinary Joe Soap and a priority boarding customer. The system, such as it is, has worked reasonably well for years and people invariably get on board without any really difficulty. Why try to tinker with the system purely for PR reasons ? Just leave things alone and let us get on with it - we cope ! Mind you, after saying that, we don't go for anything bigger than Aurora/Arcadia.

[barney]

Same here qbman

3,000 or 4,000 passengers don't insist on arriving together and never have

It is naturally staggered which means that there is rarely a problem.
I've certainly never encountered one anyway.

At the risk of upsetting Merv, we'll totally ignore all the paperwork and just get there when we get there.
We may be a bit early, we may be a bit late.
We don't know yet.

Whatever, it's not the end of the world

[Mervyn and Trish]

What time do you arrive Cubie? We have had trouble several times, when we have been allocated a reasonably early boarding time and have waited ages (by which I mean more than an hour) because everyone else got there early. So for us the system badly needs tinkering. In the meantime we're torn between doing the same as everyone else and arriving at 11.00 or leaving it until after 3.

[Gill W]

If there was a luggage drop off at the port, wouldn't that just increase traffic in the port area, as people would have to go there once for dropping off the luggage, and then return later for check in.

Then there's the question of your hand luggage, which will contain all your valuables. Although I try not to have too much in the way of hand luggage, I wouldn't want to either lug it around the shops in Southampton, or leave my jewellery in the car.

I don't think it's that everybody wants to turn up at the same time (and attempt to be the first onboard). They just want the freedom to turn up at a time that's reasonably convenient to them, and be allowed to check in when they arrive without fear of being turned away. Most people are reasonable, and are willing to wait their turn - but they want to get to the terminal without stress and worry.

I'm sure, in this technological age, it would be possible for people to be able to reserve their check in time online, and for a lot of the check in to be done on line, like registering your credit card and uploading a photograph. It'd make things more streamlined at the terminal, so they could process people faster, so there'd be less queuing.

I saw the photos on Facebook of the 'chaotic' scenes at the Mayflower terminal. To be fair, it didn't look that chaotic to me - it just looked like a lot of people with grey hair, sitting down, waiting quietly.

I was fully willing to do my best to arrive at the terminal at my allocated time, to at least give the new system a chance. But it would seem, I'm in the minority. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em - I'll probably end up arriving at my normal time, just like everyone else.

[Gill W]

What time do you arrive Cubie? We have had trouble several times, when we have been allocated a reasonably early boarding time and have waited ages (by which I mean more than an hour) because everyone else got there early. So for us the system badly needs tinkering. In the meantime we're torn between doing the same as everyone else and arriving at 11.00 or leaving it until after 3.

I don't think everyone arrives at 11am.

Personally I arrive between noon and 1pm. Normally there's a short wait in the car before we are ushered forward to disgorge our luggage. We have priority check in, so one in the terminal we check in fairly quickly. Although last Christmas on Arcadia there was no priority check in, so we waited half an hour before our letter was called.

I've genuinely had no real problems in boarding at the time we arrive, even before we got priority check in

[qbman1]

What time do you arrive Cubie? We have had trouble several times, when we have been allocated a reasonably early boarding time and have waited ages (by which I mean more than an hour) because everyone else got there early. So for us the system badly needs tinkering. In the meantime we're torn between doing the same as everyone else and arriving at 11.00 or leaving it until after 3.

We normally aim to pitch up at around 12:30 to 1:00 p.m. and hardly ever have to wait that long. Of course, it's easier now we have our priority "golden ticket"! A few years back, we arrived a bit earlier and had a longish wait in the car but I understood that was a CPM problem and not a P&O one.

[towny44]

Our comparison experience is as follows.
At P&O we now use the accessible check in desks but have to wait till the queue reduces, then we go straight through to security, generally only had problems with long queues at security but the new Ocean system we had in April on Britannia, assume its the same for all, is a bit better. However sometimes the hall is full of standard passengers waiting to be called forward.
The P&O system of having cars chauffered off site can also be quite a bottleneck with several lines of cars waiting to be called forward, generally even with priority accessible boarding we have a delay of about 60-90 minutes from arriving at the dock gate to getting on board.
With Celebrity this is normally 15-30 minutes, we park our own car in the blue badge car park immediately adjacent to the entrance, large vans circulate around the car parks picking up your luggage, by the time I have Pauline in her wheelchair we are off. Standard passengers drop off their luggage then drive their car to their car park which can be up to a 10 minute walk away, never seen any major delays with the drop off, the cars seem to move through this process fairly promptly. Then into the terminal and straight to a short queue to check our names prior to security, never had to wait more than 2 minutes, then through into the check in area, again only ever have to wait a couple of minutes before we are attended to and in less than 5 minutes we have our sea pass cards and are free to board.
Perhaps P&O should cherry pick some staff from Celebrity to learn how to board passengers more efficiently.

[david63]

I have said this before - the whole problem is that P&O are trying to control embarkation with check-in and the two are incompatible.

The airlines/airports have been doing this for years without any problems (other than delays which will always happen). You arrive at the terminal, you check in, you go through security, you wait to board - simples.

Whilst the problem at some of the terminals can be laid at the door of ABP, Ocean terminal was, I believe, designed and built by Carnival so there really should be no excuse for getting it wrong - apart from the fact that somebody overlooked the fact that ships were going to get bigger and as a consequence they would have to handle more passengers.

[The Tinker]

What time do you arrive Cubie? We have had trouble several times, when we have been allocated a reasonably early boarding time and have waited ages (by which I mean more than an hour) because everyone else got there early. So for us the system badly needs tinkering. In the meantime we're torn between doing the same as everyone else and arriving at 11.00 or leaving it until after 3.

If you arrive at 1100 then you should all expect to wait - I was always told embarkation did not start until 1200 and when the traffic has been good
driving down we usually arrive circa 1145 - we then have to queue for the porters to take our car to park and can honestly say never had more than a 30 - 40 minute wait to embark. Do I need my cabin immediately? - no, just a drink and a bite to eat and stretch your legs is fine. Again
cabins have always been available 1330 - 1400 onwards.
I have always found disembarkation more of a shambles but they seem to be getting to grips with this,.