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16 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Did they attempt to contact the ship to say that their flight was delayed and they were on the way and would be there maybe a half hour or so late? 

15 hours ago, Globaliser said:

I love your optimism!

I have been on a cruise where someone running late was successful doing that - they were half an hour late back from Rome to Civitavecchia and the next stop for the ship was Valetta in Malta for disembarkation.

However it was a port call during a cruise, the ship had two days to sail between Civitavecchia and Valetta, and the flights home from Malta were arranged by the cruise company, and undoubtably there would have been some interesting discussions about the passenger's luggage on the ship if the late passengers had just decided to fly back home from Rome rather than try to get to Malta.

Plus the passengers had been able to give the ship specific details when they called about when they would arrive as they had missed the train from Rome and were in a taxi so could give an accurate ETA from the cars navigation system, and so the captain knew it was a certain 30 minutes late and not a vague claim.

But phoning the cruise ship telling them you are going to be late on embarkation at the start of a cruise - zero chance the ship will specifically wait.

If the ship is delayed for some other reason (weather, cleaning, port traffic, etc.) then they might let you embark late, but even then that is a might rather than it being a certainty, since if the passenger manifest has already been done and submitted there is no likelihood that someone is going to spend the time, effort, and cost amending that.

I thought this was interesting from the NHS given the opprobrium directed to the hand gel dodgers - 

Norovirus (vomiting bug) - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Washing your hands frequently with soap and water is the best way to stop it spreading. Alcohol hand gels do not kill norovirus.

Also note the 'frequently' in the washing with soap and water as washing doesn't kill norovirus unless the temperature of the water is above 60c, which is hot enough to scald your hands.

Effective washing for at least 20 seconds will remove the virus, but a splash under the tap won't.

If you want to kill norovirus then you need to use bleach, and that's where the crew comes in with lots and lots of cleaning of surfaces, which as it can live on those surfaces for up to four weeks, then it can certainly last between two customers pulling up a chair to sit down unless it has been wiped down.

11 hours ago, daiB said:

We found the 6th st diner to be excellent we. Went for 2 breakfasts 1 lunch and 2 dinners over 28 nights. The food and service was excellent each time. 

On the cruise over the last fortnight the Sixth Street venue didn't open for breakfast, but opened for 'brunch' between 10am and 2pm, before closing until 5pm. 

The food was good and on port days the service was good and speedy. The issue was on sea days on a half-term cruise when every table was full with families and the kitchen simply couldn't keep up leading to significant waits for food to be delivered.

11 hours ago, daiB said:

As for the Green and Co. I would agree that it is underused however the food on offer was excellent, we are not vegetarians.

I am sure the food would have been good, particularly as it has a dedicated kitchen, as the food in the Olive Grove on Iona was good for being freshly cooked to order.

The issue is that there are simply not enough pure vegetarians in P&O's demographic to make it work.

11 hours ago, daiB said:

With regard to the Olive Grove it was what I expected as I knew about the changes. But it is not trying to be the same as on Iona. A number of people I have talked to think that what is on offer on Arvia is better than on Iona, overall 

It is better in that it is an alternative menu that is available to a far larger number of people than the venue on Iona that was constantly full.

The issue is that the food now comes from the main kitchen rather than the dedicated attached kitchen on Iona so they have adjusted the menu accordingly, and as with many dishes that come out of the MDR kitchen you look at the menu and think 'that's interesting' and then what turns up only bears some similarity to the menu description - for example my wife had the lamb shank tagine one evening, and described it as lamb shank in gravy with a spoonful of couscous, whilst my beef koftas gyros were simply beef meatballs on a pita bread, with weirdly a sweet chilli sauce.

11 hours ago, daiB said:

Interestingly they Olive Gove is now open for the MDR breakfast which i cannot remember if that was the case on Iona. I mean the venue not the Olive Grove.

The venue certainly wasn't open for breakfast or lunch when I was on Iona, but then it wasn't open at all as when I last sailed it was closed up as the ship was not sailing full being as the two cruises were not too long after they started sailing again.

Now they have people on the door actively trying to drag people in to breakfast or lunch as people head down the corridor to the more popular Meridian.

3 hours ago, Bin man said:

you had to book mission control and the rope walk but thought that was free as well

Nope, £20 each for adults if my memory is correct.

