Selbourne

Yep, and some were even in to four figures 🫣 Like you, I’m no connoisseur, but I know the country’s and types of wine that we like and must have struck unlucky with the ones that we chose. We would have drunk more had we found one that we really liked.

You should use Premier Inn MB. They do 😂

Yes, I would agree that the drinks choices on Cunard are far superior and also that measures are more generous. Our favourite bar was the Commodore Club and, yes, many of the drinks in there were above the drinks package price cap. We enjoyed the Cunard perfect serve gin and tonics, which were over the price cap. As a point of interest, our total expenditure, for the two of us over 14 days, was under £600. That includes the 15% gratuities on drinks, but excludes other gratuities. All but £35 of that was covered by our OBC! One disappointment that I had was the wine list. Whilst the choice was considerably more than is offered on P&O I didn’t particularly enjoy those that we ordered. On P&O my go to favourites are Jam Shed Shiraz, Silk & Spice and Money Spider. None of those was available on Cunard 😞

Thanks. That’s very useful and interesting context. I’m pleased to hear that MDR service improved for you as the cruise went on. To clarify my point about the TV, it was indeed comparable to the ones used on Britannia, with the sole exception that on Queen Anne there is no route map. I must confess that I hadn’t noticed this omission until I overheard another guest complaining about it! Whilst the on demand movies are high definition, the TV channels aren’t. I only watch HD channels at home, as on large screen TVs the picture quality of non-HD channels looks so poor in comparison. This was the case on Queen Anne as it is on Britannia. Consequently, things like the scrolling headlines at the bottom of Sky News are extremely difficult to read as they aren’t in sharp focus and appear slightly blurred. Regarding sound quality, we are spoiled with a Bose soundbar at home, but we found the sound quality on the cabin TV to be quite poor. I started to watch Oppenheimer, as I haven’t seen it yet, but gave up because of this issue. We had a large cabin which may have made the sound quality issue more noticeable.

It wasn’t to do with faulty service lifts. It just appears to be the way that they are going to do it. Madness IMHO.

If you made (and paid for) the bookings then I’m confused as to why you can’t just do a straightforward name change on the booking. I had a similar situation (albeit not a bereavement, but the same scenario). I booked and paid for 3 cabins on Iona. The other 2 cabins were for our daughters and their partners. One of our daughters and her partner went their separate ways, so I had to remove them from the booking. The partner showed as the lead passenger on the booking, but as I had made the booking and paid for it, there was no issue whatsoever. Somebody else came with my daughter and I was able to add them to the booking. There was just an admin fee. The TA did all of this with no issue at all. It was all done on my say so with no referral to anyone else.

That was another thing that we liked with Cunard. Times were the same for all meals regardless of whether it was a sea day or port day. Breakfast cut off was 9.30am every day. This was the same in Britannia as Britannia Club (and Grills for that matter). We find the 9am cut off on port days on P&O to be too early although, from memory, it was later on Iona?

Thanks. I should have mentioned the ‘Bright Lights Society’ specifically in the entertainment section. We saw both shows ‘Noir’ and ‘Fizz’ and they were both excellent and innovative. The cast are professional actors, rather than Cunard entertainment employees, and it showed. You can only book when on board (via the app that isn’t an app) but it was far easier to secure a booking than it was the 710 Club on Iona. As long as you book 24 hours in advance there were spaces available. Highly recommended.

