Incident on Britannia

[majortom10]

One thing is for certain from reading some of the posts on here that snobbery on cruise ships is still alive and kicking. Where you come from where you live and what type of cabin has nothing to do with what type of person you are.

[grapau27]

6 minutes ago, peteukmcr said:

I so agree with you, I don’t expect to see fighting onboard a cruise ship. Our friends who are sailing with us on Britannia for their very first cruise (at our suggestion and persuasion) are now seriously concerned and really considering cancelling due to the reports, despite us trying to reassure them. Very understandable when they’re spending in excess of £4000 for what is for them supposed to be the holiday of a lifetime to celebrate a big birthday. 

Thank you.

We have never witnessed trouble in 50 cruises but are usually in bed by midnight and it seems it is late night revellers are usually the culprits after a long session of drinking.

I would feel the same as your friends if it was my first cruise but these incidents are rare and I sincerely hope your friends take your sound advice and cruise with you and you all have a fantastic time and they enjoy their cruise and big birthday immensely.

Graham.

[grapau27]

6 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

One thing is for certain from reading some of the posts on here that snobbery on cruise ships is still alive and kicking. Where you come from where you live and what type of cabin has nothing to do with what type of person you are.

I remember watching a TV documentary once about an inter city football hooligan gang who had very respectful jobs and were smartly dressed.

Excess alcohol is to blame for potential personality changes making nice people violent.

I don't think anyone on here is being snobby we just want to enjoy our holidays in safety.

[grapau27]

15 minutes ago, Nic6318 said:

 

Thank you

Your welcome.

[cbowls30]

We sailed out of Southampton earlier this year wasn't on P&O but after 10 cruises we've never experienced a crowd like it! Drunk, throwing up on the deck, shouting, pushing and shoving, it really put us off sailing from the UK again! 

[grapau27]

3 minutes ago, cbowls30 said:

We sailed out of Southampton earlier this year wasn't on P&O but after 10 cruises we've never experienced a crowd like it! Drunk, throwing up on the deck, shouting, pushing and shoving, it really put us off sailing from the UK again! 

That is understandable and I would be apprehensive if I saw that but thankfully it is not a normal occurrence.

[Broadside]

Just now, cbowls30 said:

We sailed out of Southampton earlier this year wasn't on P&O but after 10 cruises we've never experienced a crowd like it! Drunk, throwing up on the deck, shouting, pushing and shoving, it really put us off sailing from the UK again! 

 

Yeah those Cunarders eh ? 😂😂😉

Edited July 27, 2019 by Broadside

[cbowls30]

1 minute ago, Broadside said:

 

Yeah those Cunarders eh ? 😂😂

Wasn't Cunard! RCCL 😲 cruised in Carribbean and med with RCCL - was a VERY different crowd from Southampton cruise !! 

[Velvetwater]

As a Brit who sails on large American lines mainly I can tell you the stories I have heard from passengers on those ships are no different to this one. I am about to sail Italian style so I will let you know how that goes.

 

In every nation there are idiots. In every nation a large group of travellers may be rather obvious. We perceive our nation to be bad because we see a lot of it.

 

'Us lot' are no worse or better than holiday makers from nations around the world....sometimes for varying reasons.

[hansol1966]

The truth will out...people with drink can and will behave terribly anywhere they are. I’m sure as it was late night this incident involved a few parties and they will be easily identified with cctv. Cruise lines should create an online blacklist for passengers across the industry who have crossed the line....

[Priya2]

I am British, English to be specific, but half Irish. I also consider myself European. I have not sailed on PO so far, and I’m less inclined to if ‘patriotic sail aways’ are a thing! What a hideous idea. Isn’t cruising an international thing, with part of the pleasure being meeting people from other parts of the world?  So far my cruises have been on Azamara and Celebrity. I wouldn’t have felt that I was being welcomed if the sail aways involved hundreds of people waving American flags and singing the American anthem. 

[daiB]

10 minutes ago, Priya2 said:

I am British, English to be specific, but half Irish. I also consider myself European. I have not sailed on PO so far, and I’m less inclined to if ‘patriotic sail aways’ are a thing! What a hideous idea. Isn’t cruising an international thing, with part of the pleasure being meeting people from other parts of the world?  So far my cruises have been on Azamara and Celebrity. I wouldn’t have felt that I was being welcomed if the sail aways involved hundreds of people waving American flags and singing the American anthem. 

You do know that 99%+ of P&O cruisers are Brits. Those who are not tend to be expats.and some Anglophiles. The ones we have met love the British sailaway and quite happily wave the Union Jack.

[Priya2]

1 minute ago, daiB said:

You do know that 99%+ of P&O cruisers are Brits. Those who are not tend to be expats.and some Anglophiles. The ones we have met love the British sailaway and quite happily wave the Union Jack.

No, I didn’t know that. It seems odd since, as far as I know, virtually all cruiselines have a range of nationalities sailing on them. I like the international experience, so maybe P&O isn’t for me.

[daiB]

13 minutes ago, Priya2 said:

No, I didn’t know that. It seems odd since, as far as I know, virtually all cruiselines have a range of nationalities sailing on them. I like the international experience, so maybe P&O isn’t for me.

Well P&O are not the only ones the same is true for Fred Olson, Saga Cruise & Maritime, and Marella Dream. When we sailed with Princess out of Southampton the ship was over 90% Brits. 

[wowzz]

Just as an aside, if you were in charge of the P&O PR department, with hundreds of column inches of "publicity", plus TV and  internet coverage,  what would you do? 

