Live from Britannia

[Selbourne]

 

DAY 14 (Sea Day)

 

We usually find that time passes slowly on cruises. A week often seems like a fortnight and a fortnight usually feels like a month. Not this time though. This cruise seems to have gone quite quickly for both of us.

 

A little bit of excitement pre breakfast as a large grey military helicopter with a soldier sitting in the open doorway came down very low on our side of the ship (it was the noise that alerted us to it), took a good look at us and then flew off again! The Peninsular restaurant had gone ‘Queue Full’ at least 30 minutes before last admission today, rather than the usual 20 minutes, so we got in the queue for the Oriental restaurant for the second time and were called after 15 minutes. Whilst the food is the same, service was a bit slower than in the Peninsular restaurant. 

 

I have started noticing a number of people with coughs over the past day or so. Hope it’s not you know what. I had to move seats on the shuttle coming back from Hamburg, as the lady in front of me kept hacking away, and in the restaurants I have tuned in to a few people with persistent coughs. Thankfully none have been that close to us or I would have asked to move, but there was one lady that was close enough today given that she looked pretty rough and was coughing and blowing her nose continuously. She seemed intent on infecting everyone in the entire restaurant! Perhaps she is unaware of room service 🤔

 

The same solo guest lecturer that we have had all cruise is doing a talk on Mary Queen of Scots today. Doesn’t remotely interest us, especially as yet again it’s smack bang in the middle of lunch at 1pm but there are a lot of Scots on board! Edit - it was announced that ‘due to popular demand’ the talk will be on at 11am as well (suspect that it’s more likely that people have said ‘what idiot planned the one talk at 1pm? 😂). In the absence of anything else to do we used the rest of the morning to pack everything that we won’t need for dinner or the final morning, accompanied of course  by the constant crashing, banging and thudding from our lovely next door neighbours. I hope for their sake that we don’t meet them in the corridor when we leave our cabin for the last time tomorrow morning 😡. This is one of the major things that plagues us on cruises. Sound insulation between cabins is poor and we always seem to get a thoughtless occupant(s) one side of us, opposite or above us. It’s not just kids. We’ve had it on Aurora a few times as well. One of the few things to look forward to about getting older must be partial hearing loss, when you no longer hear these irritants 😂 

 

We weren’t at all hungry at lunch time but, conscious that on sea days the app closes after 30 mins or so, we joined the queue at 12.25pm with 37 in the queue and were called 40 minutes later. Having already done most of our packing, at 2pm we attended an art talk on street art (Banksy etc) in the Live Lounge. The first 45 minutes was very good before it cleverly morphed into a sales pitch, telling us all that we won’t get a better investment opportunity than to buy some of the pieces that they have on board 🤔. Afterwards, we returned to the cabin to watch our final film of the cruise on our interactive TV. As we had enjoyed the previous Timothy Spall film so much we watched another - this time Mrs Lowry and Son. 

 

Pre dinner drinks in the Crows Nest was followed by our 4th visit to Epicurean. Our 7.30pm booking coincided with our entry into the Dover Straights, so we were on migrant watch, especially as the seas were flat calm! With our bridge talk still fresh in our minds, I should imagine that those dinghy’s must be an absolute nightmare for the lookouts. In a case of cruise ship versus dinghy there’s only ever going to be one outcome. Incidentally, the sea has been like a mill pond today. Flat calm, yet there’s been an awful lot of vibration at the aft of the ship, even up on deck 14 where we are. 

 

Our Epicurean meal was excellent (so that’s 3 out of 4 that lived up to expectation) and it was a lovely way to end the cruise. It didn’t start well though, as when we exited the lift on deck 16 and started to walk towards the restaurant we could hear a very loud baby or toddler. When we got to the restaurant there was a couple with two young children, one of which was in a high chair, and the kids were full volume. I then couldn’t believe what I saw. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least one square meter of the carpet underneath the tots high chair was absolutely covered in food mess. It was everywhere. When our kids were that young we wouldn’t have taken them to a restaurant like that in the first place, but even in a pub if food fell off the high chair, as it inevitably does, one of us would pick it up. We would never just walk off and leave the staff to deal with it. Not this couple. Not a care in the world as Dad just topped up the wine. Thankfully we were seated quite a way away from them (I’d have refused to sit any closer) but we could still hear them for the first hour of our meal. This is one problem that we discovered with Epicurean when we used to use suites. If you get a family like that staying in a suite, you have the pleasure of their company every morning for breakfast! 

 

Finally, we ended the day with a rare thing - a Headliners show that we hadn’t seen before - Mr Tockerton’s Clockwork Circus. Well they saved the best till last. I never really get the story lines of these shows and the first half was just OK, but then they upped the ante with a much better second half including a few hits from the Greatest Showman. We both enjoyed it. 