Over the last year there have been interesting threads comparing P&O with Princess and Saga. A few people had asked me to do a similar thread after our cruise on Cunard’s Queen Anne, which ended last week - so here it is! By way of background, Queen Anne is a new ship (we were on her third cruise) and the general consensus is that she is aimed at both Cunard traditionalists and those looking to ‘trade up’ from cruise lines such as P&O. Size wise, she feels similar in size to Britannia but passenger numbers are more akin to Ventura & Azura. We had cruised with Cunard once before (Queen Mary 2 last year) but our other cruises had all been with P&O although, having started our cruising in 1996, the P&O of today is quite different from the one that we first cruised with. From our perspective, it’s a more budget / mass market offering these days but, in fairness to P&O, prices in real terms are now cheaper and reflect this. Having had four cruises on four very different P&O ships over the last year, we still feel that P&O has a place for us, albeit we have revised down the maximum price per night that we are now prepared to pay. Before I start to detail the differences between the two brands, it’s important to state that on Queen Anne we had booked what Cunard call ‘Britannia Club’. Cabins are the same size as the standard cabins, but you get privileges such as priority embarkation & disembarkation and, most significantly, a separate dining room with your own dedicated table that you can use for breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the entire cruise, at whatever time you like, with no queueing (virtual, pagers or physical). The menu is the normal MDR menu but with a la’ carte additions. This dining aspect very much appealed to us, as we historically liked Freedom dining on P&O but have been unhappy with the way that it has changed, and we had challenges with it last year, so much so that we reverted to Club (fixed) dining on subsequent P&O cruises. Taking each aspect of the cruise in turn, these were the differences as we saw them; Embarkation - No difference. We used Parking4Cruises this time so had no issues, but I noticed that those using CPS were being held in holding lanes, as was the case when we embarked Aurora in January. Our embarkation experience on Aurora was the worst we’ve ever had (90 minutes even with priority boarding) but when we went on Iona in August it was very quick, so my conclusion is that this is influenced more by CPS and the terminal staff than the cruise lines. Luggage Distribution - P&O better. We have never had any issues with this on P&O but it was chaotic on Queen Anne. Rather than use the service lifts, they use the passenger lifts. This causes problems for passengers moving around the ship and results in congestion in the lift waiting areas where passengers have to navigate around cages full of suitcases. It took 5 hours for our suitcases to arrive at our cabin. We have never had a delay like that on P&O. Interior Design - Cunard better. Queen Anne blends the traditional Cunard Art Deco look with modernity and it works really well. Queen Anne has a significantly more upmarket look and feel than the clinical conference hotel design on Iona and, as a result, feels far more luxurious and ship like. Promenade Deck - I really disliked the open promenade deck with high glass screens that Iona had, but it is ten times better than the one on Queen Anne. The promenade deck on the latter is a waste of time, as you can only see the view from around 25% of it. The other 75% is completely enclosed by tenders, lifeboats and machinery. It’s also narrow and there are no steamer chairs etc. Our favourite promenade deck is on Aurora but Britannia doesn’t have one at all, so it’s a ship by ship, rather than brand issue. Cabin Accommodation - No difference. In terms of size and what is included in a standard cabin, we couldn’t really see any difference. The TVs, whilst large, are just as bad as the ones that P&O use. The choice of channels is poor, picture (on-demand movies aside) and sound quality aren’t great. Quality of furnishings are slightly better with Cunard and little touches such as bed runners put on the bed daily, rather than left as a plain white duvet as happens on P&O. Cabin Servicing - Cunard better. Pretty much all the nice little touches that have gradually been removed on P&O remain on Cunard. We had complimentary water which was replenished throughout the cruise (this might be a ‘Club’ benefit), biscuits - replenished twice daily, turndown servicing - with towels replaced, chocolates etc. Whilst we hadn’t particularly missed this on P&O, on balance it was nice to have it back. I asked at reception where I could get the Britain Today paper from and they said that if I wanted one it would be delivered to our cabin each day - which it was. Lifts - No difference. Unfortunately, Queen Anne has been fitted with the very small lifts that Iona has. This causes some issues for wheelchair and scooter users, as you take up almost half the lift. As Queen Anne only has a little over half the number of passengers that you can get on Iona, we didn’t have anywhere near the same level of challenges, but there was an added challenge on Queen Anne as the lift doors close extremely quickly and you almost have to run for the lifts or you miss them. It is a shame that Carnival have gone backwards in terms of lift provision. The lifts on older ships like Aurora are so much bigger. Lift Etiquette - No difference. Again, this was an area where we had challenges on Iona, with people pushing ahead of us and very little consideration given to wheelchair users. By contrast, on Aurora the passengers were entirely different and we had none of these issues. Queen Anne was somewhere between the two. Certainly better behaviours than we witnessed on Iona, but there was still some pushing in that we hadn’t experienced on Aurora. Bars - Cunard better. When ordering drinks in the nicer bars on Cunard you still get complimentary snacks, such as olives, savoury snacks, nuts etc. Drinks