Britannia in trouble ?

[Jossie1960]

I wonder why P&O didn’t advise their current passengers that the ship had engine problems before it departed Southampton.

I was considering a Britannia Cruise but will now wait to see how they handle the situation. I for one are glad that I am not on this Baltic cruise.

Edited July 11, 2019 by Jossie1960

[Selbourne]

13 minutes ago, Jossie1960 said:

I wonder why P&O didn’t advise their current passengers that the ship had engine problems before it departed Southampton.

I was considering a Britannia Cruise but will now wait to see how they handle the situation. I for one are glad that I am not on this Baltic cruise.

 

What specifically have you heard about the current Baltic cruise that has prompted your post? I have just checked ship tracking and she left Helsinki on time and is well underway to her next port. A regular poster on here (who is onboard Britannia for this Baltic Cruise) reported in the last day or so that all is well. The problems of the last cruise have already been covered but the title of your post may cause undue alarm to people who have friends or relatives on the current cruise. Can you substantiate?

[jeanlyon]

Yes agree.  She had a problem.  She seems fine now.  Why write a post like that?

[Thejuggler]

I know someone on it.  I'll find out when he gets back.

[Jossie1960]

She limped on half power missed ports of call and offered £70 as compensation. The point I made was that they didn’t tell anyone for 24 hours knowing full well that they had engine problems before they left Southampton. Can you trust P&O ?

[Jossie1960]

58 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Yes agree.  She had a problem.  She seems fine now.  Why write a post like that?

.....to inform people.  

 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Jossie1960

[Jossie1960]

3 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

What specifically have you heard about the current Baltic cruise that has prompted your post? I have just checked ship tracking and she left Helsinki on time and is well underway to her next port. A regular poster on here (who is onboard Britannia for this Baltic Cruise) reported in the last day or so that all is well. The problems of the last cruise have already been covered but the title of your post may cause undue alarm to people who have friends or relatives on the current cruise. Can you substantiate?

I would have thought stalwart like your good self would be better informed........... maybe  people should be cautious.   I definitely will not trust them with my hard earned money and stay well clear.

[Selbourne]

44 minutes ago, Jossie1960 said:

She limped on half power missed ports of call and offered £70 as compensation. The point I made was that they didn’t tell anyone for 24 hours knowing full well that they had engine problems before they left Southampton. Can you trust P&O ?

 

The YouTube clip that you posted is factually inaccurate. It was speculation based upon the problems experienced on the previous cruise and was posted before the ship had even left on the current cruise. The main thrust was that it would not call at Skagen. It did, as one of the posters on here (DaiB) reported from there! In that post he also stated that they had all been given £70 OBC. No ports had been missed at that stage and it seems strange that he didn’t mention anything if that was the reason. Subsequently, as far as I can tell, it does seem to be following a different course to that advertised (although rather unhelpfully it no longer shows on the P&O website so I can’t be 100% certain), so there may well be an issue, but if so it is certainly different to what was stated in that clip. 

 

In addition to DaiB, we happen to have friends on this cruise (not Cruise Critic members) so will get the full run down when they return. Britannia undoubtedly has some issues at present and there is every chance that the current cruise may be impacted by it, but unfortunately in the absence of any concrete info at present it remains speculation. 

[Selbourne]

To correct my last post, I have now checked the past track of Britannia on marinetraffic.com against the advertised itinerary and she is running on schedule with no ports missed so far. She was due in Skagen on 8th and Helsinki today and made both ports on time. She left Helsinki at 1717 and is due in to St Petersburg at 0345 tomorrow and traveling at 15 knots, which is about the norm for Britannia. These are facts not speculation. If anyone else has any facts about announced changes to the rest of this cruise then please post, as I have no information on this and haven’t heard from our friends who are onboard yet. 

[Eglesbrech]

9 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

The YouTube clip that you posted is factually inaccurate. It was speculation based upon the problems experienced on the previous cruise and was posted before the ship had even left on the current cruise. The main thrust was that it would not call at Skagen. It did, as one of the posters on here (DaiB) reported from there! In that post he also stated that they had all been given £70 OBC. No ports had been missed at that stage and it seems strange that he didn’t mention anything if that was the reason. Subsequently, as far as I can tell, it does seem to be following a different course to that advertised (although rather unhelpfully it no longer shows on the P&O website so I can’t be 100% certain), so there may well be an issue, but if so it is certainly different to what was stated in that clip. 

