Families beware of the need to book early …

I know you are probably thinking I am stating the obvious when I say this but families really need to book early and I’m not just talking about school holidays. In the last couple of days I have been checking a few family cruises for next year and have been faced with 2 different blockers. I checked a cruise for a family before they travelled on this summers family cruise and then have just checked it again and they have put the child’s prices up by over £500pp in just 4 weeks !! I have seen prices go up and change but never that I have noticed like this before.

You obviously also have the normal 4 bedded cabins that are limited that encourages early booking on my own cruise which booked about March time you have to go for a higher cabin category to get to get anything for a family of 3 or 4 available.

Did you know though that P&O also limit the number of children onboard? They do this in age categories as below

6 Months – 23 Months
24 Months – 35 Months
3 Years – 4 Years
5 Years – 8 Years
9 Years – 12 Years
13 Years – 16 Years

This policy is not just limited to voyages during the summer and other school holiday periods either, I checked a cruise for June next year and a couple of the categories are already fully booked.
You would think that the purpose of this would be so they can manage how many children they have in the children’s clubs but apparently it isn’t just this reason.

A statement from P&O says
‘P&O Cruises says the policy is guided by legislation: “Even if the child travelling is not registered to the children’s club or doesn’t wish to use the facilities, we can still not allow this child to travel if we have already reached our maximum. Therefore bookings are offered on a first come, first served basis.”

There is only P&O that has this policy no other cruise line has this policy.

Have you been affected by this policy?