Selbourne

Now that’s something I shall remember 😂

Maybe that’s who I found and rather helpfully fetched me butter in a dirty tub? 🤢😂

Last night and tonight’s MDR menus

You are correct. You can only bid on better cabin types. The movement between grades within the same cabin type, which in reality aren’t upgrades in the way that most people would define them, come under the free ‘upgrades’ that P&O can make to those who haven’t opted out of upgrades. There always used to be an option to allow P&O to make a free upgrade but only to a different cabin ‘type’ (I.e. a ‘proper’ upgrade) but I don’t know if that has survived the implementation of the bid to upgrade system.

I’m glad that you asked, as it does sound very odd.

I hope not. I wasn’t dressed 😂

We cancelled a Sindhu booking and the refund was the next day. I have not received the excursion refund yet 🤔 ⏰

I’m sure that knowledge of what is where makes life much easier John, but it’s just not how I want to start the day. The lack of trays also makes it unnecessarily difficult. Our MDR breakfasts have been great in comparison and far more relaxing. Hot food has all been hot and fresh looking.

Yes they do still deliver excursion tickets. It said 9am. The confusion arose because we’d been asked by separate letter to arrive at 8.30am due to my wife in her wheelchair needing to be loaded first, but when I cancelled her booking and was travelling alone they told me I didn’t need to do that and 8.45 would be sufficient for the 9am departure. That was incorrect. I’m not overly worried as we had a nice time in Cadiz, but I’ll be miffed if I have to chase the refund.

We are just arriving in Lisbon now (on Ventura) and Iona is just manoeuvring onto her berth just in front of us. 👍

Day 11 - Tuesday 7th November (Cadiz) I start todays update with some great news about the creaking in our cabin, which had started again as soon as we left the Canaries and the sea state worsened. The deck manager had asked a maintenance chap to come and look and he hooked out my various bits of folded paper that I had used to attempt to muffle it, listened to the noise, agreed that the problem areas were exactly where I’d traced them, wedged a screw driver in each spot to prize it open slightly and squeezed in some black felt pads. He then sprayed copious quantities of WD40 into all the cracks and, lo and behold, it’s pretty much solved the problem. Whether or not it will last only time will tell, but we had the best nights sleep of the cruise so far! We had been due to do an accessible transfer to Seville today, somewhere that we’ve not been before. A few days before we received a notification to say that the type of vehicle had changed (no longer an accessible minibus with a few others, but a full size coach with a wheelchair lift) and we had to arrive 30 mins before departure to allow for loading (apparently the wheelchair has to go on first). My wife was already a bit anxious about the length of the trip (need for loos etc) so these two things were the icing on the cake and she said that she didn’t want to go. The excursions team said that she couldn’t have a refund as they had secured a specific coach and she was the only wheelchair user out of 71 passengers (must have been 2 coaches?). Ok fair enough. I said that I would still go on my own and asked what time it was leaving, and was told 9am, but best to be quayside at around 8.45am. I duly arrived at 8.40am to be told that the tour left 5 minutes earlier! They offered me an alternative tour somewhere else but I explained that I had only wanted to go to Seville. I said that whilst it was their mistake, as long as they gave me a refund I would stay in Cadiz with my wife. The manager said they would refund me, but something tells me that I might have to pursue this when I get home. I hope that I’m wrong. Much to my wife’s surprise I returned to the cabin whilst she was still showering and by the time she was ready we only had one option for breakfast, a place that we avoid like the plague - the buffet. No matter, it was approaching 10am and we were in port so it would be quiet. WRONG! We did a complete circuit of both sides before I found a vacant table. It was a 6 seater but there were no others, so finders keepers! It was near a drink station so I got the teas and then set off for food. I walked back to the food stations and a waiter was pulling a barrier across saying that it was closed. “Where do I go?”, “Starboard side forward sir”. Right, off I go to the other end of the buffet and then of course I’d forgotten that, in their infinite wisdom, P&O have done away with trays. This is a pain for most people but a ruddy nightmare when you have a disabled partner (or young children for that matter) and have to sort out food for more than one person. I decided that if I was going to all this trouble I’d get a cooked breakfast. Pros and cons here. I tried (and really liked) the lamb kofta sausages (that you can’t get in the MDR) but the fried eggs had been under the heat lamp for too long and the yolks had gone hard and crusty. I couldn’t find brown sauce so asked a waiter. He pointed me to where I had already looked. There wasn’t any. He then disappeared to look for some. Meantime I found two manky looking bottles elsewhere but they were both empty. I resorted to asking an officer and he went off and found me some. The next challenge was that I couldn’t find any butter, but by this time the food was going tepid so I gave up and found my way back to the table, mumbling to my wife that I just could not be bothered with all this faff every day. A waiter walked past and I asked him where the butter was. He started to explain and I just said “you couldn’t do me a great favour and get some for me please before my food goes cold”? Off he went and retuned with a yellow tub of butter chunks. Good man. Well, that’s what I thought, until we had used the first two cubes - when I noticed that this butter had been put into a dirty tub that had dark food waste in it 🤢 Photo attached for evidence! I fully admire those of you who rave about the buffet, but it just doesn’t work for us on so many levels! As my trip to Seville was off, I decided that I’d like to watch the Kings Speech and then go into town after lunch, which we did. Iona was in port and had nabbed the berth that enables you to just walk straight off the ship into town. As a result, we were a bit further out and had to use port shuttles but, in fairness, the service was excellent. Very frequent and most busses were accessible. We had a great walk around Cadiz in glorious sunshine and Azure blue skies. It’s definitely in our top 10 ports. Lovely architecture, beautiful parks and gardens, a lovely promenade, atmospheric old town and no naff areas. Also, the port authority should be commended for having the fastest moving security screening that we’ve ever been through, as we discovered when we rejoined the ship. When we got back to our cabin Kasper, our extremely efficient and personable deck manager, visited to see how the creaking had been. I was delighted to report that the WD40 and pads had done the trick! He was still unhappy that we had declined his offer of a complimentary meal. He offered us another Epicurean, Sindhu or Beach House meal, but we explained that we like the MDR and already have one more Epicurean booking pre-paid. He was most insistent, so we settled on a lunch in the Glasshouse on our penultimate sea day. I really must commend Kasper and the maintenance team. They have really excelled in alleviating this problem for us, and we are most grateful. I do feel that this is an area in which P&O excel. We decided to use our Sail-away vouchers for a complimentary Champagne in the Glasshouse. That went down a bit quickly so I followed it with a large Jam Shed Shiraz, having fallen for Ollie Smith’s sales pitch! Dinner in the MDR was excellent as usual. Our assistant waiter was back from his sick bed, but wearing a mask. Makes me a bit nervous, but we really like him and we are nearly at the end of the cruise if we catch anything off him 🤞 My wife didn’t fancy the postponed Headliners show (Centre Stage) so after dropping her off at the cabin I decided to go alone. I’m embarrassed to say that the fatal combination of a big meal, a few glasses of wine and a warm theatre conspired to ensure that I nodded through most of the first half of the show. This was a shame as the second half (which I managed to watch) was very good. From our experience, the quality of Headliners troupes varies considerably from very good to poor. Based on what I’ve seen, this lot are in the very good category. Tomorrow Lisbon.

