Where are the Village People?

Before I start I don’t want to confuse anybody. I’m not asking where the rather splendid people pictured below are, although at some point I’m sure we will see them on reality TV.

No the Village people I am referring to are the people that we used to book on the Ocean Village cruise ships. When they first came along to me they seemed to have found a gap in the market, or at least convinced people they had with the strap line ” The cruise for people who don’t do cruises”.  People seemed to love the fact we had just booked them on a cruise but it was a different kind of cruise, almost special just brought out for them. Well I suppose in a way it was, what other cruise line had people on mountain bikes on the front cover.

I personally loved booking them as it was a really easy way for travel agents who at the time had this fear of selling cruise to be able to sell to the masses. Once we had booked a few cruises and got feedback from the customers the floodgates opened. Everyone who walked through door was asked “Have you thought about a cruise?” and then you would here “It is a cruise for people who don’t do cruising”. 30 Minutes later they were walking out a little lighter in the wallet but convinced they had booked something cool and exciting. Something different from everyone else. They had but not by much, the ships were still a good standard and the lay out on board was still very smart and modeled on some of it’s bigger cousins from P&O.

They also had lot’s of regional flights from Scotland and Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester serving the north and fantastic itineraries to the Med and great Caribbean cruise and stay options in the winter. They also appealed to people of all ages and not just in the target market and age group they had. I booked a widowers/friendship group aged from 50-80 and they loved it, so much so they booked to go on it again. They would have booked again but once it was announced the ships were to decommissioned and moved to P&O Australia then they never did another cruise.

So what I would like to know is do we have any people out there who cruised with ocean village and if so how did you find it? Was it your first taste of cruising and have you moved on to bigger and better Ships. Do you think it was that different and if so has it been replaced? Or what do you think would be a current comparison?

I personally think it was just advertised really well and it was not that different from a lot of other things on offer. Maybe it was P&O just trying to get all the Thomson and Airtours sun cruise customers, show them a higher standard and entice them onto P&O, Princess and Cunard in the future.

I would love to know what everybody thinks or hear of any fond or not memories.

So here’s to all the Village People

Y – you

M – must

C -cruise

A – again