Prices - P&O better. P&O drinks prices are lower than Cunard, priced in £ (Cunard in $) and there’s no 15% service charge that Cunard add. Those who drink far more than us will need a big budget on Cunard and whilst they offer drinks packages they are very expensive and have a price cap that renders a considerable proportion of the drinks ineligible. Entertainment - Cunard better. Cunard has better quality guest speakers, shows and entertainment than the average P&O cruise. The (American) Entertainment Director was highly professional and treated passengers as intelligent adults, not residents of a care home or holiday camp. Consequently there’s none of the naff “are you all having a good time?” nonsense that you get on P&O MDR Food - Cunard better. We were in Britannia Club. P&O does not have an equivalent of this, which is a shame. In our view, it is a significantly better benefit than just having breakfast in a speciality restaurant, which is all you get with a Suite on P&O. Breakfast, food wise, was comparable to P&O, although in Club we had nice additions like someone coming around with a tray of fresh pastries, and we also had nice bone china tea pots of our chosen beverage delivered to the table rather than a tea bag in a cup or poured from flasks. It was great not having to get someone’s attention for top ups. We also had nice new pots of Tiptree conserves, rather than the unappetising open ramekins that P&O now use. Lunch was fairly comparable to P&O, but at least Cunard have proper menus with starters, mains and desserts, not the daft and confusing lunch menus that P&O now deploy. Dinner, in terms of choice, quality, presentation and service was far superior to what P&O now offers. It’s at least as good as P&O used to be many years ago. There is also still a cheese trolley and proper (and very nice) petit fours every day (they change daily). Club dining also offers a la carte dishes in addition to the MDR menu, but my comments about the food refer to the standard MDR offerings. MDR Service - Cunard better. Again, we were in Britannia Club so maybe had an enhanced level of MDR experience, but service was exemplary. Our waiter and assistant waiter were both fantastic, but a few other things struck me. When we arrived at our table, if our dedicated waiters were serving at another table, another waiter from a different section (or a manager) would appear and pull my chair out for me, remove the chargers from the table and present us with menus. On P&O the managers tend to stand around and direct things, whereas on Cunard they will muck in and help as well. As a result, we just could not fault the service and it was better than anything we have ever experienced with P&O. For balance, it is worth noting that @Megabear2 was also on our cruise but in the standard Britannia dining room. She reported some service issues there. Speciality Restaurants - we didn’t try any of them on Queen Anne, so can’t offer any comparisons regarding food, but the ambiance of Sindhu and Epicurean on P&O ships are better than any of the speciality restaurants on Queen Anne and P&O prices for speciality restaurants are much lower. If the MDR food is anything to go by, I strongly suspect that the food is excellent, but you pay a hefty price for it. Gratuities - P&O better. No auto gratuities with P&O. This is a significant extra cost with Cunard, although you can ask for them to be removed. Accessible cabins - P&O better. Our Britannia Club balcony cabin had major accessibility shortcomings and wasn’t a patch on the accessible Deluxe Balcony cabin that we had on Iona. The toilet and shower seat both had fixed grab rails on the wall side only, with no drop down grab rails on the ‘open’ side, which was a major challenge for my wife. What made it worse was that there was room for them! The balcony door was manual and very stiff to open and close due to the rise and fall bridging plate that operates by opening and closing the door. Consequently my wife could not operate the door, so if I was ashore in a tender port she would be stuck in the cabin and unable to use the balcony. Our accessible deluxe balcony cabin on Iona was significantly better in so many respects - automated cabin and balcony doors, better grab rail provision, height adjustable basin etc. We were really disappointed about this, as you would expect Queen Anne, being a newer ship than Iona and Arvia, to have at least the same level of accessibility features. It is worth noting that all the accessible toilets in the public areas around Queen Anne were also poorly designed, with no drop down grab rails whatsoever. Accessible seating in theatres - P&O better. The signage on the designated wheelchair companion seats was next to useless, meaning that anyone sat in them. This caused us a lot of issues and meant that we had to turn up 20 to 30 minutes ahead of a show or talk to secure one. Again, we were very disappointed with this, as it’s so easily solved and costs peanuts. P&O isn’t brilliant in this respect, but is far better than Cunard. In summary, promenade deck aside, we really liked Queen Anne. The accessibility shortcomings were unforgivable and impacted adversely on our cruise experience. However, this will not impact on those who are able bodied, or indeed those with a lesser degree of disability than my wife (who is a full time wheelchair user), so 99% of passengers will not experience the challenges that we did. Things that really matter to us, such as the dining experience and entertainment, were noticeably better on Cunard. It felt like a more upmarket cruise and, in many respects, was reminiscent of the P&O that we first cruised with in the 1990s. On that basis, it’s really a case of ‘you get what you pay for’ but some Cunard cruises can compete with P&O on price if you look hard enough. None the less, we felt that there are some areas where P&O do a better job and given the fact that you can get some very keenly priced cruises with them, we still feel that P&O has a place for us in our future holiday plans. I’m happy to answer any questions.

