Selbourne

I have.

It’s certainly true that it is not permitted to leave wheelchairs or buggies outside cabins, for the reason that you state. This is why scooter users have to book an accessible cabin (or larger cabin that can accommodate them) even if their disability doesn’t really warrant one. However, having used normal cabins back when my wife was a part time wheelchair user, it is possible to stow them inside the cabin, albeit a squeeze. I’m sure that the lady on Iona was misinformed, at least I sincerely hope that she is because accessible cabins really should be held for those with a genuine need for one.

I think it would be worth going back to the agent and letting them know that they are giving out incorrect information. They are going to be placing people who don’t have a genuine need for an adapted cabin into one. As well as depriving those with a genuine need for one, P&O conditions make it clear that somebody who books an adapted cabin but doesn’t have a genuine need for one risks their booking being cancelled!

40% of the staff were ending their contracts at the end of our cruise (not sure about the Executive Chef), so by the time you go I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance. Either way, half of the kitchen staff will have changed, so I suspect that things will be different. You never know, they may even have found the seasoning 😂

For balance, can I just reiterate that the comments regarding much of the MDR food being mediocre was specific to our recent cruise on Aurora. We heard plenty of similar (or worse) commentary on board, but also some who were fine with it. I have also been clear that we were very happy with the vast majority of our MDR meals on Britannia, Iona and Ventura last year, so we very much saw this as an ‘Aurora’ issue, rather than an across the board ‘P&O’ one. That being said, our view is that the MDR experience on P&O isn’t what it once was. It’s not a show stopper for us, as with the lower prices, rising food costs and pressure on Carnival profits post Covid, it is inevitable that a few things have had to give and this is one of them. These things work both ways though, and we now have a maximum price per day that we will pay for a P&O cruise, and that is lower than we’ve paid in the past.

We disliked the Glasshouse on Iona for the same reason - plus the restricted menu. We didn’t enjoy Keel and Cow either, again due to poor location (and my Primeminister Burger was luke warm). One lunchtime I walked through Keel and Cow and a couple were having steaks and they did look sensational though!

Yes, I would think so too, especially given how far out cruises are sold and if the change is effective from April. The extract you have posted makes it clear that the need for an accessible cabin would only apply to a manual wheelchair user if they need to use it to move around within the cabin. If this is not the case (which I believe may be @sandancer situation) then an accessible cabin is not required. That would not be a policy change as far as I know. Might be worth a repeat visit to the future cruise desk with the extract from the website, stressing that the wheelchair is not needed within the cabin.

Very different to the menu on Aurora as well. My two favourite meals were the 6oz fillet steak surf and turf with garlic prawns and the sea bass in banana leaf with curried prawn broth. Neither appears on the Iona menu although Keel & Cow will presumably provide dishes similar to these?

If true (let’s hope that the lady on Iona has misunderstood), this would be extremely bad news on several fronts. People like yourselves, who can presumably use a standard cabin and fold the wheelchair inside the cabin when not needed, would suddenly find your choice of cabins reduced by about 95%, and those of us who can only cruise in an adapted cabin due to full time wheelchair use or the need to store a scooter inside will suddenly have a load more ‘competition’ to secure the relatively few adapted cabins. Two of the four P&O cruises that we’ve been on over the last year were booked after balance due date at considerable savings and a policy change such as this would make that nigh on impossible. Let’s hope that this isn’t true. In our case, if we can’t get an adapted cabin we simply cannot cruise.

@TigerB I’m sorry to hear that you and your lass have experienced exactly the same issues with the lifts that we had when we were on Iona. I had told my wife that it was probably because we went in peak school holidays and that it would be less of an issue off peak, however your feedback leads me to think that it’s a permanent challenge. The lifts on Iona (and presumably Arvia as well) are just too small, and with the number of floors serviced by them resulting in almost everyone using them, trying to get a lift that is no more than half full (which you need in order to get a wheelchair in) can take a while, as you have found. We had the added issue of a lack of lift etiquette and people pushing in ahead of us. Whilst the lifts on Aurora were often like a sauna and the display screens and floor announcements were wrong most of the time, they are so much bigger than on Iona and Arvia and obviously serve less floors. Also, in spite of the high average age of passengers on our cruise, we were amazed to see so many people using the stairs. As a result of all of this, we didn’t have any issues whatsoever getting lifts over the entire 65 days, including disembarkation. However, on the flip side, the accessible cabin on Aurora wasn’t a patch on the one that we had on Iona. We don’t have any future P&O cruises booked at present, but I think that our experiences on 4 different P&O ships over the past year is going to result in Britannia and Ventura becoming our first choices now.

