Adonia - Live..well more or less!

MM - very interesting and informative review. Thank you.

One question. Would you recommend port or starboard cabin on that cruise?

Thank you MM for the info re food and crew. I did not want to partake of Little Chef style cuisine for 5 weeks next year !! Have been on Arcadia x 2, Oriana and Aurora with P&O, food was generally good, odd exception and crew were very good.:cool:

Adonis is a lovely small ship and has been nicely refurbished with new carpets - cabins are pleasant.

The itinerary was very good - loved Bordeaux & Honfleur!

Entertainment was average !

Unfortunately food was appalling - on par with a motorway service restaurant !

Meats & fish often overcooked and vegetables tasteless - are they steam heated from frozen ?

Presentation was dreadful !

Crew didn't seem happy - usually so friendly & helpful

So bad we will never cruise with P&O again.

Loyal customers won't criticise but will vote with their feet !

Sad review, sorry it was not good for you. BTW, welcome to the Mighty Cruise Critic. !!

MM - very interesting and informative review. Thank you.

One question. Would you recommend port or starboard cabin on that cruise?

Definately starboard! We were on Port side and missed out on the Bordeaux views. Guernsey makes no difference, but also felt we missed out on the sun a lot.

Thank you MM for the info re food and crew. I did not want to partake of Little Chef style cuisine for 5 weeks next year !! Have been on Arcadia x 2, Oriana and Aurora with P&O, food was generally good, odd exception and crew were very good.:cool:

I would say the same of Adonia...enjoy your back to back.....wish I was coming!

We will be on board on July 28th so have found this very interesting. Thanks.

MM - very interesting and informative review. Thank you.

One question. Would you recommend port or starboard cabin on that cruise?

Ooops! My previous reply was wrong! Got my Port and starboard muddled up....we were onStarboard side (odd number cabins) so Port is best....Sorry!

Ooops! My previous reply was wrong! Got my Port and starboard muddled up....we were onStarboard side (odd number cabins) so Port is best....Sorry!

Good then, we go into Bordeaux and on Port side.:')

Funnily enough my Husband's favourite P&O ships are Britannia and Adonia! As you say, you could not get much greater in the contrast, but they are both wonderful in different ways.

 

Did you enjoy her?

 

Sent from my Sony Z1 Compact.

We loved Britannia and would love to go on her again.

So just back on Friday from my one week cruise and thought I would post mythoughts.

Overall a good cruise and I would definitely sail on Adonia again. Thiscruise reminded me a lot of what I like on P&O

Embarkation was a breeze. We arrived close to two hours early and I make noapologies for that. We knew we might have to wait to board but we taxi fromNorth Bucks and I am not prepared to take a chance with the traffic. Thetraffic on most of the A34 and into Southampton was heavy and we had to divertat one point.

We were called to board about 5 to 10 minutes after taking a seat.However I don't know how many passengers were on Adonia that week - it wasn'tfull so I have to say that it should be possible to board 700 people quickly.

So managed to get lunch on board - first time on 3 P&O cruises since the"new system" started - every other time we have been too late on. Wewent to the Glass House - were the only ones there and had a pleasant lunch anda cocktail to start the cruise off in style.

Cabin was as expected – this was out 5th Adonia cruise so we moreor less knew what to expect. Very annoying to have to empty the minibar to makeroom for our own soft drinks etc. I wonder how many folk actually use theminibar – just seems like extra work forthe poor steward having to fill and empty it all the time.

The new décor on the ship was very tasteful. There was some signs of wearand tear on handrails etc but they seemed to be working on those.

Having booked a saver fare I saw we were allocated first sitting at dinner –too early for us when we are on holiday so I visited the dining room – no queue– and managed to change it straight away to a table for 6 second sitting. Ourtable companions were very pleasant and the buzz and atmosphere in the MDRreminded me of P&O of old.

And so to the food – much better than my last 2 P&O cruises. Meats stilla bit overcooked. Vegetables (when they appeared – one evening the veg was halfan asparagus spear!) tasted like they were steamed from frozen but on the wholemuch improved. In my opinion as a non fish eater and a non offal eater therewas not as much choice as I would have liked but I am probably in the minorityhere so accept that. Melon was again available (though no on the menu) as a starter – it wasn’t onour last two cruises – I did ask.

Waiters were nice but didn’t introduce themselves nor stop and chat – they seemedstressed which was a shame.

Wine was a bit of a palaver. My mum was with me on this cruise and she onlydrinks white zinfandel which despite being available in the bars was apparentlynot abailable in the restaurant either by the glass or by the bottle. A chatwith the head wine waiter the next day resolved this issue (though you stillcouldn’t order a bottle of it in the Ocean Grill).

The Dining Room accidentally mixed up the menus and so we got the so called “galamenus” on non formal nights and ordinary menus on formal nights. Theyacknowledged this was an error. The general consensus on our table was that theweek started well food wise but tailed off a bit and was “ok” by the end. Butmuch much better than the poor food we had on Adonia in April.

We had meal in the Ocean Grill – which was lovely – but we realised that themenu was exactly the same as it was on our first cruise 6 years ago. Could dowith a freshen up. We had several lunches and 1 dinner in the Glass House –sadly an under used venue and only once was it busy – most of the time itlacked atmosphere. Menu didn’t change over the week and was smaller than theAzura’s Glass House.

