Happy afloat

I wonder if they now re-use them to save cost? Perhaps they'll laminate them in future, like the old Wimpy bar ones.

I agree about Iona, it's a bit like an airport departure lounge. Not conducive to a pleasant dining experience, IMHO. Also, when we were on board in november, it was pretty much a tapas style restaurant, possibly due Jose Pizarro being on board. Does Ventura not have an area that is partially segregated?

I think this must depend on the ship. Recently on Aurora, no pre-booking was required for the Glass House and yes, you can just pop in for a drink. One of our favourite places on Aurora. The wife is very fond of the wine flights! Food was very good, as was the service.

As I said earlier, no pagers or queueing were required on Aurora in April.

Whilst all of us on here are entitled to question the opinions of others, we do not have the right to correct them. People report their experiences and we should take that as an honest reporting of their findings, whether that matches our experiences or not. Aurora has only Sindhu and the Glass House. On our recent cruise (only about 70 people short of being full), there was plenty of availability and no need to book. In fact, you couldn't book the Glass House, only turn up when you wanted to dine, but we never saw anyone being turned away. Sindhu could be booked on the day. Possibly due to the almost 2-1 staffing levels, or the fact that the app was superfluous to the point that no one used it, I don't know.

Hi, that's exactly the point I was trying to make, in the past we haven't experienced an mdr being full, so why now? Reduced capacity? Reduced staffing levels? Removal of club dining? We never used to traipse around before, you were allocated an mdr and never had an issue. Don't understand why there's a problem now?

Hi, Some well made points there, but they themselves raise more questions. Firstly, I myself would have thought that those with younger families (the focus point for the new ships and the demographic you mention) would be aiming to eat earlier? Do the hotels you mention ask you to use an app to book a spot to dine? I don't know, not stayed in a resort hotel for years. You've always had to book for some of the smaller venues on P&O (sindhu, epicurean etc), but not the main dining rooms. So why now? Also, I don't think any of the theatres on any ship are big enough to cater for the entire pax, but booking was never required. Is it a case then, that by giving you a bigger choice of venues, they have unwittingly made them too small to cope with the amount of pax on board? If you were to total up the entire entertainment capacity, is it sufficient? Have they massively underestimated the popularity of, say, the 710 club? I agree about the entry cost, we're not paying any more, and often much less, than we did some years ago. But are we getting the same for our money? Does the reduced staffing levels, and therefore service, impact us to a point where our cruise experience is poorer than back then? As for the couple on Fred, I think we've all had the misfortune to occasionally be sat on that table. Thankfully, rarely in our case. And yes, apps are a big part of life these days. But they are proper apps, well put together and fit for purpose, P&O's doesn't seem to be. Not in my experience, and not from what I read on here. Not picking a fight here, BTW, just trying to get my head around the reasoning. And Andy, have a great return to cruising. The ships are still full of nice people!

For us, the "app" has sometimes worked, sometimes not. We had it on Ventura in Nov 21, when it was just being rolled out. Horrendous, to the point where even the crew were giving up with it. Fair enough, it was new, but if you're going to implement something, make sure it works first. Then Iona last November, where it was okay, no great problems, other than connectivity at times. But again, that's not acceptable, if its in place, it should work. IMHO. On Aurora in April this year it was completely superfluous. We never had cause to use it after the fourth night, there just wasn't any need. Possibly this was down to the average age on board(76). They all seemed to want to dine at 6.30, leaving the freedom dining restaurant pretty much available at any time to walk up and get a table, as long as you were willing to share. So my question would be this:- Why bother? Are they not trying to fix something that actually isn't broken? As I've said before on here, the old system of fixed/freedom dining always seemed to work well; the only queues we ever saw was for the early sitting. We were only ever offered a pager a couple of times in our eight or so pre app cruises, so surely it can't ever have been that busy, due to the fixed diners taking the pressure off the freedom restaurant? So, is it P&O introducing something because they think they need to, as a means to attract the younger audience they are aiming the newer ships at? Or because they think that they need to because the other cruise lines are doing it and they don't want to appear to be left behind? Or, is it because by doing away with fixed dining they can get away with a smaller staff to guest ratio? Answers on a postcard, please. In case the technology lets us down......

Booking.com or Trivago will give you a good list of options at various price levels.

That's what Paul Ludlow says. 99.9% of the time....

Hi not sure why you've only got one gala night. I don't think this is the norm as we had four on Aurora in April.

I didn't query your or anyone else's experience, what I said was we were surprised that you had the experience you did given that ours was at the other end of the scale. As I said in my follow up post, we weren't on your cruise so can't comment on the quality or lack thereof. In no way was I contradicting your findings, merely pointing out that ours differed. As for our experience not being the point of the post, can I take it that this forum is now no longer a platform for members to share our findings and opinions?

No I'm not. I'm commenting, genuinely, on our experiences. If you say yours was different then I will take what you say at face value and not disbelieve what you say as I wasn't there to bear witness.

Megabear, please keep posting. What I would say though is that given the start you had to your holiday, I'd take a break and do your best to enjoy the remainder of your trip Perhaps then let us know the rest of the story when it's over?

We're really surprised to read this tbh. We were on Aurora in April for the first time and never had a bad meal in the mdr (freedom dining). Full plates of hot food every time, served on hot plates. Puddings were good in the mdr, cold desserts a bit tasteless. Sindhu and glasshouse both very good also, though the service in the glasshouse was a bit slow once, when they were particularly busy. Never had to fall back on the steak as a standby once. Wonder what's changed?

Just wondering if anyone has been refused a drink because they'd had their allowance of 15?

Phone reception and tell them you can see smoke issuing from an adjacent cabin window. The captain won't be happy to find the fire team have been sent on a wild goose chase.

Iona last November and Aurora last month we were asked to contact reception to let them know if we were self disembarking. Seem to remember there usually being a request to do this either in Horizon or a note in the cabin.

Put me down for that group please! Wife commented recently "I never thought you'd turn into a miserable old git, and yet, here you are, absolutely nailing it!

Thanks to all for the information.

Or they could just ditch the app and go back to the old system of two sittings and proper freedom dining. It worked. It didn't need fixing. As for gratuities, we always leave a tip, particularly for the cabin steward. We have always found the vast majority of staff to be worthy of tipping, but, very occasionally, have met with individuals clearly not suited to front of house roles. Why would we reward them? Surely it would be retrograde to reinstate and would lead to more work for the reception staff with people opting out during the cruse.

Sorry if this information is already available and I've missed it, but if you hold shares do you pay a monthly admin fee to the broker? And if so, how? It's something we're interested in doing but clueless, I'm afraid.

Given the cost of a decent glass of wine, large g&t, cocktails etc, I could quite easily. But the wife couldn't, so it's a non-starter for us.

Hope you have a lovely time megabear. As for biscuits, we now have 48 packets of hob-nobs going cheap if anyone wants them.

They were both on our Iona cruise last November, along with Gary Barlow. Jose was promoting his tapas menu in the glass house with Ollys wine pairings. They also did a talk in the theatre with Gary about wine and food. Gary has his own wine label, of course. They were both very approachable and friendly. We chatted to Olly for about 20 minutes about wine.