Selbourne

I agree. We might be described as P&O traditionalists, but we go on all the ships for different reasons. We prefer the itineraries and passenger profile of the smaller ships, but we prefer the more modern facilities and additional dining options on the bigger ones. Other than tender operations (which are more time consuming on the bigger ships), I can’t say that we have noticed more overcrowding on the bigger ships, but we are booked on Iona in August when I suspect that we will be with 6,000 other guests……. As you say, it’s how passenger flow is managed that is critical. Even Aurora can be unpleasantly crowded around the atrium on sea days, especially in poor weather!

We very much look forward to reading your comments. The President of P&O cruises has already responded. 99.9% of passengers on your cruise had a fantastic time and the tiny few that didn’t experienced some minor issues that won’t be repeated 🤔

We have only cruised with P&O (we’ve done some ships tours, meals and overnights on a couple of other lines, but that doesn’t count) and, like you, I really like reading the posts of those who are able to compare P&O with other lines. One or two posters seem to get very agitated when people make comparisons, which is completely illogical to me as it is one of the main objectives of a site such as this. However, many of us who have only cruised with P&O, but for many years (in our case since 1996) are also able to make very valid comparisons, and that is the comparison between P&O as it was and P&O as it has become. IMO, those opinions are equally valid and should not be dismissed. For the first 20 years or so of our cruising with P&O we felt that it was a decent 4 star experience (I’m talking quality, rather than facilities). In the 3 years 2017-19, leading up to Covid, we did 9 cruises across 4 different P&O ships and during this period we started to notice a gradual erosion in the quality of the experience, such that we now feel it has become a 3 star experience (again, I’m using this term to describe quality rather than amenities). I should say at this point that this is why I get irritated when one or two posters continually dismiss the opinions of those who haven’t cruised since Covid, as we were noticing the changes for several years before the pandemic. However, I must be balanced here and say that along with this gradual change in the product offered by P&O, the prices, in real terms, have fallen (the exception being the adult only ships, which can still be quite expensive). I have also said several times on this forum that whilst I don’t particularly like the way that P&O has repositioned the brand, it makes a great deal of sound business sense. They simply couldn’t fill the vast capacity that they have now if they still offered a 4 star experience at 4 star prices. We still have a couple of P&O cruises booked as, whilst we have been deeply concerned to read all the negative feedback, we don’t want to write P&O off without experiencing the post Covid P&O for ourselves. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to book a last minute cruise on Iona at a very cheap price - our view being that whilst me might have gone with fairly low expectations, the price reflected that! However, P&O simply cannot still be using Covid as an excuse for poor standards. My concern is that having run on low staffing levels for so long, they will try to maintain overly tight crew numbers even with higher passenger numbers in order to squeeze more profit per cruise. Whilst our commitment to two future P&O cruises shows that we are keeping an open mind and haven’t written P&O off, we have seen enough since 2017 to tell us that we need to start looking at other options. That is why we have booked our first full cruise with another operator - a 2 week Cunard cruise next year in Britannia Club which, from the reviews I have read, sounds as though it may be the type of cruise experience that we would enjoy more. However, the prices are comparable to a suite on P&O, so whilst it might irritate those who dislike comparisons being made, we fully intend to compare and contrast with our two 2023 P&O cruises and will report back here accordingly!

Thank you so much for clarifying this vital issue. Thank goodness that common sense has prevailed at last. That is a big worry taken away from us and will allow us to consider more bookings now, with more confidence that we will end up with the cabin that we booked and not having to worry about being imprisoned!

Could you clarify exactly what this means please? Has P&O dispensed with ALL requirements to quarantine (just as at home, or on any other type of holiday), or do you mean that there are no longer zones of quarantine cabins that people are moved to? We have 3 Deluxe Balcony cabins booked on Iona in August at considerable cost and it was my intention to cancel all of them before balance due date if quarantine zones were being maintained, as the last time I checked they were in the quarantine zone, so we would have had changes to our cabins a few weeks before departure that would have been unacceptable to us. If, as I suspect, you mean the latter (I.e. people still have to quarantine, but in their booked cabin), I’m curious to know what happens to those in inside cabins who test positive when the ship is fully booked, as it could well be when we are on her.

