Selbourne

Whilst, like others, we have had a variation in the quality and thoroughness of cabin stewards, I can’t say that we’ve ever had cause to complain. They generally work like Trojans and always strike me as the hardest working staff on the ship. I have always been impressed with the cleaning regime around the ship as well. However, all our cruises were pre “you know what”, so hopefully we will still be as impressed during our 4 P&O cruises that we now have booked over the next year.

Those nachos don’t look as good as the ones we had at lunchtime today in our local Marco Pierre White’s New York Italian restaurant 😉 Glad you enjoyed it as most recent reviews have suggested that Beach Houses aren’t as good as they were. I’m 50/50 about going there in August on Iona as we only have 7 nights and we want to do Epicurean twice, Limelight Club (act permitting), Sindhu and the MDR on celebration night (Chefs Table doesn’t appeal). My wife and I like the sound of the Norwegian tasting menu in Epicurean but our daughters aren’t as keen, so we might suggest they do the Beach House whilst we are doing that as eldest daughter loves a nice steak!

I’m going to have to attempt that burger one lunchtime when we are on Iona and that dessert looks fabulous 😋

With the number of posts that are deleted on this forum these days, I reckon that the moderator must be a world champion at “Whack a Mole” 🤣 (awaits deletion…..)

and there, of course, lies the problem!

We have also found that shuttles are variable for wheelchair users. Sometimes it’s a breeze, especially if normal buses with fold down ramps are used, other times it’s a nightmare having to wait for an adapted minibus which can only take a few people at a time and takes an eternity to load and unload. Like you, our favourite ports are those that require no shuttles!

Does it include the music from the film Titanic? 😉

Assisted embarkation works like this - when you enter the terminal there is a dedicated waiting area for those who have booked assistance. It’s very obvious but staff will be on hand to direct you. There will be a staff member there with a clipboard with names on. Once you’ve let them know you have arrived, you take a seat and wait. They deal with people in order of P&O loyalty Club status (so higher loyalty tiers first) and then in order of check in time within each tier, so it’s not (as some think) a cunning way to queue jump. There are a small army of wheelchair pushers in high viz vests who, when your time comes, will provide a wheelchair (if you don’t have one) and they will take you to the check in desks where you check in as normal, through security and right the way onto the ship (usually to the buffet). They then return, with the wheelchair and repeat the process for the next passenger. It’s very useful and something that P&O do very well.

I agree. We like to go to Epicurean for both Menu A and Menu B. In the past we have unknowingly pre-booked for two days when it’s the same menu and we couldn’t swap days when on board as the restaurant was fully booked.

Exactly. ‘Full’ can be anywhere between 5,000 (lower berths with some solos in double cabins on special offers) and 6,000 plus with most of the upper berths full. We are on Iona in the summer school holidays. Now that really will be full. Very full 😱

What a shame. Don’t worry. It was primarily to respond to ICFs comments and to illustrate that we are paying very little more for a balcony than he is prepared to pay for an inside. I fail to see why they had to be deleted. Very few threads on this forum don’t drift into other things. No harm in that IMHO as long as they are cruise related 🤷‍♂️

Where have you moved the posts Sharon? I appreciate that we had drifted off topic (as most threads do) but I don’t believe that there was anything contentious and it was an interesting debate, but I can’t find them?

As discussed earlier in this thread, it seems to now vary by ship. With Arvia and Iona you can pre book most speciality restaurants before you cruise. With the other ships it says that you can only pre book selected restaurants but, in reality, some are finding that you can’t even do that and can only pre book the Limelight Club, even though the cruise Personaliser clearly states that other restaurants can be booked 2 weeks in advance. It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment.

A very clever man and a sad loss. Sir Les Patterson was my favourite of his creations. The best quote I ever heard was when he said he had just returned from holiday “I didn’t know whether I should be lying on the beach, looking at the Sheila’s, or lying on the Sheila’s looking at the beach” 😂 That being said, it’s always a shame when you actually meet, or see, famous people and their behaviour is less than acceptable. In a previous life I met quite a lot of famous people. Some were absolutely lovely and others were quite unpleasant. Often the real life persona is very different from that which they like to portray.