2 hours ago, Adawn47 said:

They will still be moving around the ship touching other surfaces. This is sadly a 'catch 22' situation, which is why I keep coming back to personal hygiene.

To be pedantic, it isn't a 'catch 22' situation as that is an impossible situation where you cannot do one thing until you do another thing, but you cannot do the second thing until you do the first thing.

For it to be a 'catch 22' situation P&O would be prevented from putting out the hand gel dispensers until thy had put in place additional protective measures to counter the risk caused by those that don't use the hand gel dispensers, and in addition P&O would be prevented from putting in place those additional protective measures until they had put out hand gel dispensers.

Obviously putting out the hand gel dispensers is entirely independent of the additional protective measures, and the additional protective measures are entirely independent of the hand gel dispensers, so it is nothing like a 'catch 22' situation.

A good risk prevention strategy relies on many layers of prevention, and if P&O stopped relying on the single layer of prevention of hand gel dispensers and introduced good and effective secondary measures then the risk created by those who avoid the gel dispensers would be minimised.

1 minute ago, Adawn47 said:

There is no cure for people's lack of personal hygiene.

As before, the cure to recognise that some people will not follow the hygiene rules so you don't only rely on those hygiene rules to be the protection.

You put in place procedures on top of those hygiene rules, such as removing self-service, moving to single use condiments, lots and lots of cleaning of tables, etc.

Focusing on those few individuals who are not using the hand gel rather than the $20 billion company who is not putting in place the mitigations necessary, is pointing the figure in the wrong direction.

2 minutes ago, david63 said:

Based on that definition, which needs updating, all mobile phones are prohibited as they communicate with satellites when using the ship's wi-fi and so do all other devices that are connected to the ship's wi-fi

Seriously?

1 hour ago, david63 said:

If I am not mistaken there are different types of walkie-talkies. The ones that you can buy from the "corner shop" are probably OK but the "professional" ones, as used by the crew, are not OK.

To quote from the P&O FAQ the prohibited items in that category are -

Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) ham radios, communication scanners, wide-band receivers, satellite phones, transformers, lasers and laser pointers

So all types of walkie-talkies are permitted, although interestingly Apple iPhone 14s and 15s are prohibited as they have the ability to communicate with satellites.

14 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

I was behind a woman who used the hand gel on entry, then blew her nose, stuffed the used tissue into her jeans and went on to serve herself from the salad bar.

No amount of onboard precautions is a cure for a passenger's bad hygene.

Yes there are precautions that would cure that.

The cure is to stop self-service and have staff serve the passengers at the buffet, and plenty of cruise ships including other Carnival Corp brands do that (complete with plexi shields to prevent passengers touching or sneezing on the food).

It is not rocket science.

1 hour ago, david63 said:

And how many passengers do you see ignoring the gel stations when re-boarding the ship when having been ashore?

Given that norovirus is rampaging around onboard and not onshore, then surely the issue is people not using the gel stations as they disembark at ports to help prevent it being transferred off the ship!

11 minutes ago, kalos said:

It's amazing what you see ,when the staff attempt to get folk to gel their hands .

More so in the buffet on Azura /Ventura, they deploy gel staff at both end entrances.

Upon seeing this some folk turn away and then slip in through the middle exit .

In other words they will put more effort into not using the gel  stations .

Obviously P&O are aware that people are doing this and that whatever they do some people will not wash their hands / use the gel (or even if they do wash their hands / use the gel then immediately negate that by licking their fingers).

In the light of this knowledge then I would expect P&O to set their norovirus protocols to deal with it - as before, removing self-service, removing the condiments, and lots and lots of cleaning, rather than shrugging their shoulders and going "ah well, we tried, not our fault if you fall sick".

9 hours ago, AchileLauro said:

Walkie talkies are not permitted on the ship.

They are allowed as they are not listed as a prohibited item - https://www.pocruises.com/frequently-asked-questions?categoryId=life-on-board&questionId=What-am-I-not-allowed-to-take-on-board.summary 

However it is probably pointless as they won't work very well on the ship and taking them onshore in certain countries is likely to get you spending time with some very cross police/military.

Yes people should obviously wash their hands frequently and use the hand gel, but that only partly tackles the issue.

It doesn't tackle the issue of say someone licking their fingers after they have washed them and then touching something which is going to be then touched by other passengers who have also washed their hands - tongs, condiments, chair arms, etc.