 

In addition to DaiB, we happen to have friends on this cruise (not Cruise Critic members) so will get the full run down when they return. Britannia undoubtedly has some issues at present and there is every chance that the current cruise may be impacted by it, but unfortunately in the absence of any concrete info at present it remains speculation. 

Britannia	6-Jul-2019	Southampton (England)	United Kingdom	06:45 - 18:00
Britannia	7-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	8-Jul-2019	Skagen	Denmark	09:00-17:00
Britannia	9-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	10-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	11-Jul-2019	Helsinki	Finland	08:00-17:00
Britannia	12-Jul-2019	St Petersburg	Russia	07:00-18:00
Britannia	13-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	14-Jul-2019	Tallinn	Estonia	08:00-17:00
Britannia	15-Jul-2019	Stockholm	Sweden	09:00-17:00
Britannia	16-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	17-Jul-2019	Copenhagen	Denmark	10:00-22:00
Britannia	18-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	19-Jul-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Britannia	20-Jul-2019	Southampton

 

The above is the current itinerary according to a cruise site (which I probably can’t name on here). Don’t know how accurate the site is but it ties in with what you thought so far.

[P&O SUE]

I have also seen posters on FB posting they did get into Skagen after all. Seems a bit alarmist to me!

[Clodia]

I have friends on this cruise and everything is going to plan; they are having a great time.

[terrierjohn]

I would like to know where the very anti P&O brigade get their data from when they make these negative posts?  I have been very critical of some aspects of P&O, and feel they do need to look carefully at their management culture and the customer service they provide, but these have all been from my own personal observations and not garnered from complaining comments from annoyed passengers culled from around the social media environment.

Does an anti P&O site exist somewhere out there on the dark web I wonder???

[Selbourne]

22 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I would like to know where the very anti P&O brigade get their data from when they make these negative posts?  I have been very critical of some aspects of P&O, and feel they do need to look carefully at their management culture and the customer service they provide, but these have all been from my own personal observations and not garnered from complaining comments from annoyed passengers culled from around the social media environment.

Does an anti P&O site exist somewhere out there on the dark web I wonder???

 

Those sentiments entirely echo mine John. There is so much nonsense spouted online these days and it’s interesting how those that spout it tend to go very quiet when the facts disprove them.

 

I have been very critical of a number of aspects of P&O, notably their shoreside customer service which, when you have a complaint, can be shocking. There have been two occasions when I have had to take P&O to task over issues that really spoilt a cruise. Once when 2 of the 4 ports were changed long before sailing but wasn’t communicated until it was too late to cancel and another time when we had multiple problems with a Suite. On both occasions I eventually secured substantial compensation, but they were prolonged battles and required non disclosure agreements. Both instances left a bad taste in the mouth, so I am certainly no apologist for P&O, but that was 2 out of 18 cruises with them. 

 

As for Britannia, she clearly has had some mechanical difficulties of late, as has been widely reported, but this thread was specifically about the current cruise which, as far as we can ascertain, has not experienced these issues. Certainly they have not missed any ports so far, as was claimed. Let’s hope that continues. 

 

There are one one or two people on here who can pick a fight in an empty room, never let hard facts get in the way of a good argument and, when all else fails, simply resort to insults. I believe that these types (trolls?) are more prevalent on other forms of social media, which is why I don’t use any of them. I have stuck with Cruise Critic as I like keeping up to date with what’s happening with P&O, hope that my experience and knowledge is sometimes of use to others and because we still Cruise with them. If I ever decided that everything that P&O did was rubbish and that we were never going to cruise with them again I would certainly have far better things to do with my life than frequent these forums constantly telling people!

 

 

[majortom10]

P&O have confirmed today in the last hour that Britannia was late leaving Southampton and that she did reach and dock at Skagen as per itinerary.

[majortom10]

13 hours ago, Jossie1960 said:

.....to inform people.  