I could have written that myself! Aurora has always been our favourite ship as well, mostly due to the passenger profile and far better itineraries, but having experienced four different P&O ships post Covid I think she’s slipped down our batting order. MDR food was the weakest of the four (like you, we thought that Britannia and Ventura MDRs were much better - as was Iona), the air con issues were tiresome and the accessibility features are way behind the newer ships (which is more of an issue for us now that my wife’s condition has worsened). We still like Aurora even with these shortcomings, but I don’t feel that she can justify her premium prices any more. We were able to cope with the negatives by reminding ourselves how little we had paid for the cruise by getting a late saver. Had we paid the Select price I think we would have been less sympathetic to some of the shortcomings.

Well I’m pleased to say that I can assure you that they haven’t only been sent to those who wear rose tinted glasses, as I’ve had one 😂. As with my blog, I’ve given balanced feedback on both the good things and the not so good things.

That’s interesting about Covid & Norovirus. Early on in the cruise a steward at the aft of deck 11 (we were forward) was spraying in the corridor in protective clothing and when I asked what he was doing he said ‘Covid’ but, like you, we saw no signs of it and nor were we aware of it. We took some Covid test kits with us and when my throat started I tested and was negative. We don’t use the buffet, but the usual giveaway of a Norovirus outbreak is when staff serve people there. I didn’t hear anyone mention that was happening. Frankly, with a cruise of that length in the depth of winter we fully expected outbreaks of some form but, other than all the coughing, we thought that it had been Covid and Norovirus free!

As there have been quite a few comments about MDR food, can I just add a few points for clarity. Menu repetition - This wasn’t as much of an issue as we thought it would be. Whole menus didn’t seem to repeat (as we thought they would) but certain items did. One thing that we noticed a lot (especially with desserts) was items appearing on the dinner menu repeating at lunch the very next day. Menu descriptions - these were rarely an indicator of quality. Some elaborate and grand sounding meals turned out to be disappointing, whereas some bland sounding meals were very good. So those deciding whether to use the MDR based on the menu descriptions might be disappointed! Quality - whilst I have some sympathy with the view that a small increase in prices in return for better quality food wouldn’t have been a bad thing on this particular cruise, those who followed my live blogs from Britannia, Iona and Ventura last year may recall that I was very complimentary about the MDR food on all three of these ships. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that what we experienced seemed to be an Aurora issue rather than a P&O one. With 40% of the crew changing on Friday, which will include chefs, the problem may have already been solved! One very positive aspect of the food being a bit uninspiring was that over 65 nights I only put on just under 3lb in weight, and all of that is probably attributable to the complimentary carrot cake in Raffles 😂. I have put on considerably more than that during a 2 week cruise before and somebody on our cruise has reported putting on two and a half stone 😱

We basically have a maximum net price (cruise fare minus OBC) that we won’t go over for a cruise with P&O, and that’s £100 per person per night for a balcony cabin on a Select basis with parking included. That’s easily achievable on Iona and Arvia, but we managed to get cruises for less than that on Britannia and Ventura last year. Iona cost us more as we had a deluxe balcony cabin and had to go in peak August school holidays. This cap pretty much rules out the adult only ships, certainly on a Select basis, but we booked a Saver on Aurora for our recent cruise and that worked out at £73 pppn.

