Spot the Deliberate Mistakes

[Stephen]

Oh dear, looks like I've hit a nerve.

And I don't go up chimneys any more.

[CaroleF]

Even the Telegraph this morning describes it as a brawl because of 'all you can drink alcohol deals.' It does say, however, that there was no Clown involved so I suppose they have that right.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Oh dear, looks like I've hit a nerve.

And I don't go up chimneys any more.

That's a blow. You promised to do ours this week.

Oh well. Trish will have to get her boilersuit and brushes out.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Even the Telegraph this morning describes it as a brawl because of 'all you can drink alcohol deals.' It does say, however, that there was no Clown involved so I suppose they have that right.

That's my worry. P&O will know whether than the brawlers were on the package deal. If so they can consider the balance between the profit it makes and the cost of damage to reputation.

[Dancing Queen]

Personally, I can’t see how a 45 minute Sailaway party in the afternoon can be attributed to a brawl at 2am the following morning.

Due to the marvels of Twitter, I’ve been able to speak to an eye witness.

She was in the buffet at the time of the fight, with her night owl teenage sons.

Apart from them, there were a couple of other people there, and the families involved. A total of about 15 people were present.

After the Code Sierra was announced on the tannoy, people came up to have a look at what was going on, so anyone reporting on the aftermath may have thought there were more people involved.

And there were no clowns present. The clown is a complete fabrication

Is it me or does anyone else think it strange that people would get out of bed ( except the reporter ) at 2.00am to go and see what was happening in the buffet , the only way I would respond to a tannoy announcement at that time of the morning is if it were to go to your lifeboat station, it beggars belief anyone would even want to voluntarily place themselves where a fight was taking place.

[Stephen]

Oh dear, looks like I've hit a nerve.

And I don't go up chimneys any more.

That's a blow. You promised to do ours this week.

Oh well. Trish will have to get her boilersuit and brushes out.

I stopped doing chimney runs after the accident with a sweeps brush

[Ritamary]

I thought I had asked a simple question'why mention northerners'????

[Manoverboard]

I thought I had asked a simple question'why mention northerners'????

You did indeed and if you wish to scroll back to #23 you will note that OBF gave a comprehensive response.

Regards MobyMod

[Mervyn and Trish]

Well. The story has been around all weekend with many reports laden with errors obvious to anyone who's ever been on a cruise. So today the Daily Wail rehashes the whole lot with most of the mistakes. They mention the clown despite including a quote from P&O to say there wasn't one. The fight broke out during a black tie night. At 2 am. We all know most passengers are long in bed by then. So most will have missed everything but the security alert message. At least they don't call it a ferry! Surely with the number of people employed in these newspapers at least someone has been on a cruise ship who could point out the oddities? The one thing that keeps recurring that I agree with is that this is fuelled by the drinks paclage. .

[daib GC]

Well. The story has been around all weekend with many reports laden with errors obvious to anyone who's ever been on a cruise. So today the Daily Wail rehashes the whole lot with most of the mistakes. They mention the clown despite including a quote from P&O to say there wasn't one. The fight broke out during a black tie night. At 2 am. We all know most passengers are long in bed by then. So most will have missed everything but the security alert message. At least they don't call it a ferry! Surely with the number of people employed in these newspapers at least someone has been on a cruise ship who could point out the oddities? The one thing that keeps recurring that I agree with is that this is fuelled by the drinks paclage. .

THERE WAS NO CLOWN INVOLVED.

Now confirmed by Southampton police and reported in ...USA Today

No conformation that the drinks package was involved. It is understood that he is still being questioned.

[Manoverboard]

We witnessed a drunken loud mouthed brawl between two families on the old Arcadia in 2,000. They were P&O employees on a jolly, it was in the middle of the day and the drinks package had yet to be invented.

Not a clown in sight … it was a case of too much booze and nobody gave a tinker's cuss.

[Gill W]

Re the drinks package.

I’ve been on both Fred and CMV and the drinks packages were widely used by passengers, yet there was no drunken shenanigans.

The packages were reasonably priced. £10-£15 for Fred, and £17 for the drinks part of the CMV package.

I have a theory that the high cost of the P&O package is encouraging purchasers to drink a lot, in order to feel they are getting their money’s worth.

[david63]

As far as the drinks package argument goes I would tend to agree that in itself it was not a contributing factor, but if you consider that someone had the drinks package and they had been using it to its full capacity for a week then there would have been a build up and it would not have taken much to go "over the top".

Also this was a port day so there is also a possibility that there was some "binge" drinking going on in order to get the 15 a day in.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Re the drinks package.

I’ve been on both Fred and CMV and the drinks packages were widely used by passengers, yet there was no drunken shenanigans.

The packages were reasonably priced. £10-£15 for Fred, and £17 for the drinks part of the CMV package.

I have a theory that the high cost of the P&O package is encouraging purchasers to drink a lot, in order to feel they are getting their money’s worth

I agree 100% Gill. We didn't witness any actual violence on our recent P&O cruise but we did see quite a lot of loud and unpleasantly drunk people. And a number wandering the ship, including in crowded lifts, clutching their drink from early in the day till late at night. It only needs one of those spilled over a fellow passenger for trouble to start.