You have spent millions of pounds on a TV campaign with Rob Bryden  pretending that P&O is more upmarket than it really is,  you have a new ship launching next year with thousands of cabins to fill, and the share price of your parent company has slumped in the last two months!

I obviously don't have the answers, but I think I might suggest that the jingoistic sail aways be toned down (although I appreciate that this was probably not directly the cause of the current incident), and, although it might be counter intuitive, I would increase prices but offset the increase with free speciality dining, free drinks at dinner, chauffeur transfers, etc. 

P&O have been driving their prices down to fill their cabins, and they cannot be surprised when this policy bears fruit in the worst possible way.

I, for one,  now look at Viking and Saga prices first, before looking at P&O. By the time you upgrade to a decent cabin on P&O,  you may as well sail on one of the lines I have just mentioned, with fewer, and dare I say it, a more refined class of passenger.

Edited July 28, 2019 by wowzz

[Velvetwater]

 

I dislike the flag waving and ceremony idea too.

 

P&O Australia certainly don't anything like it on their ships to match the 95% aussies on their cruises.

 

 

 

[AndyMichelle]

2 hours ago, grapau27 said:

I remember watching a TV documentary once about an inter city football hooligan gang who had very respectful jobs and were smartly dressed.

Excess alcohol is to blame for potential personality changes making nice people violent.

I don't think anyone on here is being snobby we just want to enjoy our holidays in safety.

Excess alcohol has nothing to do with organised gangs of football hooligans arranging in advance to engage in violence, thuggery exists without alcohol, but I do agree that alcohol makes people act differently.

It wasn't the drinks package that made a chap dress up as a clown, but it might have been the reason why someone reacted.

Who knows???

Andy

[Harry Peterson]

4 hours ago, Velvetwater said:

 

I dislike the flag waving and ceremony idea too.

 

P&O Australia certainly don't anything like it on their ships to match the 95% aussies on their cruises.

 

 

 

It's a peculiarly British P&O thing, and many of us find it horrendously distasteful.  It smacks of the distant past, more than a hundred years ago, when Britain was a real international power, rather than a spent force with half the country desperately trying to reinvent the days of the empire.

 

This is P&O through and through, though, and whilst it attracts a lot of people for that, it probably puts off almost as many - and incidents like this will put off even more.

 

Snobby it may be, but Carnival's re-positioning of P&O to try attract the old 18-30 market and the 'Brexit' market might yet come back to bite them.

[Bazrat]

5 hours ago, Velvetwater said:

 

I dislike the flag waving and ceremony idea too.

 

P&O Australia certainly don't anything like it on their ships to match the 95% aussies on their cruises.

 

 

 

Why it certainly does not upset me I find it good fun.

[Tommart]

8 hours ago, majortom10 said:

Where you come from where you live and what type of cabin has nothing to do with what type of person you are.

True, but people do tend to hang around with like-minded people. P&O is changing fast, and so are its target customers.  Fewer professionals, fewer people who've been through higher education, for example.

 

No particular view on that - it may well be a very good thing.  But if you're more comfortable with, say, professional people, you won't find that many on P&O these days.  Some, obviously, but many won't touch lines like P&O (or cruising per se) with a bargepole.

 

Quite a change from 20 years back.

[yorky]

Sadly P&O is nothing like it used to be. People can defend a percentage of those that now sail all they like but anyone that has cruised over the last couple of decades can see that on many cruise lines the  type of individual has changed. It’s gone from people that treated others with respect and knew how to behave to some that treat the ship as a glorified Butlins at sea. You tend to get labelled as some kind of snob for this which I always find baffling simply because when you do cruise it’s so obvious. We are now very careful of the ship we cruise on and do our research before booking.  

[grapau27]

6 hours ago, AndyMichelle said:

Excess alcohol has nothing to do with organised gangs of football hooligans arranging in advance to engage in violence, thuggery exists without alcohol, but I do agree that alcohol makes people act differently.

It wasn't the drinks package that made a chap dress up as a clown, but it might have been the reason why someone reacted.

Who knows???

Andy

The point was these organised football hooligans are often from good backgrounds and have good jobs and are well dressed and not always the stereotype skinhead with boots type.

I know people whose personality's change completely with excess alcohol.

Maybe there should be a database of violent offender's like those on Britannia so they can be banned from cruiseships for the safety of other passengers.

[Harry Peterson]

2 minutes ago, yorky said:

Sadly P&O is nothing like it used to be. People can defend a percentage of those that now sail all they like but anyone that has cruised over the last couple of decades can see that on many cruise lines the  type of individual has changed. It’s gone from people that treated others with respect and knew how to behave to some that treat the ship as a glorified Butlins at sea. You tend to get labelled as some kind of snob for this which I always find baffling simply because when you do cruise it’s so obvious. We are now very careful of the ship we cruise on and do our research before booking.  

You’ll be criticised for this as a snob, but I’m with you. I’m clearly a snob too for missing the people who used to cruise with P&O, and not being entirely comfortable with the new breed of customer.

 

Such is life though and if that’s the only way they can fill their ships, so be it. I can’t afford the more upmarket alternatives as a pensioner so I’ll continue to slum it. 😀

[BillieJeanKaraokeKing]

Perhaps P&O entertainment team could introduce a brand new event to the itinerary for the late night revellers ... I give you "Taser Quest" 😋

Edited July 28, 2019 by BillieJeanKaraokeKing

[Angel57]

Given that this debacle happened and the P&O brand has been tarnished by this incident - I wonder what P&O will do / can do to stop this type of incident happening on a more regular basis.....