Final Thoughts Once again, sincere thanks for all your feedback on my ramblings. I’m pleased that it has provided a source of both interest and amusement over the past few months! I know that I always enjoy reading others live blogs, but I had no idea when I started that this one would get so much interest. I am frankly staggered that this thread has now exceeded 200,000 views and over 1,700 posts 😱 Before I summarise our final thoughts, some quick answers to two questions that several people have asked since we’ve been back; Health - my throat is no longer hurting when I swallow, but I’m avoiding alcohol as I know that aggravates it. It also kept coming and going on the ship, so I’m hoping that it won’t return in a few days time. I still have an irritating tickly cough but it’s very minor. Next cruise - is in May on Cunard’s new ship Queen Anne. I am definitely NOT going to do a live blog, but am happy to share my thoughts on how it compares to the P&O ships when we get back. So, what are our final thoughts? We had a lot of apprehension about going on a cruise of this duration. The longest cruise we’d had before was 24 days (USA & Canada) and we’d really struggled with the homecoming transatlantic, so this was a huge commitment. Well I’m pleased to say that we coped fine with it and didn’t have a single day when we would have preferred to be at home. We enjoyed the cruise and are really pleased that we did it. We have some great memories, which will be aided by the blog and the vast number of photos that I took. If we had to summarise the main likes and dislikes they would be as follows; LIKES Itinerary - we cruise for the ports, not the ship or sea days, so this cruise delivered that on steroids. 28 ports (although we ‘only’ made it to 26) of which over 20 were new to us. Value - we usually book Select fares but got this one on a late saver. It worked out at £73 per person per night for an accessible balcony cabin (£68 pppn after the £600 insurance refund for the 2 missed ports). Money saved - as we were away and also on a full board basis, we saved a few thousand pounds against what we would have spent at home over the same period. In real terms, this took our ‘net’ extra cost of being on the cruise down to around £50 pppn, which is just incredible. Timing - missing two of the worst winter months in the U.K. Service - always a strength IMO but our cabin steward Antonio, assistant waiter Troy and Glasshouse wine host Dennis were all superstars. Daytime entertainment - we thought that the days of decent and interesting daytime activities had ended with P&O, but this cruise was as good as any we’ve had. Some great guest lecturers and classical recitals were highlights. Some of the performers - Headliners were very good (especially considering their inexperience) and we particularly enjoyed The Privateers, Neil Lockwood and the Annie Lennox tribute. Passenger Profile - mostly older seasoned cruisers with the behaviours to match. Exemplary lift etiquette. The polar opposite of what we experienced on Iona. DISLIKES MDR Food - to be clear, it wasn’t awful but we felt that only around 20% of meals were very good, 60% were mediocre and 20% were poor. Lack of seasoning, bland flavourless sauces and gravies. Britannia, Iona and Ventura (all experienced in the second half of last year) were far better. Loyalty, what loyalty - being Caribbean tier counted for almost nothing on this cruise. Embarkation was the worst we’ve ever had and both CPS and Intercruises were woefully unprepared for over half the passengers having early boarding times. Very poor quality priority boarders buffet. Zero engagement from the Captain or senior officers at the Caribbean lunch. Maintenance issues - Aurora is showing her age. The air con can’t cope in certain areas of the ship in warmer temperatures. The display screens and floor announcements in the lifts were wrong more than they were right. The exterior of the ship was looking very shabby with multiple rust and dirt patches. Wherever we went, we looked the poor relation up against the other gleaming ships. Captain Robson - we have never come across such a remote Captain. A good one can really enhance a cruise. Other than the departure announcements (which contained just the absolute bare minimum information) he did absolutely nothing to enhance the passenger experience. His explanations for the two missed ports were inadequate. Health issues - I had a sore throat for over half the cruise, including all our time in the Caribbean. I’m sure that this was caused by something on the ship (probably air con). An awful lot of passengers had coughs. Thankfully, even though it was a very long cruise, I think we were Norovirus and Covid free. Anything more would just be repeating the blog, but those are the main things. So, that’s it. I’m happy to answer any specific questions but, other than that, I’m done!

Insurance Update I forgot to mention in yesterdays update that when I came up for air yesterday I called U.K. Insurance, the current providers for Nationwide Flex Plus customers (I only opened the account for the travel insurance, following @terrierjohn recommendation). The chap couldn’t have been more helpful. By luck, he’d had another passenger from the cruise call earlier in the day, so he already knew what our two missed ports were. He confirmed immediately that we would receive £150 per person per missed port, so £600 in total. There is no excess. They don’t even require us to submit the letters that we were issued with. Hugely impressive, as was the quotation stage when we set up the policy. I just hope that Aviva will be as good when they take over from U.K. Insurance as the Nationwide provider. The total cost of the annual policy, including the addition of my wife’s health condition, long holiday extension and cruise cover was just under £400. We have now had 150% of that back and the policy year will still cover us for our next two 14 night cruises with Cunard. Insurance companies often have a bad name for justifiable reasons, but I can’t praise U.K. Insurance enough in this instance.

You might want to spare her the 66 days of blogs and focus on the ‘final thoughts’ when I post them 😂. As we know, no two people ever have exactly the same experience on a cruise. So much is influenced by personal circumstances (in our case the challenges with a full time wheelchair user), likes and dislikes (one man’s meat is another man’s poison), expectations, past cruise comparisons, specific cabin issues, problems experienced (and resolution, or otherwise, of) etc etc. Just as one example, I overheard a chap saying to someone that several people he’d spoken to thought that the food was dreadful, whereas he thought it was fine. In our case, we’d be somewhere in the middle, yet we were all on the same cruise eating the same food but, in our case, we were making comparisons to Britannia, Iona and Ventura, all of which we had been on quite recently.