We had an aft corner wrap suite (F730) for two weeks around the Med in 2017 and wouldn’t book it again. We had multiple problems with it - noise from the Live Lounge two decks below, multiple rattles from the vibration when at sea, soot on the balcony and the fact that there’s a plumbing plant room accessed from the lobby of the suite which services multiple cabins around it, so we heard the flushing system continuously. Whilst the large balcony was nice (even though you had to be very mindful of the soot on the floor, seats and handrails) we much preferred the forward facing suites, which we had used twice before without incidents. Although we usually love Epicurean for breakfast on Britannia, on our last cruise the experience was spoiled by a very noisy family and a baby that cried continuously, yet the parents rarely took it out to calm it and give other diners some peace (as we always did when our kids were that young). Having had suites on P&O quite a few times, we have taken the view now that they aren’t worth the price premium. We will cruise with P&O in a balcony cabin (usually the largest you can get) because the prices are reasonable, but if splashing out more we have decided that we want a better quality overall cruise experience than is now offered by P&O. That’s why we have booked a cruise with Cunard in Britannia Club to compare and contrast. Similar price per night as a suite with P&O, but the main benefit (a personal table for your sole use in a dedicated Club restaurant, which you can use whenever you like for any or all of breakfast, lunch and dinner - all at times of your choosing each day with no reservation or pagers needed - and additional a’la carte menu items at dinner over and above the MDR menu) appeals far more than just having breakfast in the Epicurean. We have also disliked the Butler service on P&O. They have some uses (notably obtaining free room service items, which the few good ones we’ve had extended that benefit to our daughters who were booked in the adjacent balcony cabin) but, overall, we found them to be intrusive, turning up doing nothing of benefit to appear useful (all with an end of cruise tip in mind) when the real work is done by the cabin steward. Finally, as we are now Caribbean tier with P&O, we get priority boarding anyway, so one of the very few suite perks is no longer of use to us.

Well done for, as ever, being able to articulate with great diplomacy what many of us are thinking but are too afraid to say!

Given how late some of them had their dinner, can you blame them? 😂 I wonder if that comment was made in sarcasm due to how delayed things were? Edit - Thinking about it, wasn’t it Arvia that had the late Xmas Dinner problem or was it Iona as well? I’m getting confused 😂

Apologies. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have mentioned the grammar especially as, in my case, it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black!. I was being a bit tongue in cheek to fuel the conspiracy theories, hence the emoji. Your posts are far too articulate to be the other poster that I was obliquely referring to 😂 Having contributed to this forum for many years, I can assure you that almost all contributors give very balanced feedback and views, both good and bad. P&O does seem to be having quite a few issues at present, so it is inevitable that the conversation in the 3 weeks that you have been a contributor to Cruise Critic will seem more skewed to the negatives. These problems have come on top of a brand repositioning that might make a lot of sense (as they are after a bigger market segment than before), but isn’t landing as well with many who enjoyed the P&O of old. All these points are valid and should be discussed. Having another contributor with inside knowledge is very welcome, but just as you may feel that some are overly critical, there can be a natural tendency for staff members to be overly defensive. In many respects, the reasons for shortfalls in service whilst interesting are irrelevant. Customers pay for a service and have a right to expect it. Everyone understands that things can go wrong but, as others have said, it’s how you handle these problems that set apart good companies from poor ones. P&O don’t have the best record in this respect and their land based customer service is woeful and has been for years. Sadly, there has never been any evidence that the decision makers at P&O ever read these forums but, if they did and, better still, they acted on some of the recurring issues that crop up, they could generate a lot more bookings, which could only be a good thing.

We went to Rotterdam on our last cruise (Aurora). We had a lovely day there. You can walk everywhere from the ship and we found it to be a really nice and quite different city. One of the nicest places for a short cruise IMHO

The biggest shock for me in all of this is the fact that “P&O has major IT problems” is deemed to be a national news story. P&O’s IT system hasn’t been fit for purpose for the last 10 years at least. This is hardly ‘new’ news 😂

It’s all the daft restrictions that makes the P&O drinks package a complete non-starter for us. Beer aside, most of what we drink is excluded. Mrs Selbourne will have a G&T comprising a double measure and a Fever Tree tonic. The drinks package only allows a single measure and the cheap and nasty tonics. We would generally order a 250ml glass of wine and couldn’t be bothered to be chasing down the ever diminishing staff to refill the small glass that the package allows. If we go to a show after dinner we would get a double measure of something. Only a single allowed. I could go on but, for us, when on holiday we like to drink what we fancy, not what we are ‘allowed’.

Make that 3 of us 😂. I remember being fascinated by the loading of steel on a ship in St Petersburg when we first went there and berthed in the commercial port rather than the new cruise terminal. Mind you, I also love passing Oil Rigs when heading up to Norway. Sadly, my wife and daughters just roll their eyes at me when I endeavour to point out these interesting things!