What is needed is better proactive steps from the cruise line - removing self-service and serving customers in the buffet (which other cruise lines manage to achieve easily), replacing condiments with single use portions, and lots and lots of cleaning - none of which P&O is doing.

On 6/5/2024 at 9:27 PM, alallallan said:

Does anyone have any recent feedback or reviews for the Arvia, Looking to go around the Mediterranean this July

Having previously sailed a couple of time on Iona and having returned today from Arvia I would make the following points on the differentiation between the two.

The change of the two mid-section MDRs on Iona into the Sixth Street Diner and Olive Grove on Arvia is partly a good idea and partly a bad idea.

The Sixth Street Diner was incredibly popular but I don't know if it was meeting its desired aim of diverting passengers from the two rear MDRs which are the only ones on the ship, or was bringing traffic down from Horizon - however whatever it was doing they need to up their game on service as it was taking 45 minutes to deliver a simple hamburger when it was busy.

The expanded Olive Grove is partly a good idea because it can serve a far larger group of people who want to sample the Olive Grove menu, but... that menu is only served in the evenings and not at lunchtime as on Iona as at lunchtimes they just serve the MDR menu AND on celebration evenings it also serves the MDR menu so again restricting choice AND the menu has been 'dumbed down' from the Iona menu.

The Green and Co pay restaurant that occupies the space that Olive Grove does on Iona is an utter waste of space as it is ignored by the vast majority of people onboard - I never saw more than a dozen people dining in there at any one time so 95% of the tables were empty.

On my cruise I didn't have an issue getting a table in the reduced MDR space for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but then I tend to eat early (8am) for breakfast and late (towards 9pm) for dinner.

The added pay entertainment over Iona of the 'high wire' walk, mini golf, and Mission Control seemed to be popular as they always seemed to be fully booked.

Just got off Arvia this morning (9th June).

Embarkation was theoretically delayed by two hours for a deep clean a fortnight ago, but when I arrived an hour after my original 12:15 time preparing to wait another hour the embarkation had clearly been underway for some time and we were just ushered straight on, so perhaps they finished the deep clean earlier than expected...

Anyway the deep clean didn't work and a few days into the voyage the menu cards in the bars vanished, the menu covers in the restaurants disappeared, there were cards to the cabin with vague mentions of hand hygiene, and a single similar announcement from the captain about sanitising your hands on boarding from ports and pressing the lift buttons with knuckles.

Although there seemed to be a slight uptick in cleaning in the public areas, it did seem to be lip service as tables were generally not cleaned in bars or restaurants between customers, and those items handled by different customers such as condiments remained on the table.

And by the end of the cruise the cleaning had really fallen below par with paper towel waste bins regularly overflowing onto the floor - although the upside was perhaps that was due to more people washing their hands.

And of course there was no mention at all officially of norovirus - god forbid that anyone should actually mention that.

Thus the vast majority of passengers went around blithely unaware that there was any particular issue, behaving as they might if there wasn't any problem - unless they saw the 'space suited' staff members wheeling trolleys laden down for the many cabins who had been quarantined.

4 hours ago, kevboy said:

I cannot fault most of the measures P&O have in place or their efforts to contain outbreaks.

Having just disembarked from Arvia, I can certainly find fault with P&O, even though we managed to avoid it.

Before embarking a week ago we had the "a few guests have experienced symptoms of gastrointestinal illness" email telling us that embarkation was delayed by two hours for a deep clean.

For goodness sake, why dance around the issue with "gastrointestinal illness" instead of saying what it is to actually get people's attention.

A few days into the cruise all the cabins got a 'please be aware of hygiene' card, but again no mention of norovirus rampaging through the ship.

Then a day or so later the menu cards disappeared from the bars and the restaurants went to the menu cards without the holders, and the laundry had a 'we recommend you wash at the highest temperature' notice, but again no mention of norovirus rampaging through the ship.

Then at one of the captain's (cringeworthy) announcements there was another 'please be aware of hygiene' piece, but again no mention of norovirus rampaging through the ship. 

Meanwhile the salt and pepper pots remained on the tables, the condiments remained on the table in the Sixth Street diner, some tables were occasionally wiped down in the bars and restaurants by the staff after they were vacated, but most were not.

I have no idea what was going on in the usual 'lick your fingers and then use the tongs' horror show that is Horizon.