 

Total scaremongering and totally inaccurate rubbish on youtube by an ill conceived reporter of some kind. Josie1960 you should really get your facts correct before you post such rubbish on social media that is completely false.

[annieuk]

I suppose the people that do that - the doom and gloom people - must get some sort of excitement out of trying to create a poor image of whichever cruise line or they wouldn't do it.  Those of us who have cruised a lot know to ignore such postings but those who are new to cruising must wonder if they've done the right thing in booking.  Yes things do wrong with ship, yes all companies are not always good at communication with passengers and sorting out problems when they occur, but surely a ship that is at sea 24/7 is going to have the occasional problem.  It's happened to us perhaps twice in over 25 cruises - once on Arcadia when there was a problem with one of the azipods and we had to miss a port, all passengers received £100 on board credit - and once on Oceana , I can't remember what was wrong and we were late leaving port but as the next day was a sea day the Captain was able to keep to the schedule.  When you read this site regularly you get to know who the - I suppose they are Trolls - are and are not surprised at their postings.  Such a shame. 

[Selbourne]

4 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

P&O have confirmed today in the last hour that Britannia was late leaving Southampton and that she did reach and dock at Skagen as per itinerary.

 

Yes, she left Southampton at 2245 due to the inbound cruise being around 5 hours late, so did well to get to Skagen on time although, as we know, they build in a lot of slack into the timings. On our last cruise on Britannia we had to make a substantial detour to Almeria to offload two very ill passengers. This necessitated a timely and complex manoeuvre into a commercial port, with another ship having to be moved to accommodate us in a grain berth. We didn’t leave there until around 1am and still arrived into Gibraltar just 15 minutes late!

[SquishTheWhale]

'I wonder why P&O didn’t advise their current passengers that the ship had engine problems before it departed Southampton. '

 

The current passengers were advised to arrive up to 6hrs later to board the ship. Therefore they did know before arriving that there had been an issue on the previous cruise. There is no known issue on this cruise so yes they have not been informed of this non existent problem, you are correct.

 

We've missed ports on several cruises- maybe we are cursed, but things like bad weather always seem to end up with one being cancelled. While we've not missed one for mechanical reasons, these are the risks of taking a cruise. At the moment the passengers have not missed a port and had £70pp for the inconvenience of boarding late- sounds like a good deal to me!

 

We are on Britannia at the end of August and I'm not particularly worried. I can't change any unforeseen problems so there's no point getting wound up about it is there?

Edited July 12, 2019 by SquishTheWhale

[brillo]

It strikes me that this post was made just to cause alarm with very little justification !

 

[Harry Peterson]

A completely false alarm then.  Odd that somebody should have gone to the bother of making a video about it.

 

Maybe a competitor perhaps?

[pete14]

13 minutes ago, brillo said:

It strikes me that this post was made just to cause alarm with very little justification !

 

 And from a poster who has only cruised once on P&O (December 2017) and said they will never cruise P&O again. Of course they are entitled to post on here but it makes you wonder why they have, especially as the post they have started is based on information that has been proved to be incorrect. Maybe they will finish the thread with an apology for mistakenly posting something that is wrong and which may have caused alarm. I am sure it can only have been an honest mistake and not deliberate.

[pete14]

2 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

A completely false alarm then.  Odd that somebody should have gone to the bother of making a video about it.

 

Maybe a competitor perhaps?

I think they are a couple of people who post reviews of cruises and news about cruises in their roles as ‘youtubers’. There will be money in it for them somehow, maybe some subscribe, possibly advertising or cruise channels on satellite TV. I saw one where I think it was the same presenter previewing a new ship, possibly Britannia, on the pre maiden cruise trial which implies they were invited to do so. Nice job if you can get it!

[gazwag]

18 hours ago, Jossie1960 said:

I for one are glad that I am not on this Baltic cruise.

I suspect the current passengers are glad you are not on it as well with your scaremongering

[mickey89]

I made a poor decision to cruise P&O Britannia in 2018.  Thankfully I now know the reality of cruising P&O, never to be repeated.  Many of the regular posters on this website give a glorified impression of P&O with very little knowledge of other cruise lines.  Glad that there are still a few of us to balance their views  

Edited July 12, 2019 by mickey89