Day 66 - Friday 8th March - Disembarkation Before I tell you about our disembarkation experience, can I start by thanking everyone for your very kind words about how much you have enjoyed the live blog. As many of you have acknowledged, it’s been a lot of work, but the feedback makes it worthwhile. I intend to tidy it up and keep it as a diary of our grand voyage, to accompany the 500+ photographs that I’ve taken. I will post our ‘Final Thoughts’ when I get chance, but here’s what happened today; We picked up our pilot in the early hours (scheduled for 0245) and when I woke at around 0615 we were at Mayflower Cruise Terminal. We followed exactly the same disembarkation strategy that we have deployed on our last half a dozen cruises. Firstly, we aimed not to vacate the cabin until as late as possible. The request was to vacate cabins by 0800 and, knowing that our steward was working on a cabin along the corridor, we didn’t feel bad about vacating ours at 0810. Our steward Antonio had been absolutely brilliant, always ensuring that our cabin was serviced whilst we were having breakfast. We expressed our appreciation as we left. MDR breakfast was available for entry until 0830. Getting a lift on disembarkation morning is always something that we dread with a wheelchair, as understandably everybody uses them with their hand luggage, so you can wait ages to get a lift with enough room in it. Seconds after we arrived at the lifts a couple with a scooter arrived. I pressed both up and down buttons thinking that we will get in the first lift in either direction that we can fit in. The first lift to arrive was completely empty, so all four of us managed to get in with the wheelchair and scooter. Having thought that we would get to breakfast by the skin of our teeth, our good fortune with the lift meant that we got there in bags of time. We got a table for 2 immediately (well, a 4 top just for 2). We had been told that disembarkation would be a little later than usual due to the high volumes of luggage, so we wanted to have a leisurely breakfast. Unfortunately our waiter had a different idea and clearly wanted us in and out as quickly as possible. That wasn’t going to happen, so I made sure that we lasted out until 0900 as that was when general disembarkation was due to start, and I had no intention of going to a lounge or assisted disembarkation. Whilst we need assistance, witnessing how that service is abused incenses me, so I avoid it, push my wife off myself and find a porter to help me in the terminal. As we left breakfast on deck 6, I popped to the atrium to check if disembarkation had started, and it had. There was virtually no queue, so I called a lift and whilst there were others in it, we also managed to get in, so we dropped down to deck 5 and we walked straight off the ship. As we were walking along the air bridge we were struck by how cold it felt! When we got to the luggage hall there were no porters available and there was a queue for them, which we joined. We got a porter after around a 10 minute wait. The luggage seemed fairly well spaced, which surprised me. Either disembarkation had started early and a lot had already gone, or Aurora, being a small ship, doesn’t need all the space, even when everyone has significantly more luggage than usual. We were looking for 4 cases and I showed our porter the photo I’d taken of them. In the time it took me to find one case he’d found the other three! In no time at all we were heading out of the terminal. There were several customs staff checking people’s luggage but thankfully we weren’t stopped. Next stop CPS and, thankfully, other than rusty brake discs from not being used for 65 days, our car was absolutely fine. In fact, other than a few bird droppings, it didn’t look any dirtier than when we dropped it off on 3rd Jan. Our porter very kindly helped me load the car and we were off. The car drove as well as normal, there were no queues to get out of the car park or port and we got through Southampton and all the way home with no issues at all. We’ve never been away from home for several months before, so it was a big relief to find that the house was OK and that we weren’t going home to any nasty surprises. Within 2 hours I was fully unpacked and had the first load of washing in. Later in the afternoon I even managed to mow the lawns, which filled one of the green wheelie bins, so it’s started growing already 🙄. So, in conclusion, I’m pleased to report that embarkation was excellent and all is well at Selbourne Towers. However, I am now cream crackered, so good night!

I’ve mentioned where we’ve had challenges but keep in mind that we still managed it. A manual wheelchair user needs a fit ‘pusher’ but there are plenty of wheelchair and scooter users on here and we all arrived back in one piece. It’s certainly more challenging than some places, but still do-able.

As Arvia is a vast capacity family ship and June isn’t school holidays, I doubt that the ship will sail full. That should mean some late bargains if you are happy to book a Saver and take a chance on where your cabin is located (the usual dining choice benefit of a Select fare doesn’t apply on Arvia as it’s 100% freedom dining). As for timing, apparently P&O give a week or so grace on the 90 day balance due date and it’s not until that date passes that cheap ‘Late Savers’ appear (although they are not named as such - they are still called saver).

