Arcadia Jottings

[AuroraCruiser08]

3 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

QV is basically the same size as Arcadia (ever so slightly bigger) so not sure what your point is here.

Read up thread about P&OSUE's enquiry

[molecrochip]

18 minutes ago, AuroraCruiser08 said:

Read up thread about P&OSUE's enquiry

I saw that but the enquiry was basically a bigger ship than Arcadia or Aurora to Iceland. The suggestion was QV but she isn't a bigger ship.

 

Princess are using Sky Princess (same class as Britannia) and Island Princess (small). 

[P&O SUE]

2 hours ago, molecrochip said:

I saw that but the enquiry was basically a bigger ship than Arcadia or Aurora to Iceland. The suggestion was QV but she isn't a bigger ship.

 

Princess are using Sky Princess (same class as Britannia) and Island Princess (small). 

just to make it clear I have no problem with the smaller ships but by the time I can book them they’re often out of my price range!

[AuroraCruiser08]

3 hours ago, molecrochip said:

I saw that but the enquiry was basically a bigger ship than Arcadia or Aurora to Iceland. The suggestion was QV but she isn't a bigger ship.

 

Princess are using Sky Princess (same class as Britannia) and Island Princess (small). 

No worries. Probably a miss commutation on my part. I was using QV as an example of another ship like arcadia

[daiB]

23 hours ago, davecttr said:

Isafjordur and Akureyri are the most visited apart from Reykjavik and can large ships berth there? A few years ago I was on Marella Explorer when she was the largest ship to dock at Akureyri, apparently we had about 1 metre of water under our 'keel' at low tide.

We were there with Azura.

[snaefell]

I see from P&O's schedule for 2024 all current vessels are included so we can be sure there won't be any changes there can't we!😒

[2BACRUISER]

Thanks @bluemarble

From the Harland & Wolff website, Aurora will be drydocked in their Belfast June 9 - June 23

    Here's the link to the full article on their website

   https://www.harland-wolff.com/news/po-and-cunard-double-cruise-ship-drydock-win/
 
https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2844646-qv-going-to-harland-wolff-for-drydock/?do=findComment&comment=63001533

Edited April 11, 2022 by 2BACRUISER
Correct dates

[Britboys]

2 hours ago, 2BACRUISER said:

Thanks @bluemarble

From the Harland & Wolff website, Aurora will be drydocked in their Belfast June 9 - June 23

    Here's the link to the full article on their website

   https://www.harland-wolff.com/news/po-and-cunard-double-cruise-ship-drydock-win/
 
https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2844646-qv-going-to-harland-wolff-for-drydock/?do=findComment&comment=63001533

So great that the work is being done within the United Kingdom.

[jeanlyon]

18 hours ago, snaefell said:

I see from P&O's schedule for 2024 all current vessels are included so we can be sure there won't be any changes there can't we!😒

You think so?  Adonia was sold whilst there were still bookings available for 18 months ahead.  Same with Oriana, not sure about Oceana.

[Britboys]

20 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

You think so?  Adonia was sold whilst there were still bookings available for 18 months ahead.  Same with Oriana, not sure about Oceana.

Looking at Snaefell's emoji Jean, I'm guessing the post was made with a good helping of sarcasm...

[wowzz]

Well, here I am back home, after a circuitous route provided by the sat nav, that took us round the M25,  so as to avoid the accident on the A34.

I'm not going to rehash any previous discussions,  just a few comments. 

Food in the two speciality restaurants was excellent, although I did think Sindhu was not as good as previously.  MDR food was pretty good in general. The salad offering in the buffet was good, as was breakfast, but otherwise the food was mediocre.  Also the food was usually only luke warm, so not very appetising. 

Staff were all pleasant and engaging- but at times, especially in the MDR, there were so many staff on hand that they were getting in each other's way !