[anniec]

I agree 100% Gill. We didn't witness any actual violence on our recent P&O cruise but we did see quite a lot of loud and unpleasantly drunk people. And a number wandering the ship, including in crowded lifts, clutching their drink from early in the day till late at night. It only needs one of those spilled over a fellow passenger for trouble to start.

That's why we go on Cunard. No one can afford to get pleasantly tipsy, let alone unpleasantly drunk.

[daib GC]

We witnessed a drunken loud mouthed brawl between two families on the old Arcadia in 2,000. They were P&O employees on a jolly, it was in the middle of the day and the drinks package had yet to be invented.

Not a clown in sight … it was a case of too much booze and nobody gave a tinker's cuss.

No no no that can’t be not 20 years ago this sort of thing is very new.

[Mervyn and Trish]

It's a definite factor in our future decision making.

[Finker]

This is why we are not using P@O anymore. On Ventura there was a one sided unpleasant exchange.

Someone was spoiling for an upset and I wasnt going to respond. We saw a few things which falls into the category of people behaving offensively so decided that P@O is not for us.

[Gill W]

For the last few years I’ve mostly had longer cruises on ships like Aurora, and I haven’t seen any change in behaviour. It’s basically nice people having a nice time.

Five weeks today we are off on Azura. It’ll be our first experience of a larger ship since the Britannia maiden in 2015. It’ll be interesting to see if I can detect any changes in behavioural trends.

I have to say, I’m very sad about the negative publicity this inaccurate news story has generated. I’ve sailed on P&O for 18 years and have some wonderful memories. Hopefully it’ll blow over soon

[david63]

I’m very sad about the negative publicity this inaccurate news story has generated

As the saying goes "No publicity is bad publicity!"

In a lot of ways it is no different than the stories/reports that were prevalent in the early days of Ventura when she had quite a bad reputation, but now you never hear of such incidents on her. I would guess that this type of incident happens more often than we are aware - just that it does not get reported by some irresponsible so called journalist.

[Manoverboard]

We witnessed a drunken loud mouthed brawl between two families on the old Arcadia in 2,000. They were P&O employees on a jolly, it was in the middle of the day and the drinks package had yet to be invented.

Not a clown in sight … it was a case of too much booze and nobody gave a tinker's cuss.

No no no that can’t be not 20 years ago this sort of thing is very new.

Gosh, doesn't time fly

[Stephen]

I heard what started the Britannia scuffle was someone took the last slice of pizza

[Mervyn and Trish]

Maybe I should be clear that my jaded view of some P&O clientele recently is not based on the latest "news", which we all recognise is flawed at best, largely fiction at worst.

It's based on our most recent cruise where we witnessed first hand loud drunken people in larger numbers than previously. Snobby or not, they're not people we're keen to share our holidays with. Butlins at Sea was a previous comparison we never quite got. Wetherspoons at Sea was our latest encounter.

Now we fully accept it may have been a one off glitch. It was like we previously only witnessed on the two night trips we've long since decided never to do again. Trish commented that maybe with bargain fares and the drinks package 7 nighters have become the new booze cruise. Maybe she's right. Perhaps even the hardest drinkers may be reluctant to fork out more than £1,000 per cabin for a 14 nighter. We'll have to wait and see.

We're committed to at least one more P&O cruise in 2022, when our granddaughters are the right age to be in the same kid's club, and we're taking the whole family. That will be decision time on where future cruising takes us. But if we experience more of the same Cunard and Princess may be the way ahead. Or even Saga, which we're trying early next year.

[Stephen]

I think it doesn't matter what cruise you are on there will always be that one occasion when things get out of hand and it just happens to be the cruise you are on. As for two or four night cruises, I wouldn't touch them now. But never say never.

[daib GC]

Maybe I should be clear that my jaded view of some P&O clientele recently is not based on the latest "news", which we all recognise is flawed at best, largely fiction at worst.

It's based on our most recent cruise where we witnessed first hand loud drunken people in larger numbers than previously. Snobby or not, they're not people we're keen to share our holidays with. Butlins at Sea was a previous comparison we never quite got. Wetherspoons at Sea was our latest encounter.

Now we fully accept it may have been a one off glitch. It was like we previously only witnessed on the two night trips we've long since decided never to do again. Trish commented that maybe with bargain fares and the drinks package 7 nighters have become the new booze cruise. Maybe she's right. Perhaps even the hardest drinkers may be reluctant to fork out more than £1,000 per cabin for a 14 nighter. We'll have to wait and see.

We're committed to at least one more P&O cruise in 2022, when our granddaughters are the right age to be in the same kid's club, and we're taking the whole family. That will be decision time on where future cruising takes us. But if we experience more of the same Cunard and Princess may be the way ahead. Or even Saga, which we're trying early next year.

Merv

We were on the cruise before a 14 night to the Baltic. After dinner I spend most of my time in the casino so next to the pub bar. I can honestly say that I never saw anyone drunk or even heard loud voices. Perhaps there is more of a problem with 7 nighters. Sorry there were some shocking noises coming from the bar on one or two nights, that was the karaoke.