First P&O UK Cruise - Prep
We picked P&O UK because they had a Norwegian Fjords cruise in September (there were more cruise line choices in the summer, but the flight prices were double), trying a UK cruise line sounded interesting, it is a budget cruise line with the daily service change included in the price, and the room came with kettle for Travis. The British were very lovely to cruise with. It was a challenge to book from the US though, being only bookable through vacationstogo.com. I used Emma Cruises's travel agent, who facilitated all the work with vacationstogo.com; the invoice came from vacationstogo.com.
Cruise
Before check-in, my.pocruises.com, we logged in with our booking number, and they had a spot for registration info. I got our passport info entered with no issue. However, it would not take, or keep, our phone numbers entered. I got both of ours in with no country code, but later Travis's was removed. We had no luck; we tried different values/versions, different browsers, googled British phone number formats, and read browser error messages to try to determine what format was expected. Our TA called P&O and got it in, so that our registration then showed complete. It needed a 0 at the front and missing one number in the middle; however, it will not allow them to actually call us. I then realized that the site had removed one number from the middle of my phone numbers too and added a 0 to the front. So, the web site was not internationalized for phone numbers. I was afraid without this registration info marked complete that P&O would not assign us a cabin. Since the P&O UK website did not list room categories, prices, and cabins available when we booked, so I just booked a guaranteed inside cabin. We received our cabin assignment 6 weeks before the cruise and were happy with it.
The website also had shore excursions and drink packages available to purchase, and later, I believe two weeks before, specialty dining. It had a count down and a place that you change what bed configuration you wanted -- queen or two twins. There was cruise prep info like docs required to board, health and safety requirements, and dress code. Nothing unusual there, but you do need to tell P&O beforehand if you are bringing a scooter or wheelchair onboard. P&O UK requires 2 million GBP medicine travel insurance cover for UK citizens -- a lot of coverage. When we booked, our TA did said just UK citizens. After check-in and close to cruise time, a P&O email with checklist to complete included get your travel insurance per the web site, which noted the 2 million GBP coverage for UK citizens. So, it seems that their documentation is not well tailored to travelers' citizenship. I said seems because I did not test the travel insurance that we did have -- much less than 2 million GBP. I printed the page on my.pocruises.com that said that this was a requirement for UK citizens...not that it said that it was not applicable to all other countries' citizens. We did get an Allianz annual travel policy, and I had the policy info printed. There was a spot in my.pocruises.com to enter your insurance details too, but this too would not save on the web site saying that Travis was missing the address on his emergency contact (which was a copy/use the same contact of my contact, which had an address, and the same format would not save for him when either of us tried). So, I could not populate our insurance in the registration. I printed our insurance info to show at check-in. We were not asked for insurance, so I could not test who or how often they enforced this requirement. I feel like this requirement is to not be a burden on the UK government covered health insurance, which is only available to UK citizens, though this is just a guess.
Transportation
We pre-booked National Express, coach company, to and from Heathrow to Southampton. For the initial arrival in Heathrow to Southampton, we booked free changes for 5 GBP each. We did arrive early and tried to initiate an early coach ride, but only later was available. So, the 10 GBP spent was a waste; if our plane had been too late, then it would have been good to not lose the full fare. We did not book the allowed changes for after the cruise from Southampton to Heathrow. British Rail was very expensive for anything to/from Heathrow.
Also, we pre-booked the British Rail train for a day trip to Winchester on the day that we disembarked. Originally, I was pushing for Bath, but then decided it was too much travel time. National Express did not have a Winchester stop on the day after our cruise, so we used British Rail roundtrip. British Rail had non-anytime tickets for cheaper, but when we figured the process out enough to book, they only seemed to have anytime tickets left. Our ship was planned to be dock back in Southampton at 6am, but we did not know how quickly we could disembark. We booked at 9:15am with anytime flexibility. I did not find online how do change it, so hoped it was easy, if needed.
Sort of related, we also pre-booked luggage storage for our two roll aboards in a location that was triangle with the Southampton Central train station and the National Express Southampton station. Booked with Bounce with the storage at a convenient store called Maynard News.
Our flights were Basic Economy, which allowed one roll aboard each. It was American Airlines operated by British Airways there and AA back. I priced BA checked luggage -- $70 one-way, so we were very limited on luggage space. We got two comments leaving the ship about traveling light after they were trying to ensure that we had all our luggage for self-disembarkation. Also, BA and AA had different baggage allowance sizes for personal and carry-on items, limiting us to the smallest of both (not that this was closely checked), grr.
Ports
We pre-booked a bus to/from Stegastein in Flam and a RIB boat tour from Nordfjordeid.
Next up...Southampton, UK
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