Day 65 - Thursday 7th March - Sea Day Having thought that we would get back to Southampton without the rough seas that we’d experienced on our outward journey, we had a rough night and woke to heavy seas and plenty of motion (still not enough to reach for the Stugeron though, given that after 65 days we are salty sea dogs). Although the clocks had gone forward (for the final time) we managed to get to the MDR in good time for breakfast, prior to attending Paul Stickler’s final talk - The Long Silence, about the A6 murder. Another excellent talk, well delivered. He has been a major factor in making our return transatlantic (which we really struggled with the last time we did one) extremely bearable. At midday the Captain informed us that by the time we reach Southampton we will have covered 16,452 miles, visiting 26 ports in 21 different countries. He mentioned that some of the crew will be heading home. We had previously been told that 40% of the crew are ending their contract with this cruise, which I guess is no surprise when it’s been equivalent to around 5 or 6 normal cruises, each of which would usually see some rotation. It was a shame that the Captain blotted his otherwise exemplary copy book by repeating the daft request for people to score 10s in the feedback survey. My view on this is simple. If they were confident that people would genuinely be scoring 10 out of 10 as an honest assessment, then there would be absolutely no need to ask people to do this. It seems to smack of an insecurity and concern that they won’t that causes them to request it. I shall make this point in my feedback survey. We managed to pack 1 of our 3 large cases before lunch. As a point of interest, we were asked to have most of our cases packed and outside the cabin by midday. We ignored this and I’m glad that we did. The corridor was rammed with cases by midday and not a single one of them was removed until 5pm. As well as having a nice meal in the Glasshouse, we wanted to thank Dennis, the superb wine host, who has been a real enhancement to our enjoyment of this venue. He won’t need to ask for great feedback, as he will get it of his own accord. After lunch we attended An Audience with Captain Simon Love in the theatre. A few points of interest. He is over 60 but has agreed to stay on for 3 years as long as he works on Aurora. He’s not a fan of the newer ships! Apparently, Aurora struggles docking with any wind above 20 knots due to the lack of control at the aft of the ship, so above this requires a tug (helps explain what I’d heard about our aborted Key West stop). He reckons Aurora has another 7 or 8 years, but as we all know they have form of saying that only to sell the ship months later. In fairness to him, he wouldn’t be told until the deal was done, as he’d be personally affected (which may help explain his pleas for scores of 10 in the satisfaction survey). This was followed by an Audience with Cheryl Baker, but after our experience last night we gave that a miss. I’m sure that her style appeals to many, but we aren’t amongst them! We spent the rest of the afternoon packing with a half time break in Raffles. Our last dinner in the MDR and, thankfully it was quite a decent one. We had the Chefs parade (where passengers are asked to shake their napkin debris over their fellow diners 😂). I didn’t catch the name of the Executive Chef but it wasn’t ‘Ronnie’ as I’d been told, but an Italian sounding name. The satisfaction survey was mentioned yet again but the member of the entertainment team very sensibly added “or let us know about anything that we can improve on”. Thankfully she realises that these surveys aren’t worth the paper that they are written on unless people give honest and balanced feedback - a fact that was sadly overlooked by the Captain and Entertainment Manager, who are only interested in 100% scores. The final show was a double act of Tucker & The iHoppers. We didn’t go, so we shall be leaving the ship without having seen either, so I’m afraid that I can’t offer any feedback. When we are home tomorrow I shall report on our disembarkation experience and then, when I get chance, I shall do a ‘final thoughts’ post.

and at the risk of sounding like the Monty Python four Yorkshiremen sketch, we can’t even get people to mow lawns where we live! Plenty of landscape gardeners and tree surgeons, but nobody prepared to just do run of the mill gardening 🙄

I think that about a lot of these ‘minor celebrity’ types. I’m sure a lot of it is because they enjoy the attention but also, from many interviews I’ve read, most of them have been self employed throughout their careers, and few seem to make adequate pension provision, so probably don’t have much choice but to keep working. As for those who appear on cruise ships, I can’t imagine that the pay is great and unless they are on board for the entire cruise (which few seem to be these days) it doesn’t strike me as a terribly glamorous lifestyle having to fly out to join ships for often runs of sea days. Several of the entertainers on this cruise have talked about their long flights, often involving changes, missing luggage etc.

I didn’t know that, but it explains a lot 😂