Selbourne

Looks like you can book any of the P&O ships then, as it appears that those ships with freedom only dining are allowing people to pre-book fixed tables at a time of their choosing for the entire cruise (well, that’s certainly happening on Arvia)!

Based on recent comments about portion sizes in the MDRs, if you add a desert and cheese to that you may not need to do a raid of the buffet later in the evening 😂

It’s the same with all pre cruise purchases (excursions, dining etc). You get your loyalty discount but cannot use OBC. If you make any purchases on board it works differently. Any OBC is deducted first, and then your loyalty discount only applies to any outstanding balance. Why the difference? Win, win for P&O 😉

Given that the ability to have breakfast in Epicurean is one of the few perks of being in a suite, this seems a very odd move. We have used suites multiple times, but we no longer feel that they are worth the price premium, given the overall changes in the product that P&O now offers. Paying that amount per night gets us on Cunard in Britannia Club, which is what we are switching to next year to compare and contrast. However, being able to pay half the price of a suite (with a Balcony cabin) and pay £8.50 to dine in Epicurean seems like a good deal, but I’d be pretty miffed if I’d paid for a suite and then found that this option was available to anybody!

On our first cruise (Oriana 1996) people were commenting on how big she was compared to Canberra. I wonder how many years before people are talking about things being different on the new ships compared to the smaller ships like Iona and Arvia? 😂

Certainly much better than it was during the Truss debacle, but as recently as 15 years ago it was 2 dollars to the pound and the broad trends have been downwards ever since!

I think you may have hit the nail on the head. Allow bookings for the quieter / less popular times, thus pulling pressure away from the peak times?

😱 😂

Interesting and further confirms my concerns. People making block bookings at the restaurant desk and the staff having to work around ‘reserved’ tables, along with the issues that Eglesbrech raised, all result in a much slower and less efficient process than the first come, first served process that has worked so well for decades!

Now that international travel has opened up again, I think that there will start to be some correction in U.K. pricing as people will refuse to pay some of the inflated prices. We rent a very nice property on the Isle of Wight for two separate weeks of the year. Being retired, we can avoid school holidays and the prices are therefore reasonable, albeit they have increased quite a bit. However, I find it interesting that the property is pretty much fully booked for the whole of this year, with the sole exception of the school summer holidays, which would usually be the first to be booked in any U.K. holiday home. The reason? The prices for one week at this time are now around £2,000. Bearing in mind that it’s self catering, once you add on the cost of dining out every day, ferry travel etc it would be cheaper to go on a cruise. Ok, neither the cruise accommodation nor the food are anywhere near as good as what we enjoy on the Isle of Wight, but I know what my kids would have preferred when they were at school!

Thanks again. That’s incredibly helpful. I had absolutely no idea that you could pre book the MDR for the entire cruise before you even sail. Whilst I can see that being useful and reassuring, I can also see it as being the cause of many of the MDR problems that are being reported, as any people will inevitably change their plans during the cruise (dining time or choice of restaurant) yet not cancel their original bookings as you did. It completely explains why people are waiting a long time for a table, only to find the restaurant half empty when they eventually get in! I’m staggered that this hasn’t been debated at length on this forum, especially as there’s a tendency to debate at considerable length matters that have far less impact on the cruise experience! I really feel that P&O will need to review this. We have never experienced the long queues or delays that people are reporting, but neither has there ever been the ability to block book tables before. I can’t help but feel that the two issues are directly related. However, now that I know that you can pre-book the MDR I will do as you did and then cancel if we change our plans (assuming that the same system will be in operation on Iona in August).

Especially if you want to go to the USA, given the strength of the dollar / weakness of Sterling.

A brilliantly written and highly informative review. Thank you for doing it. We haven’t cruised since the introduction of the booking app, but have two P&O cruises booked for this year (inc one on Iona) and I am a bit confused about the MDR arrangements. Perhaps you could clarify? I knew that MDRs on Iona and Arvia are Freedom Dining only and I was under the impression that you join a virtual queue each night as and when you want to dine. However, you mention that you booked tables for dinner for every night before the cruise. I had no idea that it was possible to book the MDR prior to even joining the cruise. I also assumed that you had to book each evening as it came, and had no idea that you could pre-book every night in one go. Were these things unique for that cruise or are they a standard thing now? Also, I didn’t realise that you had to pre book a table for breakfast rather than just turn up. Is that another new thing on all cruises and does the same apply to lunch in the MDR? Several reviews seem to mention long waits and yet when they get to the MDR there are loads of empty tables. It strikes me that this will be as a result of this new approach, as people will block book and then change their plans, but many won’t cancel MDR tables as you did. Perhaps I’m missing something? I was also interested to read that your wife uses a wheelchair as mine does also. I’ve seen screen shots of the booking app and I think there’s an option to select if you have a wheelchair user. My worry about that is that you always end up with poor tables in high flow areas, which we hate. My wife’s wheelchair is a bit narrower than most and we can easily get to most tables. Any tips or reassurance based upon your experiences would be most welcome.