No worries. I have those all the time - and I’m not really that senior (yet) 😂

Sorry, you’ve lost me there wowzz 🤔

We are the same. We pick a cruise for the itinerary first (by some margin) and the ship second. We don’t mind the odd sea day to break up a port intensive itinerary, but we don’t enjoy them anywhere near as much as port days. We tend not to do excursions these days, so are happy to spend a few hours ashore exploring on our own, and then we enjoy the (quiet) ship in the afternoon whilst watching all the comings and goings ashore. We did a 24 night USA and Canada cruise a few years ago, with 6 sea days in a row both ways. We were bored rigid on those sea days and, in all honesty, we would have much preferred to have been at home on those days. We have no end of first class pubs and restaurants to go out for meals near us, so don’t need to be on a ship for that. We usually enjoy the guest lecturers but that’s only for an hour or two a day. Port talks are usually sales pitches for excursions and most of what constitutes entertainment isn’t really for us. Thankfully, the experience on that cruise told us that we would absolutely hate a World cruise, which usually has more sea days than port days, so that’s saved us a small fortune! Sadly, due to my wife’s disability, we can’t fly, so we are running out of ex-U.K. itineraries that we haven’t done several times and the new ships are so restricted, port wise, that I can’t see us doing more than a few cruises on each of them before they become too repetitive. Thankfully, the pandemic reminded us that there are other holiday that we enjoy as much as (and, in some cases, more than) cruising, so we shall just enjoy a mix.

Agreed. Family members recently did an MSC cruise and took advantage of a special offer that gave the top tier drinks package for around half the price that P&O charge, plus none of the daft restrictions that P&O impose. Many of the drinks that we enjoy are excluded from the P&O package, so for us to pay for it we would have to see a price reduction plus premium drinks and mixers etc included. In its present format (price and restrictions) we wouldn’t even remotely consider it.

Whilst some of us will cruise both the large and smaller ships, in the main they are targeted at very different audiences with equally different budgets and spending habits. On our cruises on Aurora and Arcadia, the overwhelming majority of passengers have been retired (average age 75) with high disposable incomes (no mortgages, no dependents etc) who are prepared to pay a high price for the cruise, especially if the itinerary is different to the norm, but will spend very little whilst on board. Conversely, the new mega ships are generally targeted at much younger passengers and first time cruisers. These folk are really being squeezed at present with the cost of living challenges, so P&O will need to be offering very low fares to just get ‘bums on seats’. However, once on board, these passengers will generally have a much higher average on board spend. It’s a clever move IMHO. As I say, we cruise on all the ships and whilst we have some reservations about Iona, we were tempted to give her a go on one of the very cheap cruises that I read about on this forum. Sadly, as we have to have an accessible cabin, we couldn’t book as they are all sold out. I might keep trying though, just in case there are any cancellations!

Or…….go and have a lovely cruise, but think twice before you report yourself to the crew because you have cold like symptoms. As far as I know, there are only two environments left in the world where this quarantine nonsense is still happening. China (although they appear to be softening their stance due to public unrest) and cruise ships. I guess North Korea may be a third, but we’d never know. Covid will probably be with us forever, just like flu, Norovirus and the common cold and, mercifully, for the overwhelming majority of vaccinated people, is now no worse than other viruses. Those with highly compromised immune systems, for whom Covid could still pose a major risk, would be foolish to go on a cruise ship, as your chances of catching it are higher than on land.

Exactly. I am sure that the vast majority of people who have symptoms that may or may not be Covid will just carry on with their cruise (if they feel well enough to), hopefully being sensible (e.g. not sharing tables or sitting very close to others in crowded places), but certainly won’t say anything to the crew. By doing so you are effectively volunteering yourself for cabin quarantine and a ruined holiday.

Thanks. That’s reassuring. We have done the Chefs Table a few times on Aurora, where it was a very special select occasion in the private dining room of the Glasshouse with just a dozen passengers, hosted by the Food and Beverage Manager and Executive Chef. I can’t say that a cordoned off area of the buffet appeals with hundreds of others, when the same meal is available in the more civilised MDR.

Thanks for the info. It’s a shame that it’s still a buffet, but as The Glasshouse has been struggling to provide meals this year, we might give it a go next summer. Were all of the specialty (extra cost) dining venues open throughout your cruise? We tend to use them regularly (especially Epicurean) and were concerned to read reports a few months ago of them being casualties of the staff shortages.

Good spot. Doesn’t excuse the cheap plonk though!

I agree with you. If it’s advertised, it should be provided. As the saying goes “You only get one chance to make a first impression” and , in this case, P&O have clearly failed. If these things have all succumbed to the relentless drive to cut costs, then the marketing material should be updated. Might be worth a quiet word with the Customer Services Manager on board. I suspect that they might throw a little on board credit your way to make up for your disappointment at the advertised benefits not being available.

Im afraid that you must be John 😂 I found the red to be drinkable in a drought, but the white and fizz (which they laughingly described as Champagne when they served it to us) were…., well, I’d best not say!