And the end result was that the vast majority of passengers were going around in blissful ignorance that anything was wrong - I spoke to many people and overheard many people who had no clue why the menus had been removed from the bars.

Then when we were disembarking this morning I overheard mention that embarkation was again delayed for a few hours for a deep clean...

If P&O actually want people to sit up and take notice then they need to stop pussyfooting around and actually tell people what the issue is, rather than hiding behind vague terms.

Maybe if they told people that there was a serious norovirus outbreak onboard and that the implications of touching anything and then touching your food or your face would potentially result in serious issues, then perhaps, just perhaps people might pay some attention.

But the chance of them doing that and not continuing with the box ticking 'keep us out of court whilst not upsetting the customers approach' is absolutely zero.

7 minutes ago, david63 said:

How rigorously these rules are enforced is another matter.

Having just got back on Arvia ten minutes ago at Cadiz then you would have actively had to seek someone out if you wanted to hand over any alcohol bought onshore, and the same was true of all the other ports that had shoreside scanning, as they seem to have given up with the (bored) staff sitting at an ‘honesty’ table at security. 
 

On 6/2/2024 at 11:56 AM, Interestedcruisefan said:

Arvia will have youngest demographics of any P and O ship

 

Think I saw somehwere that the average age cruising on Arvia last year was 49 years old?

 

Can't remember where though

The trouble with mean averages they can be a bit misleading. 
 

From looking around this cruise (which admittedly is a school holiday cruise) there seem to be some distinct peaks of age groups - lots of families in their 30s with children and lots of couples in their 60s - which together would make an average of 40ish, but actually not too many real 40ish people around. 
 

What does seem to be missing from cruises in the past is lots of the very elderly - there are a few but not many. 

8 minutes ago, Bin man said:

Yes that is correct and I also thought they repeated the shows over the two weeks so you could mix and match with the other entertainment venues 

The only show that is definitely repeated is the Thursday ‘guest night’ when they get the atrium singer in instead of the 710 band, and then the ‘app’ says you can’t book it if you booked the prior Thursday as it is already booked. 
 

Other than that, the daily themes are repeated, but from previous cruises they didn’t play the same set for that theme on the second week that they did the first. 

4 hours ago, zap99 said:

Book 710 as soon as you get onboard. Sometimes you can get myholiday in the terminal, but in April we wizzed straight through.

That wasn’t possible on the cruise I am currently on. 
 

Horizon stated that the first night’s booking was only possible after 5.30pm and that was the case as it wasn’t present on the My Holiday ’app’ until that time.
 

It also advised that the whole of the following two weeks would became available at 10.30pm which was also the case. 
 

I guess they are experimenting to stop the early boarders grabbing everything before anyone else has a chance. 

57 minutes ago, FangedRose said:

There again i've never seen a two litre bottle of squash look anything like a bottle of spirits.

Not one two litre bottle, but two litre bottles (plural). 

11 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

It's not about Arvia it's about the world changing and people's dining habits changing 

 

Which is happening

It isn’t, which is why there has been the well reported closure of many vegan restaurants. 

On 5/31/2024 at 8:07 PM, sweep2907 said:

To clarify, bottles.were confiscated from suitcases and passenger was called to reception. 

When I boarded Arvia a week ago nobody questioned or asked to look at the two litre bottles of squash that was in my hand luggage, so maybe it is selective checks. 

On 5/31/2024 at 8:29 PM, Interestedcruisefan said:

Green and Co was more than half full when we visited

Well it isn’t on this cruise, and half full on some cruises and less on others is hardly a success. 
 

On 5/31/2024 at 8:29 PM, Interestedcruisefan said:

I think the longer it goes the busier it will get

And how many years has Arvia been sailing…

52 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

Perhaps the queues at the bars are people getting most out of drink package.

That is still a success for P&O getting people to spend, and spend heavily, as the drinks packages are damned expensive. 
 

54 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

However, given that extra cost speciality dining is booked very quickly,  I  can't imagine it becoming another inclusive dining venue.  However all P&O ships need a high quality fish restaurant,  which will be very popular. 

A high quality fish restaurant being popular? No chance - there are damn all of those in the UK, so it is incredibly unlikely such a restaurant would appeal to those onboard, the same as a vegan/vegetarian restaurant isn’t.