Member Info for jockosjungle

Not sure why anyone is surprised by poor or lazy journalism. I think every article I've ever read where I have some sort of knowledge of the facts of the case, they're just full of inaccuracies. Not malicious or trying to change opinion, just pure laziness. Just what we have here.

Yes all seem to be "pro oil" so can't see them stopping anything when they get in. I'd add the FI is in sort of a purdah so can't see anything being announced or being agreed before the election is over and they actually do some voting on the issue. I'd add they're not likely to be dead quick about anything.

Just got off Iona, great time as always. I'm wondering if my Princess cruise to Norway in 2027 will ruin P&O or not. But got another week on Iona and two on Ventura before then!

Watching that Channel 5 cruise show about Virgin Cruises, can't see them being my cup of tea to be honest. I like to see my Captain in a proper uniform and hat.

Price seems to have stagnated somewhat, I did convince my brother to buy 100 for the OBC benefits, I didn't realise he went on P&O enough to do that, thought he was a bit posher. Am on Iona myself on Saturday, really looking forward to it and my drinks package!

Well P&O are going to charge £10 per session for kids clubs, well not charge, to reserve a place in advance. It seems to be a slippery slope to more of a"Ryanair" type cruise. So maybe seeing how they can monetise things on the basis (I'm guessing) that not everyone uses everything so charge a bit.

If people refuse to get off a ship due to a tender not being free, is that a good or a bad thing to the bottom line? Stay on board and spend money?

Maybe it'll just be paying to book in advance or something, and a free line.

Considerably more modest holding but I’ve sold all but the minim for credit. I averaged down a fair bit on the way down and I had a large portion of my holding last in carnival.

More than happy with a 50% return, paid for a cruise but in reality it’s replenishing some cash after I got a new car

It depends for us on an excursion, often you can just have a look around on your own or arrange something yourself. The only P&O excursion I've ever been on was a ferry across a fjord as it was fairly reasonable. But P&O charge full price for our kids now (12+) so we either do an own arranged tour (which is easy in Norway) or our own thing. On Northern Europe we just got the shuttle to Munich and went to Miniature Wonderland and walked back and in Rotterdam we hired a car for two days and went to Efteling and then Gouda the next day (worked out cheaper than the trip to Efteling on P&O and we were there longer. If we've never been there before we're more likely to just have a mooch about (we will do that a lot in Spain I think).

The drinks package has worked out well for us on this cruise, we have two kids who guzzle pop on holiday (at home as well to be fair but it's not £3 a time) so would get their moneys worth from the refresh pacakage, which is free if we get the booze. So worked out at £582 for all of us and we have no OBC as we are saver fare (not worth it this time round) except my £60. It allows us a few drinks (inc soft tbh) without me thinking about what its costing, we probably spend about £400 on drinks being a bit stingy with ourselves, I could certainly chug an extra Pina Colada a day, which is the difference in price.

Bit torn on Ventura next summer (two weeks solar eclipse), it'll be hot so I'll drink more but we've about £500 of OBC, might see if we can use it on a trip or just not have the drinks package.

Can't think what to spend £500 on otherwise, I don't excessively like paying for food when I can eat for free.

Iona did a winter sun to the Caribbean in Jan, a guy I was chatting to was on it. So many people with higher tier loyalty they had to stagger the drinks receptions.

The P&O Isn’t greatly generous, I’m now in the lowest tier, will be a day short of the second tier after I’ve done all my bookings.

Can’t wait to retire to do a round the world

yeh if i thought i had to drink a lot of booze it'd never be worth it, it really just is the kids that makes it worth it for us. the difference really is an extra ****tail a day. i'm happy to agree that the difference is probably marginal. but if you have two (near) teenagers then it becomes much better value with the free refresh package for the kids. obviously the kids need to make use of it, which ours will. but a classic booze package works out about £2 more than us having the non-alco package per day and only about £12 more than us all having the refresh.

if it's just two adults, it'd still have been £582 and there is no way i could drink £42 worth of drinks a day, without spending all day trying to reach the target and having a jd and coke with breakfast. that's not really me.

but you'll always get the difference between what you drink when you pay and when its included, i'm not a massive drinker (it'd ruin the holiday if i aimed for 15 a day - i'd be sick the next day and off booze the rest of the week). i'd certainly take a free glass of fizz off a tray from a waiter, i'd be less included to pay for one.

there is just a lot of times when a ****tail goes down well, asked if i;d like another and i say no.

hi bot, on p&o it works out quite well for me and you don't need to drink 8 a day (i think you would if you booked as a couple of adults).

i'm paying £582 for 2 adults to have the classic and the kids get free pop. my kids guzzle pop, especially on holiday, and moreso since they discovered they could flag down a waiter in the quays who would bring them one. so for my kids the £12.99 per day wouldn't have been unreasonable, they'll get their moneys worth out of that and would probably pay more on payg (they are on holiday).

so really it works out about £380 for me and the wife to have it, which is £27, a couple of quid more than if we'd got the non alcholic package.

