Caribbean Embarkation Lounge/Lunch

[emjay45]

Oops just realised you meant the junior officers, I thought you meant the passengers. I suppose they'd be called the lesser spotted officer sycophants.

[Quizzical Bob]

Oops just realised you meant the junior officers, I thought you meant the passengers. I suppose they'd be called the lesser spotted officer sycophants.

Junior officers? That's soooo Caribbean doncha know.

[Quizzical Bob]

Then I wouldn't be going would I ?
I fail to understand why you and others get so het up over a couple of cheap free drinks and a stale sandwich, the ship is awash with food , so why bother about this?


Ooops just twigged , it is all about status , isn't it, you want to be seen with all the other top tier folk, so they all know you are impotent important. well in some peoples eyes maybe? but to me, you are just an old furball with aspirations of a free drink and a butty

Er... yes.

[Romig1]

Oops just realised you meant the junior officers, I thought you meant the passengers. I suppose they'd be called the lesser spotted officer sycophants.

Junior officers? That's soooo Caribbean doncha know.

Personally, one would never dine with any officer below the rank of Commodore. Standards to maintain, you know.

[Manoverboard]

... That's really made me laugh. Now that is the one thing I have heard people boast about on the ship, just who they had on their table at the World lunch or the Peninsular lunch. We prefer a table for the 3 even at those lunches. Although we did have our final World lunch with some very nice people who also don't want to become lesser spotted Captain's lackeys.

It's so true though isn't it, God help us

I do however have to confess, but only to you mind, that one of our ' finest hours ' was on Aurora when our table was hosted by a Commodore from MI6 and his good lady during the Pirate fiasco as we headed towards Muscat and Dubai etc ... I was most impressed that he picked up the tab for the booze but for no other reason whatsoever. We haven't mentioned it to anybody from that day to this ... a fond memory and good company though.

[emjay45]

Oops just realised you meant the junior officers, I thought you meant the passengers. I suppose they'd be called the lesser spotted officer sycophants.

Junior officers? That's soooo Caribbean doncha know.

Well as someone now on the Ligurian tier. I didn't know and I care less.

[Quizzical Bob]

Oops just realised you meant the junior officers, I thought you meant the passengers. I suppose they'd be called the lesser spotted officer sycophants.

Junior officers? That's soooo Caribbean doncha know.

Well as someone now on the Ligurian tier. I didn't know and I care less.

Quite so MJ. Junior officers are only there to polish my shoes, if I wore them.

[qbman1]

There was a big thing about all this a month or so ago, on Facebook (not that I'm a Facebook regular!).

Basically, the answer from p&o was that, if you are Caribbean or above, you can ignore the time on your ticket, turn up when you want to, and you'll get priority boarding.

To turn DK's question around why would you not do something that p&o have confirmed is ok to do?

And I'm really sorry to spoil DK's little fantasy, you don't get to mingle with the toilet attendants at the welcome aboard lunch.... You have to wait for the loyalty lunch to do that!

That's very interesting, Gill (although slightly ridiculous to set rules and then tell people to ignore them!). I don't do Facecloth at all so I haven't seen that discussion.

Look forward to seeing what P&O say in response to my enquiry this time.

[Dark Knight]

All banter aside, it does defeat the object of issues boarding times to people of any tier, if people are encouraged to then totally disregard the times

[Manoverboard]

It was also a tad ' unprofessional ', perhaps, to give us a boarding time of 12:00 on Adonia in May given that we had booked a last minute cheapo deal ?

15:00 would somehow seem to be more appropriate as they could then cheat us out of a free lunch .

[barney]

Ah! it's actually sinking in now DK

The whole thing is totally irrelevent.

The boarding times are merely a suggestion.

To enforce it would cause chaos.

BTW a mate has just come back from Royal Carib cruise
He was an hour early but boarded immediately, so they don't inforce either

[Mervyn and Trish]

They're probably never going to enforce boarding times because it would cause chaos. However new cruisers will probably do their best to turn up when asked because they don't know better. Some will always turn up early, others because of their transport arrangements, coach for example, may be late. So on balance it will probably work out.

But surely it can't be beyond the wit of man (or even P&O IT techie) to automatically give all Caribbean and above a 1200 arrival time and no-one else a time before 1230 or 1300 to allow the ultra loyal patrons to get aboard first?

No-one could then moan they didn't get chance to have their curled up prawn sandwich. (And joking apart we've only joined the priority boarders once when we had a suite and frankly I thought the lunch was rubbish - the only virtue was somewhere quiet to sit until cabins were ready - and if you come after 1400 that's irrelevant anyway!)

Of course there would need to be exceptions, such as Maiden cruises, when 3/4 of the passengers are priority cases so even they can't reasonably expect to all be on board by 1201!