Internet connection was poor and the librarian who set it up was out of herdepth with it. No connection at all when we were in Dublin. I connected atlunchtime when I boarded but it stopped working and there was a large queue inthe library trying to get the problems sorted. We were sent down to reception andan even larger queue with only one member of staff there. They told us we wouldhave to bring our passports down to resolve it as we weren’t properly registeredas being on board the ship (which seems worrying) but it did resolve itself acouple of hours later. There should have been more staff on reception thoughand the librarian should have had some training. I got a modest discount on thecost of the internet part way through the cruise because of the poor signal. Iam not a techie and don’t know how it all works but the connection was muchpoorer than on any previous cruise.

Talking of the library – it was lovely as usual but I wish they didn’t lockthe books away when the librarian not on duty (which was most of the time). Dopassengers really steal books?

Not usually much of a show person I saw two of the Adonia Theatre Companiesevening productions and they were excellent. Also the play – Relative Values.These 4 people worked very hard and sing and danced very well. I rarely go toshows and every time I see the Headliners I usually praise their enthusiasm buthate the screechy singing –this was very different and those 4 young peopleshould be commended. I gather this is their first time at sea as well so evenmore kudos to them.

Entertainment team seemed to work hard and were friendly without patronisingthe passengers which I have hated before. Andersons was almost always busy andhad a good buzz to it. Rick and Laura, and the pianist whose name I have sadly forgotten were veryacceptable. Sadly I never made it to the Crows Nest and never saw Soundwaves –the week flew past and there wasn’t enough time for everything.

Made on visit to shore excursions to look at a trip in Honfleur – but no-onethere – they were advertised as being open. Several other passengers millingabout also had to give up.

Visited the future cruise desk (which in my opinion is wrongly situated inthe foyer on the 5th floor – spoils the look and should bedownstairs on reception) and hated having to stand and wait withoutacknowledgement from the two members of staff who were talking to each other –a simple “ have a seat and we’ll be with you in a moment” would have sufficed.

The buffet was lovely for breakfast. Personally I would have liked a littlemore choice at lunch and never went there in the evening, but I couldn’t reallyfault it and the staff were very attentive.

Many passengers commented on the number of small things that went wrong onthe ship – hard to define really but there was definitely a feel that a lot ofstaff were still learning their job.

So would I cruise P&O again – well yes on Adonia but not on the biggerships. But the price has to be right. Most passengers paid very little for thiscruise as far as I can determine – either through having a half price detail onbuying a saver (many people seemed to have paid – like us - £599 each for thebalcony cabin for the week). And at that price I have no real gripe – it isvalue for money.

I did enquire about a two week cruise for September 2018 and was quoted£2,850 ish each for that for a balcony – and I am afraid at that price I don’tthink its value for money. Obviously each to their own but with drinks etc ontop I don’t believe that is competitive – I would pay quite a bit less onCelebrity for two weeks and have a drinks package thrown in.

So in summary – a good cruise –restored my faith a bit in P&O – but notenough to tempt me away from Celebrity unless I get a good deal!

Sorry for the spacing in my post above - I copied and pasted from Word but it seems to have gone a bit askew!

Interesting that the Glass House was open for lunch on embarkation day. I wish that was the case on the other ships, where it is only open for drinks but not food until the evening on the first day. We often use the Glass House for lunch throughout our cruise and avoid the buffet like the plague, other than embarkation day when there is no other choice. I agree that the Glass House appears to be under utilised on many ships (on Aurora in May we were often the only passengers in there), yet opening it for lunch on embarkation day would be a great way to showcase it and would no doubt encourage repeat visits throughout the cruise. Perhaps on the bigger ships they are fearful that they wouldn't be able to cope with the numbers as I'm sure we are not alone in not enjoying the buffet experience.

I was informed on Azura 2 weeks ago that the Glasshouse will be open for lunch on embarkation day.

The Glasshouse on Adonia, is that a cover charge eatery or included in the fare?;) What sort of food do they serve in there?

The Glasshouse on Adonia, is that a cover charge eatery or included in the fare?;) What sort of food do they serve in there?

Menu and prices

https://carnivaluk.metafaq.com/resources/carnivaluk/life-on-board/AD_glasshouse.pdf

Brian

The Glasshouse on Adonia, is that a cover charge eatery or included in the fare?;) What sort of food do they serve in there?

No, there is no cover charge, but each item on the menu has a charge against it. You do not have to reserve a table - you just turn up. It is open from 11am to 11pm. The Glass House (it's actually two words) is on Britannia, Azura (this was the original one) Ventura, Aurora and now Adonia. Oceana is about to get one in her refresh, but Arcadia does not have one, neither does Oriana.

The menu is varied. See Brian's link to the menus. There are two menus that alternate, with minor differences between the two.

The concept of The Glass House was actually a bar that served wine by the glass which you would normally have to buy a bottle for. They have what is called an 'enomatic system' which allows a wine bottle to be kept open and fresh for quite some time. The food was actually supposed to be a secondary thing, but it is good food and cooked to order so has become pretty popular, which is why they have expanded it from the original one on Azura to most of the other ships.

Highly recommended. :)

Thanks Brian and Cruise Puss, so you pay for what you order. Interesting menu.:p

Might give it a whirl during our 5 weeks on Adonia next year.;)