Some shots from Cadiz today

They do nice roasts on her though Jean 😉

Iona has just left. We can now see Cadiz 😂

Captain on Ventura has just made the pre departure announcement and no suggestion that there’s any doubt about Lisbon. However, I guess there’s still a chance we might hit problems in the morning. Personally I can take or leave Lisbon (cruises go there too often IMHO) but I would hope for a replacement port and not an extra sea day.

That’s a good benefit. After our next cruise I think we will move to Baltic loyalty tier with P&O. That gets us 50% discount on laundry. Nice to have, but it won’t encourage me to book more cruises, especially as that seems to be about the only thing that you gain above Caribbean tier 🙄

I’m hoping that we will travel back to Southampton side by side, with Iona acting as a wind break for Ventura 💨 🌊

🙄😡😂

No offers on any of our 3 P&O cruises this year David (2x14 night and 1x7 night). I’d hope that they still do them on longer cruises.

Current ships laundry prices

I find that my clothes shrink on every cruise, even without using the laundry service 😂

I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. Whilst I completely understand the point that P&O and others are making (and it is of course correct that this is technically an insurance matter), you would hope that an honourable company would make a discretionary refund in the event of the death of a passenger if they are not otherwise covered. Let’s face it, they will re-sell the cabin and the lost deposit then becomes pure profit for them. Effectively, the natural conclusion is that they are profiting from deaths, which leave a bad taste.

I’ve been surprised to see repetition already in our second week, so I suspect that we might get a bit fed up with how many times they repeat when we are on Aurora for 65 nights 😱. That being said, neither of us are fussy eaters, so even if the menus repeat every few weeks we can still try something different each time, or go back to things that we like. Our menus at home have considerably more repetition than the ships MDRs 😂 . We have now had over 30 days on P&O since July on 3 different ships, and whilst there have been one or two meals where we wished that we’d ordered something else, we haven’t had a bad meal yet in any of the MDRs. Interestingly, there was a lady on our table at the Caribbean lunch yesterday who said that she’d been on one of the new Saga ships but she wouldn't go again and preferred P&O. I asked why and she said that the food wasn’t as good 😂

Yes the port shuttles are a mix of yellow busses, yellow coaches and Tui coaches. Don’t ask me why! Thought of you this morning. Had to go to the buffet for breakfast. Horrendous. Never mind preservegate, I have a buttergate story to share later 😂

I had the Marco menu. Enjoyed it all.