This link provides a contact number for the Courts and Tribunals service centre which can advise. When my father died I applied for probate but when my mother-in-law died it wasn’t required. On both occasions I managed the process myself and didn’t involve a solicitor at any stage. It was quite straightforward. https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

@Megabear2 Not all estates have to go through probate. This from a solicitors website; “In cases where all property and bank accounts were held jointly, the ownership of the property or accounts would usually automatically transfer to the surviving party. For example, if a husband and wife owned all property as joint tenants and all bank accounts jointly, if one spouse died, the surviving spouse would automatically take ownership of the whole estate. In cases such as these, the surviving spouse would probably not need to apply for a Grant of Probate”.

As I said in my response to your original thread, I’m sorry to hear about your loss and the problems that you are experiencing. It is indeed the case that if you book through a TA then P&O won’t deal with you direct unless you make a complaint. However, as long as you have a decent TA, this is usually an advantage. Apparently these days it is extremely difficult to get through to P&O (unless making a new booking) whereas TAs have direct lines and will (usually) remove the hassle from you. A power of attorney (as @Megabear2 pointed out in your original thread) should not be relevant in this case. They are designed to take over the affairs of people who are unable to do so themselves due to ill health (dementia etc) but they expire in the event of death. I guess that P&O might accept it as a document that shows that your late father entrusted you with his affairs in life, but it would no longer be a legally effective document. From other replies received (most importantly the reply from our resident Carnival employee) it sounds as though your best option is to make an insurance claim and re-book. However, if you have a copy of your late fathers Will, they may allow the executor (hopefully yourself) to make the name change, which would be easier and ensure that you retain your original cabins. Good luck and do let us know what the outcome is.

I’m very sorry to hear about your experience. With all the problems that people are currently experiencing, and the resultant bad PR that it can sometimes generate, It strikes me that there is a solution that P&O could adopt. Anyone requiring an accessible cabin with P&O is unable to make a booking (either online direct or via a TA) without referral to P&O to specifically check whether one is available. Perhaps as part of the booking process, along with the “Do you require an accessible cabin?” question, there should also be some other questions, in particular “Do you or any of your party intend to bring a wheelchair”. If people answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions they should not be able to complete the booking but be referred to the same department who can then confirm if an evacuation chair is available, should one be required. If it is, and one can be allocated, the booking is confirmed. If it is required but one is not available then the booking cannot be made. This strikes me as a much better solution than allowing bookings to be made which are subsequently cancelled with all the resultant disappointment. I wonder what @molecrochip thinks about this suggestion? The current situation cannot continue.

It may be that we are just unlucky, but we have had a lot of missed ports with P&O, so we now make sure that we have missed port cover. On a recent cruise we had two missed ports and the £40 outlay for the cover resulted in £600 of missed port compensation (£150 per person, per missed port).

Well we’ve been home for a couple of hours. All unpacked and first load of washing in! There was a very unfortunate incident this morning that impacted on the disembarkation process, but I must stress, given the criticism of disembarkation on the preceding QA cruise, that this was not an issue of Cunard’s making. Very sadly, the medical emergency was a very serious one. According to our porter, the passenger had been unconscious for over 20 minutes. An air ambulance was apparently also called, which seems odd being in a city. Clearly, if that is true, then the outlook does not look at all good (the ambulance and paramedic car were still outside the terminal when we left) and our sincere thoughts are with this passenger and their family. The impact of this was that the lift in the terminal from the air bridge level to the luggage hall was inaccessible. Thankfully (and I am very grateful to him, as the queues to get off the ship were very long) the Customer Service Manager stopped us and asked if we were ready to disembark. I said that we were, but our colour hadn’t been called yet. He told me to ignore that and go down to deck 1, which was being used for wheelchair users due to the shoreside lift being out of use. I got a lift down to deck 1 immediately and we were then off the ship within 10 minutes. So our disembarkation experience turned out to be fine (including getting a lift down to breakfast - which I’d been dreading), but we were spared the worst of the queues and delays. One thing that I couldn’t get my head around was that as Britannia Club passengers we should have had priority disembarkation, so presumably the only people getting off before us would have been grills passengers? In reality, I lost count of the number of groups called before us and when a staff member showed me the disembarkation order our colour was way down the list and it seemed that far more than Grills passengers left before us. I’ve no idea what time we would have been called had we not been sent off via a wheelchair route so can’t comment but, in reality, we were happy with the time we got off the ship. Sorry that I can’t shed any more light on disembarkation efficiency as it was an exceptional situation that was beyond Cunard’s control and therefore not reflective of the norm. We are fortunate that we are home safe without incident, and as that is sadly not the case for everyone on the cruise anything else is incidental. Once again, our thoughts are with the affected passenger and their family.