Our biggest disappointment was the night life. The ship was only half full, and consequently nany of the venues (Globe and Wheelhouse) at times only had a handfull of patrons. And the temperature was icy ! We went into the Wheelhouse one night, and immediately turned round and walked out as it was so cold. The "bar" entertainers for the last week comprised of a girl duo, singing lift type music,  who were OK for a bit, but not 4 times a night for 7 nights. 

So, we had more early nights that on any other cruise. 

All in all, a pretty mediocre experience.

For those of you who are  interested, our EE grade balcony cabin cost £4450 two years ago. Our onboard spend was around £570, but £500 of this was offset by various obc's, so total cruise cost was around £4500 for 16 days. I'll let you decide if that was good value !

And, as a snippet of information, no one seemed to care about any bottle of wine we carried onboard at each port !

Feel free to ask any questions you may have. 

[mickey1959]

We are hearing that Arcadia is not really in good shape. Do you have an opinion on this?

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, mickey1959 said:

We are hearing that Arcadia is not really in good shape. Do you have an opinion on this?

There were various engineering issues on our cruise, which, imho, should not have occured. Once these are sorted out, I think the ship is in pretty good shape, given it's age.

However,  the cabins, and especially the bathrooms,  need refreshing. 

[paulatsea]

10 hours ago, wowzz said:

There were various engineering issues on our cruise, which, imho, should not have occured. Once these are sorted out, I think the ship is in pretty good shape, given it's age.

However,  the cabins, and especially the bathrooms,  need refreshing. 

Thanks for the report Wowzz - Arcadia is near Weymouth now - do you have any idea what servicing they plan to do or any tidying up of cabins etc ?

[molecrochip]

11 hours ago, wowzz said:

However,  the cabins, and especially the bathrooms,  need refreshing. 

I’d agree but they are on par with any other ship heading towards 20 years old. Whilst the furnishings may be changed, and the carpet in many cabins has been recently, the harder fixtures are designed and built for a lifetime of service.

 

Arcadia actually had the TV upgrade which Ventura/Azura lacked.

[terrierjohn]

Just now, molecrochip said:

I’d agree but they are on par with any other ship heading towards 20 years old. Whilst the furnishings may be changed, and the carpet in many cabins has been recently, the harder fixtures are designed and built for a lifetime of service.

 

Arcadia actually had the TV upgrade which Ventura/Azura lacked.

Aurora also had the TV upgrade, however for some reason they did not upgrade the accessible cabins, where there is probably a bigger demand than for able bodied passengers.

[Selbourne]

15 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Aurora also had the TV upgrade, however for some reason they did not upgrade the accessible cabins, where there is probably a bigger demand than for able bodied passengers.

That was a MASSIVE bone of contention with us John. Believe it or not, they had upgraded them very slightly from the ones that they had prior to your first cruise on Aurora, but when I queried why they had replaced the TV’s with equally poor tiny ones, and not the larger ones that all the other cabins received, the excuse I was given defied all logic. 

[wowzz]

29 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

the harder fixtures are designed and built for a lifetime of service.

I suppose that begs the question as to how long a "lifetime of service' exactly is ?

I understand why it is difficult and expensive to update bathrooms, but using a cracked basin, and badly stained bath does not exactly add to the luxury cruise experience !

[Selbourne]

2 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I suppose that begs the question as to how long a "lifetime of service' exactly is ?

I understand why it is difficult and expensive to update bathrooms, but using a cracked basin, and badly stained bath does not exactly add to the luxury cruise experience !

When we were last on Aurora, they had replaced the toilet in our bathroom with a white one, which really stood out against the rest of the bathroom, which is a 1980’s soft pink 🤢

[Jill85]

We have two cruises on Aurora this year! if we go! 😷

[wowzz]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

When we were last on Aurora, they had replaced the toilet in our bathroom with a white one, which really stood out against the rest of the bathroom, which is a 1980’s soft pink 🤢

Which is why there can only be one choice of colour for bathroom fittings - white !

Over the years we have bought houses with bathroom fittings in colours such avocado, mustard yellow, and a particular favourite of ours, dark brown ! We must have spent a fortune changing them all to white.