I can understand your disappointment. A suite is a big financial commitment and you shouldn’t have to feel that you are making a compromise, especially if the compensation for being bumped from your chosen suite is negligible. The suite that you have been offered is a lower grade suite than the one you booked. On that basis, your cruise fare should be reduced, on top of any compensation offered. Hopefully you have also been made aware that the balcony is steel fronted (rather than glass) which will affect the outlook and the balcony cannot be used in strong winds. It is also directly underneath the bridge. Hopefully, not only has your TA alerted you to these points, but they should have used them to negotiate a better compensation deal for you. If you are deciding to go ahead then I’m sure that you will have a very enjoyable cruise. We have had two forward suites on Britannia (admittedly with glass fronted balconies to the side) and both times we enjoyed the suite far more than we did the one aft suite that we had on the same ship (which we had multiple problems with and wouldn’t book again). Forward suites are blissfully quiet (important on a busy ship) and also provide a unique perspective on where you are going, rather than where you have been! We would much prefer a forward suite over a more expensive suite on the side of the ship, which affords no special view and can suffer from noise from passengers passing your suite at night. You will also be the first to board the ship (helpful for securing those critical dining reservations) and will be able to enjoy a relaxing breakfast in Epicurean (assuming that’s where suite passengers dine on Arvia). Enjoy!

I have no knowledge of the airline industry, but find it hard to believe (and quite frightening if true) that an entire cabin crew on a plane could be brand new, given that they are safety critical roles. If it was a maiden flight of a brand new aircraft there’s no way that they’d all be newbies on their first flight! And we are talking about a maiden cruise with over 1,000 crew, of which many hundreds will have served on other ships, so not really a relevant comparison anyway!

If, as you seem to be suggesting, it is known that a P&O ship will not be finished and ready for its maiden voyage, why do they carry a price premium? If that’s the case, surely they should be offered to regulars at a hefty discount to ‘road test’ it, making it clear that it’s a learning exercise. Expecting passengers to pay a premium for what is effectively a ‘shake down cruise’ seems contradictory. With all due respect, this sounds more like making implausible excuses after the event. We were booked on the very original Iona maiden cruise, cancelled due to Covid. At no stage was it made clear to us that the cruise might be a learning exercise. We rightly expected the finished product. P&O seem to be overlooking one of the golden rules of business - that you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Because Cunard have just introduced Freedom dining as an alternative to Fixed dining, they have enhanced the dining options with Club. As well as the full MDR menu, at dinner there are now additional a’la carte options. I don’t know much detail about it as it’s a new addition, but I believe it includes things like dishes being flambé’d at the table.

I think that those of us who have used Freedom dining before are fully aware that whilst you have the ‘freedom’ to dine when you want, you may still have a wait (with a pager or an app) until your table is available. That’s fine. What isn’t fine is booking a cruise expecting Freedom dining and when you get on board your choice is effectively the freedom to choose between first or second sitting, but still with a queue! Fair enough on Christmas Day and New Years Eve, but not the whole cruise. Hopefully this was a one off for the maiden cruise and normality has now returned?

I agree it’s crazy and I’m surprised that this isn’t featuring more in all the reviews, as the ability to dine whenever you please is a major attraction for those of us who like Freedom dining. So it’s not people’s reluctance to use the app that’s the problem and causing the queues, it’s the fact that you can’t use the app as advertised to dine whenever you wish? I’m staggered.

Is that the case? If so, no wonder they are having problems. Also, customers aren’t getting what they have paid for - the freedom to dine when they wish.

When on a 7 night cruise we tend to only use the MDR for formal nights and the speciality restaurants for the rest. However, having read all the reviews regarding queues, staff shortages, small portion sizes etc with the MDR, I can see us using the speciality restaurants every night during our summer fjord cruise on Iona! Thankfully, after our next two P&O cruises we are booked on Cunard in Britannia Club, where we will have our own dedicated table for our sole use throughout the whole cruise, so we can turn up whenever we like (Breakfast, lunch or dinner) and not have to queue (virtually or physically). As Britannia Club is a smaller / separate dining room to the MDR on Cunard (other than on QM2), P&O could have adopted the ‘Club’ concept on Iona and Arvia, using one of the two smaller dining rooms. It would have provided an extra income stream (Britannia Club carries quite a price premium over the standard Britannia class on Cunard, even though the cabins are the same size) and taken some pressure off the MDR’s, as those who book Club are more likely to be the type of cruisers that prefer to use MDRs. I guess the stumbling point would be that there may be insufficient numbers of people willing to pay the premium with P&O, given the re-positioning of the brand, particularly with Iona and Arvia, towards the budget cruising market?

That’s what I thought. Thanks for confirming. It wouldn’t make sense if you couldn’t book a table for your group.

So as we have 3 cabins, each with 2 passengers, how do we book one table for 6?

I was under the impression that you could reserve a table for more people than were in your cabin? Can someone confirm one way or the other? We are going on Iona with both our adult children and I was rather hoping that I could leave it to them to book a table for all of us each evening. Like many people, one thing that I love about cruising is not having to carry a phone around with me. It goes in the cabin safe once we leave Southampton and only comes out on port days!

We like both ships. Pros and cons with both. Aurora Pros - Older passenger profile (circa 75 average) so quieter / Adult only / Crows Nest forward facing bar / level full circuit promenade deck / about the only P&O ship that I haven’t read poor reviews about lately! Cons - Poor choice of speciality restaurants (and Sindhu is adjacent to the noisy atrium) / B deck is the only deck where the balconies are fully open (A and C deck are cut out of the hull so have slight enclosures at the corners) Ventura Pros - Epicurean fine dining restaurant / bigger ship = more space to explore Cons - No forward facing bar / promenade deck has raised section with steps at the front and it gets closed when windy / passenger profile younger so can be a bit more ‘lively’ (of course, for many that would be a positive) but not to the same degree as the biggest ships. The cabins on both ships are very dated, but we would happily go on either.