Like many, in the past we used to go to the theatre shows religiously. As we started cruising more regularly we found that we’d seen all the shows multiple times. This meant that we were more focussed on whether the Headliners troupe on that cruise were good or not! And boy, do they vary. We have seen some lead singers that are frankly wasted on cruise ships and should be on West End stages. Conversely, we’ve seen a few that make us wonder how on earth they got through the audition! It sounds as though there are some new shows that we haven’t seen, so we will give them a go. A major negative for us now is that as my wife is in a wheelchair we often struggle to get seated together. As terrierjohn accurately described earlier on another thread, it is really infuriating when scooter users, or even just elderly folk who use a walking stick, plonk themselves in the end seats that are really intended for the companions of wheelchair users, when they could easily go a seat or two further along. As a result, I find it a bit stressful which takes a lot of the pleasure out of it. In all honesty though, the biggest issue for me is that after a big meal and a few drinks, I am unable to get through an entire show in a dark theatre without nodding off, so I end up missing bits 🤣

Don’t worry - we are allowed to have different opinions 😉. You are, of course, quite correct. I had overlooked the fact that Freedom Dining has changed on some ships and is now not as advertised, being a sort of hybrid mix of freedom and club dining. The scenario that you describe would work perfectly in this instance.

I got confused by that the other day. They are the correct shares. The $1.66 was the issue price of the shares, not the current price. When you start to buy the shares the current U.K. price (around 665p) comes up.

Unless you particularly don’t want to eat with your parents each night, I would have thought that you’d be better off if you were all first sitting on the same table. We tend to dine fairly late and have frequently noticed parents with young children dining late, because it suits them, whilst the little ones are over tired and irritable. When our kids were young we dined early in order to avoid this and most parents of young kids do the same, so you wouldn’t feel out of place.

Excellent. That would suit us perfectly. We are quite happy being the only guests in a restaurant. What most people consider to be ‘atmosphere’, we consider to be noise! 😂

We obviously won’t know until we try it whether it gets our vote or not. They have upgraded Britannia Club recently with the addition of a la carte options at dinner, over and above the full MDR menu. I suspect that this was in order to retain a value added factor, given that the main Club benefit of freedom dining has now been introduced in the standard Britannia MDRs. Frankly, it’s the dedicated table that particularly appeals for any or all of breakfast, lunch and dinner and no need to book or get a pager. The supplement that we paid over Britannia was £70 a day (for the two of us), which is a lot less than they charge for some cruises and, as you will know, way below that of the grill classes. I know that grill class food will be far better, but even though we could afford it we just wouldn’t want to pay those prices. We did a ships tour of QM2 some years ago and were surprised at how cramped the grill class restaurants seemed and how close many of the tables were to each other. I’m sure that Club will be the same, but we at least won’t have paid grill prices!

If there was a way to vote for the best cruise reviews, Vamps gets my vote. I just love the real world descriptions of everything, and those two girls are adorable. The weather on this cruise looks sensational.

Correct, although you wouldn’t be in 3rd class, you’d be in steerage 😂

Yes. Britannia is their standard MDR. Britannia Club is next, which is a smaller dedicated MDR which offers the MDR menu plus some a La carte additions. Then there’s grill level, which is Princes Grill followed by the top level Queens Grill. The advantage of both Britannia Club and Grill restaurants is that you have your own personal table for your sole use throughout the whole cruise, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus you can dine whenever you like with no need to book. Ultimate Freedom Dining I guess. We have booked Britannia Club for our first Cunard Cruise next year, but it comes at a price that is comparable to a suite on P&O. However, we much prefer the sound of it to just being able to have breakfast in Epicurean, which is the sole dining privilege of a suite with P&O . You are, of course, quite correct that cruising with P&O is now cheaper than ever, particularly on the two biggest ships. Where I think we differ though is in accepting that price and value are two completely different things. I might be able to book a very cheap cruise now, but may not consider it to be such good ‘value’ as paying more for an enhanced experience. If P&O were to offer the equivalent of Club dining we would snap it up. Yes, it would be more expensive, but we would consider it to be better value!

In your situation, I probably wouldn’t bid at those prices. Superior Deluxe cabins are very spacious and presumably you have secured one in a nice spot. We have stayed in one of the Penthouses on Ventura. The additional space over a regular suite is wasted IMHO. The only advantage is that with an upgrade bid you know it’s one of two cabins. The balconies are a bit overlooked from a public area above. Definitely not worth the extra cost over a normal suite. Mid-ship suites are problematic on Ventura as they are under a pool deck and you can be woken very early by deck crew dragging chairs around to wash decks down. Aft suites are very nice and I could be tempted if I knew I’d definitely get one, but you could well end up with one of the two forward suites that have steel fronted balconies, that I’d hate. Molecrochip makes a very good point about the family suite giving you an entry into suite benefits but, as I say, I’d probably stick with what you’ve got.