[PRINCESSTHE BEST]

3 hours ago, wowzz said:

I suppose that begs the question as to how long a "lifetime of service' exactly is ?

I understand why it is difficult and expensive to update bathrooms, but using a cracked basin, and badly stained bath does not exactly add to the luxury cruise experience !

Wowzz, just to update you on my experience. We were in a deluxe balcony cabin . On arrival the room looked shabby.The bathroom tap had hardly any pressure and the shower mixer tap was not working. Boiling hot water came out and we were unable to get cold water to cool it down. This meant we could not use the shower.  This was reported and took days before a plumber arrived and fixed the sink. I asked about the shower and we’re told it was on the list but they were very busy. Fortunately we had a bath so had to fill it with boiling water then leave it until it was cool enough to get in. On the Sunday exactly one week after boarding they came and fixed it. They said the thermostat had gone so replaced the complete tap. We thought that was the end of it.

After the plumbing had been flushed through after the legionnaires incident, we were in our cabin I noticed that my camera bag which I kept at the side of the sofa was wet. When I checked the carpet was completely sodden by the sofa and was getting worse. I called reception and a plumber appeared. He did some checks and discovered the bathroom in the unoccupied suite next door was leaking badly and this was the cause. As a result we had to move cabin 3 days before the end of the cruise.

unfortunately the tale does not end there. The replacement cabin plumbing had not been runoff so we had black water appearing for two days. In the end we just used bottled water to wash our faces, clean our teeth etc. To be fair our cabin steward tried his best but didn’t want to rock the boat as he’d been unemployed for 2 years. We were certainly glad to get off yesterday.

I don’t know how you felt about the last 2 days of the cruise but most of the staff seemed really down. The alcohol sales staff were selling stuff at rock bottom prices allegedly because they didn’t want to offload it e.g. miniature bottles of Jameson 10 for £5! The headliners story is particularly sad but as I don’t know if it is true I will not repeat it on here.

Edited April 13, 2022 by PRINCESSTHE BEST

[paulatsea]

25 minutes ago, PRINCESSTHE BEST said:

Wowzz, just to update you on my experience. We were in a deluxe balcony cabin . On arrival the room looked shabby.The bathroom tap had hardly any pressure and the shower mixer tap was not working. Boiling hot water came out and we were unable to get cold water to cool it down. This meant we could not use the shower.  This was reported and took days before a plumber arrived and fixed the sink. I asked about the shower and we’re told it was on the list but they were very busy. Fortunately we had a bath so had to fill it with boiling water then leave it until it was cool enough to get in. On the Sunday exactly one week after boarding they came and fixed it. They said the thermostat had gone so replaced the complete tap. We thought that was the end of it.

After the plumbing had been flushed through after the legionnaires incident, we were in our cabin I noticed that my camera bag which I kept at the side of the sofa was wet. When I checked the carpet was completely sodden by the sofa and was getting worse. I called reception and a plumber appeared. He did some checks and discovered the bathroom in the unoccupied suite next door was leaking badly and this was the cause. As a result we had to move cabin 3 days before the end of the cruise.

unfortunately the tale does not end there. The replacement cabin plumbing had not been runoff so we had black water appearing for two days. In the end we just used bottled water to wash our faces, clean our teeth etc. To be fair our cabin steward tried his best but didn’t want to rock the boat as he’d been unemployed for 2 years. We were certainly glad to get off yesterday.

I don’t know how you felt about the last 2 days of the cruise but most of the staff seemed really down. The alcohol sales staff were selling stuff at rock bottom prices allegedly because they didn’t want to offload it e.g. miniature bottles of Jameson 10 for £5! The headliners story is particularly sad but as I don’t know if it is true I will not repeat it on here.

Thanks for that report - what a shambles.