We’re off again. Second group called.

I spoke too soon - or tempted fate. Disembarkation has now been suspended due to a medical emergency in the terminal.

So far so good this morning. We left our cabin at 0740 and got a lift straight away (we went up to go down, but on disembarkation morning with a wheelchair you grab one when you can). Currently having a leisurely breakfast and they’ve just called the first coloured sub-group, so I take it that there won’t be the delays reported on the preceding cruise 🤞

Well, to be fair, they got on top of things fairly quickly after my post saying that the lift lobby on our deck was rammed, and we’ve managed to get lifts to and from dinner without difficulty 👍 Just had an amusing experience. We don’t put our cases out until we retire, so that the clothes we have worn today can go in them. The routine is that my wife gets into bed and I briefly don some of my travel home clothes in order to be decent enough to pop the cases out in the corridor. As I opened the door a young male steward was walking past and noticed what I was doing so, to be helpful, he walked straight into our cabin to take the cases. He just looked at my wife in the bed and said “Good evening Madam” as if it was completely normal. Thankfully we both have a good sense of humour and found it very funny. I thanked him for his help 😂 I always hate disembarkation morning, as it can be a nightmare getting a lift, and it’s now made even more challenging as last entry for breakfast in the dining room is now 8am and not 8.30am as stated in the disembarkation instructions. However, we can sometimes be pleasantly surprised so fingers crossed.

No they don’t have that excuse! We tend not to hear him so much, but she is unable to have her eyes open and not talk, whatever the time of day or night! 🙄

If you have an idle 5 minutes, take a look at the midship lift area on deck 6. It was an obstacle course getting between the lift and our cabin! Like you, I’ve never seen anything like it on any other cruise ship.

I tend to agree, but I’ve noticed that whilst the service lifts are present and have large run off areas in front of them, some of the doors to these areas are very narrow and don’t allow anything bigger than cabin servicing trolleys to pass through - certainly not cages full of luggage. I have a horrible feeling that this may be a poorly thought through design flaw and that having to tie up passenger lifts for luggage on embarkation day and the day before disembarkation may be permanent. I hope that I’m wrong as it’s a ruddy nuisance, especially for those who are unable to use stairs.

I am at a complete loss as to why they use the passengers lifts for luggage, with the enormous difficulties that it creates for passengers trying to move around the ship, rather than the service lifts as other cruise lines do. Answers on a postcard……

Exactly. I take the approach that the only people who should hear your conversations are those on your own table. Sadly, some folk like to ‘broadcast’ to multiple tables. Thankfully it’s not all bad. We have a lovely group of 4 Americans (or Canadians - not sure) adjacent to us and yet we never hear their conversations, as hopefully they don’t hear ours.

I haven’t done that, partly because I try to get back to sleep and having to go through that in the early hours would then keep me awake for ages afterwards. I didn’t get disturbed the following night, but last night I was woken at 2.50am by the woman in the next cabin talking at full volume yet again. At one stage I heard her say “oh no!” but then I didn’t hear anything after that, which seemed odd. I’m beginning to wonder if she talks in her sleep. Sadly, some people just suffer from verbal diarrhoea and have a pressing urge to talk for all their waking hours. The woman in the next cabin fits that bill, as does a Welsh chap in the dining room who is incapable of not talking constantly. He sometimes comes down without his wife and talks constantly to those on adjacent tables. He’s got a thick Welsh accent and talks extremely quickly, and I’m in admiration of the guests either side, none of whom are British, for being able to understand and engage with him. We dodged a bullet, as the first table we were offered (which we declined) would have been next to him. It’s irritating enough from where we are, but having to endure it directly every meal would drive me nuts. It’s a shame that some people don’t respect the fact that people often ask for a table for two because they don’t want to have to engage in constant conversation every mealtime.