so really that is two ****tails and a glass of wine, i can easily add a few soft drinks to that and generally not be tight with myself as when i am on payg. i can get a costa, i can order a drink instead of getting a free tea from the buffet, etc.

on this cruise we're also on saver fare (there wasn't much point, i'll spare you the long narrative) in norway, so our obc is only £60 (from my shares) so we've not got the usual £200ish to spend on drinks. i'd normally spend about £450 on a cruise, it's mostly on drinks but not exclusively.

so we're realistically paying about £180 more to have as much drinks as we like, don't have to stop the kids guzzling pop and can enjoy a little more booze.

i certainly won't save any cash (if i was on payg, i'd be a bit tight with myself) but will probably have a more fun holiday.

we paid £1400 to have a package on sky princess, i think it's worth a little more tbh as it includes wifi and tips (we do buy wifi), so was never sure why we did it on this, but not on p&o.

it's an experiment, we might just go back to payg on the next one in feb. as we have obc and also we are off the ship a bit more (we basically miss a whole night when in rotterdam), will see how it goes.

so yeh, when you factor in the kids getting the free pop it does work out. i'd guess my lads would drink 5 large glasses a day, with or without the package, as this is the number of meals they consume.

Just added a drinks package to our Norway cruise for £582! Never gone for one before, but thinks it worth it this time with the kids

Thanks for that Botbot, I couldn’t work out the price difference and this explains it!

I recall stock perks was fairly painless and quick. You send the proof, they confirm and you then apply the perk to future cruises. I’ve only just paid my Norway cruise but had the OBC since November.

Can’t see what difference it makes if you’ve paid.

The slow bit was getting them to confirm I owned the shares but it didn’t take long

Haha, I don't think my wife objects to cruising per se, possibly just to my idea that a mere investment of $5000 will be having the family cruising for free for life! I strongly doubt "I'll go on my own then" will be the winning argument!

As a P&O cruiser normally, I'm only just getting to grips with trying the Sky Princess. Weirdly we jumped at the chance to pay £1400 to go all inclusive on the drinks, whilst refusing to do so on P&O.

Thanks for the explanations, sadly I cannot convince my wife what a great opportunity it is.

I've been well down, I think I originally invested at about 25p or something (old money), I kept topping up as it went lower. Now sitting on a decent return and I think I got my holding down to about 7p a share or something. Truth is I've been invested in a few things a bit like this, and it always seems to go the same way, 88e was a good example. I think I made two small fortunes from it, but the talk is always the same.

1. People invest, they claim they're in it for the long term

2. A week passes

3. They haven't got rich yet, so start abusing the share and the board, then usually people on here.

If you've been here any length of time at all, you'd know a % here or there makes no massive change, it's generally on the way up.

Flam is the last port I really need, love the scenery going in and out, it's a great cruise all round, especially for not needing to do a lot. That being said we're on a boat trip and glacier trip (the other one with waffles) and the train at Flam. In all honesty I could do the whole thing again. I'm on Northern Europe at Feb half term, probably going to pretty much do the exact same things we did last time (Miniature Wonderland & Efteling), that's a great itinerary and shame it's changing for 2027. Then it'll be Ventura for a solar eclipse, and then we move to Sky Princess after that. If I wait much longer my investment will have paid for all my cruises (if I include my original investment) I'm not expecting a triple bagger or anything.

Ultimate aim will be a round the world cruise I think when I retire, just to say I've done so, and possibly some of the longer ones.

Thanks Botbot! I think there is some way to go, I'm bad at selling shares too early. I try and justify it on the basis I've not done anything to earn this money and I've got good returns overall. The cruise needs to be paid for on the 1 Jan 2026, well that is when I need to pay the credit card I will put the final payment on, so I think I'll take the view that I'll be happy if by Christmas it still pays for the cruise. I think there is a fair bit of leeway for it to fluctuate over six months.

Got Norway next month, this'll be my third one, we will get to Flam hopefully this time. I then think I've covered all the Norway Iona stops, but I've done one more than the wife and one son (took the other as an end of school trip), and they've not done Alesund. But can't see they missed much. I just enjoy it so much.

Carnival shares are a happy one, where I own them because I like the prospects and I actually like the brand and use it, I ended up selling Tesco for the same reason (that I hate the place)

Not sure I can cope with these steady rises. Based on my average this is actually a 2.6% rise on my original value (currently 1.8% on yesterday), I'm quite a happy holder and I've passed various milestones I've set myself. The last one was to sell when the profits paid for our Northern Europe cruise next Feb, which we passed yesterday. We have various holdings, some of which won't be touched, I bought 402 shares to take advantage of the low rates.

I think the future is bright for CCL, I've thought it for a while, and cruising in general. Seems to be ever more popular, prices going up and lots of full sailings.

I'm just aware you can wake up one morning to find Donald Trump has tweeted about the cruise industry, and my investment goes South.

That being said, someone mentioned £25, I think that's fairly reasonable in the medium term. I think I'll hold for now!