[qbman1]

Of course there would need to be exceptions, such as Maiden cruises, when 3/4 of the passengers are priority cases so even they can't reasonably expect to all be on board by 1201!

Just in "exceptional" cases like that, Merv. it might make sense for them to extend the lunch availability time by 30 minutes or an hour to accommodate the demand. But then I am not sure "sense" comes into the equation !

[barney]

Sort of my point Merv

Get there when you can and if you have to wait, you wait.

Can't see the big deal myself and can't figure out why Dark Nighty has such an obsession with it

[Dark Knight]

Barney, I have little real interest in boarding times, but a little stir of the pot helps stimulate debate

[Mervyn and Trish]

On the cruises you go on these days they're just pleased if anyone turns up....

[qbman1]

....anyone with a shirt on, that is !

[Mervyn and Trish]

priority boarding if it's been washed

[CaroleF]

The new system of luggage does seem to be working. I don't know what they are doing differently - different luggage tags now - but our cases were outside our cabin when it was announced cabins were ready just before 2pm.

Carole

[Gill W]

They're probably never going to enforce boarding times because it would cause chaos. However new cruisers will probably do their best to turn up when asked because they don't know better. Some will always turn up early, others because of their transport arrangements, coach for example, may be late. So on balance it will probably work out.

But surely it can't be beyond the wit of man (or even P&O IT techie) to automatically give all Caribbean and above a 1200 arrival time and no-one else a time before 1230 or 1300 to allow the ultra loyal patrons to get aboard first?

No-one could then moan they didn't get chance to have their curled up prawn sandwich. (And joking apart we've only joined the priority boarders once when we had a suite and frankly I thought the lunch was rubbish - the only virtue was somewhere quiet to sit until cabins were ready - and if you come after 1400 that's irrelevant anyway!)

Of course there would need to be exceptions, such as Maiden cruises, when 3/4 of the passengers are priority cases so even they can't reasonably expect to all be on board by 1201!

We generally arrive between about 12 and 1, and by the time we get to the priority lunch venue it's heaving with people, so heaven knows what time everyone else is getting there

The lunch offerings do seem to have got better recently. We've had some very uninspiring rolls, then a decent buffet, and on Britannia it was a proper lunch.

I actually prefer the buffet option, as I could pick and choose the things that were suitable for me. At the lunch on Britannia the poor waiters looked so rushed off their feet, I didn't like to start asking if I could have a low salt version of the meal. I just chose the least worse option and hoped for the best that it wasn't too riddled in salt.

But, as M&T said, it is a relatively quiet place to sit, and you didn't have to keep lugging your bags around - you are welcome to stay until the cabins are ready

[Manoverboard]

Seriously and in my own humble opinion the Caribbean + embarkation lunch should be scrapped forthwith and let's face it there will be plenty of other opportunities to have a top Tier get together, ideally on a sea day of course.

It should be replaced by a ' top cabin ' embarkation lunch as a way of P&O thanking those who have paid the most money for their cruise, it would also be an extremely nice touch for those passengers who have saved for years for their special celebration and have yet to rise to the dizzy heights of a Goldie. Because it would be limited to suites and mini-suites / Superior Deluxe Balcony Cabins the numbers would be far less, the food much better and best of all the numbers would remain constant.

Perfick ... for every unselfish passenger

[qbman1]

What price loyalty ? If you can afford a suite, you can afford to get yourself a decent lunch before you get there !!!!

[Ian Perth]

Can't see what all the fuss is about over this. If your in a tier that qualifies you for lunch then turn up on time to have it and if not then accept its your fault. P & 0 have already made it clear if you arrive you'll get on the ship as you've always done, so what's the issue.

[emjay45]

Seriously and in my own humble opinion the Caribbean + embarkation lunch should be scrapped forthwith and let's face it there will be plenty of other opportunities to have a top Tier get together, ideally on a sea day of course.

It should be replaced by a ' top cabin ' embarkation lunch as a way of P&O thanking those who have paid the most money for their cruise, it would also be an extremely nice touch for those passengers who have saved for years for their special celebration and have yet to rise to the dizzy heights of a Goldie. Because it would be limited to suites and mini-suites / Superior Deluxe Balcony Cabins the numbers would be far less, the food much better and best of all the numbers would remain constant.

Perfick ... for every unselfish passenger

On the World cruise this year only suite passengers were sent to Carmen's for a buffet lunch. It was very quiet. I have no idea where the 'loyal' passengers had their lunch though I'm fairly sure it was in the 'buffet'.

[Janet-]

Embarkation lunch for loyalty club members does not apply on World Cruises. P & O's reasoning is that there are too many top tier passengers!