[wowzz]

30 minutes ago, PRINCESSTHE BEST said:

Wowzz, just to update you on my experience. We were in a deluxe balcony cabin . On arrival the room looked shabby.The bathroom tap had hardly any pressure and the shower mixer tap was not working. Boiling hot water came out and we were unable to get cold water to cool it down. This meant we could not use the shower.  This was reported and took days before a plumber arrived and fixed the sink. I asked about the shower and we’re told it was on the list but they were very busy. Fortunately we had a bath so had to fill it with boiling water then leave it until it was cool enough to get in. On the Sunday exactly one week after boarding they came and fixed it. They said the thermostat had gone so replaced the complete tap. We thought that was the end of it.

After the plumbing had been flushed through after the legionnaires incident, we were in our cabin I noticed that my camera bag which I kept at the side of the sofa was wet. When I checked the carpet was completely sodden by the sofa and was getting worse. I called reception and a plumber appeared. He did some checks and discovered the bathroom in the unoccupied suite next door was leaking badly and this was the cause. As a result we had to move cabin 3 days before the end of the cruise.

unfortunately the tale does not end there. The replacement cabin plumbing had not been runoff so we had black water appearing for two days. In the end we just used bottled water to wash our faces, clean our teeth etc. To be fair our cabin steward tried his best but didn’t want to rock the boat as he’d been unemployed for 2 years. We were certainly glad to get off yesterday.

I don’t know how you felt about the last 2 days of the cruise but most of the staff seemed really down. The alcohol sales staff were selling stuff at rock bottom prices allegedly because they didn’t want to offload it e.g. miniature bottles of Jameson 10 for £5! The headliners story is particularly sad but as I don’t know if it is true I will not repeat it on here.

Made our problems pale into insignificance ! Our steward also told us that the engineering crew were run off their feet, which is why I am a bit sceptical about this whole crew shortage excuse. 

I think the shop staff were probably disillusioned because their future was much more uncertain, given that they are not P&O employees. Most of the waiters,  bar staff etc that we talked to seemed reasonably happy, and knew that there contracts were safe.

Didn't hear about the Headliners - care to share ? 

[Britboys]

56 minutes ago, PRINCESSTHE BEST said:

Wowzz, just to update you on my experience. We were in a deluxe balcony cabin . On arrival the room looked shabby.The bathroom tap had hardly any pressure and the shower mixer tap was not working. Boiling hot water came out and we were unable to get cold water to cool it down. This meant we could not use the shower.  This was reported and took days before a plumber arrived and fixed the sink. I asked about the shower and we’re told it was on the list but they were very busy. Fortunately we had a bath so had to fill it with boiling water then leave it until it was cool enough to get in. On the Sunday exactly one week after boarding they came and fixed it. They said the thermostat had gone so replaced the complete tap. We thought that was the end of it.

After the plumbing had been flushed through after the legionnaires incident, we were in our cabin I noticed that my camera bag which I kept at the side of the sofa was wet. When I checked the carpet was completely sodden by the sofa and was getting worse. I called reception and a plumber appeared. He did some checks and discovered the bathroom in the unoccupied suite next door was leaking badly and this was the cause. As a result we had to move cabin 3 days before the end of the cruise.

unfortunately the tale does not end there. The replacement cabin plumbing had not been runoff so we had black water appearing for two days. In the end we just used bottled water to wash our faces, clean our teeth etc. To be fair our cabin steward tried his best but didn’t want to rock the boat as he’d been unemployed for 2 years. We were certainly glad to get off yesterday.

I don’t know how you felt about the last 2 days of the cruise but most of the staff seemed really down. The alcohol sales staff were selling stuff at rock bottom prices allegedly because they didn’t want to offload it e.g. miniature bottles of Jameson 10 for £5! The headliners story is particularly sad but as I don’t know if it is true I will not repeat it on here.

I had a similar shower experience on Oriana a few years ago and oddly, it was in a relatively new cabin where the children's facilities used to be. The deck supervisor seemed completely unconcerned that I couldn't use the shower because it would scald me - and there wasn't a bath in the cabin either. It took them several days to move me to another cabin and despite involving the on-board Customer Service Manager, all I got was a grudging apology and a bottle of wine...