 

Although we disembark Friday morning, it has been possible for the entire cruise to make speciality dining reservations for Friday night. Whether this is a P&O IT glitch that will take a few years to fix, or a nice option for anyone doing a back-to-back, is anybody’s guess. I can’t help but wonder how many who are leaving the ship tomorrow made a reservation for what they thought was their last night on board and have been disappointed when they turned up at the restaurant to find that they didn’t have a booking?

 

I will update with Friday mornings disembarkation process once we have arrived home and I will also do a final summary of our thoughts on our first P&O cruise since Covid. As for Britannia, she remains one of our top 2 ships on P&O (the other being Aurora), although we’ve really missed not having a promenade deck, especially on the sea days. I like to walk a few laps a few times a day in the fresh air. If this ship had been built with a wrap around promenade deck and midship stairs it would be nigh on perfect. We have certainly appreciated the more accessible nature of the ship compared to Aurora, which can be challenging in places. We shall look forward to ‘promenading’ on Iona in 4 weeks time, especially as there’s the added attraction of nosing in on all the Conservatory mini-suites 😂. Whilst all ships operate a bit differently, I’m hoping that the knowledge that we have gained on this cruise as to how to work around the challenges of the app will stand us in good stead. Wish us luck 😂 

 

 

[Selbourne]

10 hours ago, gsmt47471015 said:

Your comments re. noisy young passengers has only confirmed our view that it will be adults only for any future cruise ( our next three are). Thank you for the very balanced and factual updates on your cruise 👍  

I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed the updates. We seem to be unlucky with noise on cruise ships. Some people never have a problem yet we have had noise issues on probably half our cruises. We find that sound insulation between cabins is very poor and I guess it doesn’t help that we get no noise at night at home, living on a no-through road. 
 

We’ve had a number of issues on Aurora as well, which seems to be particularly badly insulated for noise. In addition to the ‘drawer slammers’ (who never remember where they’ve put anything, so open and close every drawer every time they want anything) we’ve had people who are a bit deaf and put their TV on at full volume very early (it doesn’t help that the default sound setting is way too loud). On one cruise we could hear every word of the couple’s conversation next door as they both had loud voices (some of it was quite amusing though). On another Aurora cruise we were woken at 5.30am every morning with the chap next door having a sneezing fit (no attempt to suppress the noise) and on yet another the person above used to get out of bed in the early hours for the loo but it sounded like he fell out of bed and we were woken with an almighty crash overhead every night. There are plenty of other examples I could give. As I say, we are clearly just very unlucky 😂 

Edited July 20, 2023 by Selbourne

[TigerB]

 

20 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

 

DAY 14 (Sea Day)

 

We usually find that time passes slowly on cruises. A week often seems like a fortnight and a fortnight usually feels like a month. Not this time though. This cruise seems to have gone quite quickly for both of us.

 

A little bit of excitement pre breakfast as a large grey military helicopter with a soldier sitting in the open doorway came down very low on our side of the ship (it was the noise that alerted us to it), took a good look at us and then flew off again! The Peninsular restaurant had gone ‘Queue Full’ at least 30 minutes before last admission today, rather than the usual 20 minutes, so we got in the queue for the Oriental restaurant for the second time and were called after 15 minutes. Whilst the food is the same, service was a bit slower than in the Peninsular restaurant. 

 

I have started noticing a number of people with coughs over the past day or so. Hope it’s not you know what. I had to move seats on the shuttle coming back from Hamburg, as the lady in front of me kept hacking away, and in the restaurants I have tuned in to a few people with persistent coughs. Thankfully none have been that close to us or I would have asked to move, but there was one lady that was close enough today given that she looked pretty rough and was coughing and blowing her nose continuously. She seemed intent on infecting everyone in the entire restaurant! Perhaps she is unaware of room service 🤔

 

The same solo guest lecturer that we have had all cruise is doing a talk on Mary Queen of Scots today. Doesn’t remotely interest us, especially as yet again it’s smack bang in the middle of lunch at 1pm but there are a lot of Scots on board! Edit - it was announced that ‘due to popular demand’ the talk will be on at 11am as well (suspect that it’s more likely that people have said ‘what idiot planned the one talk at 1pm? 😂). In the absence of anything else to do we used the rest of the morning to pack everything that we won’t need for dinner or the final morning, accompanied of course  by the constant crashing, banging and thudding from our lovely next door neighbours. I hope for their sake that we don’t meet them in the corridor when we leave our cabin for the last time tomorrow morning 😡. This is one of the major things that plagues us on cruises. Sound insulation between cabins is poor and we always seem to get a thoughtless occupant(s) one side of us, opposite or above us. It’s not just kids. We’ve had it on Aurora a few times as well. One of the few things to look forward to about getting older must be partial hearing loss, when you no longer hear these irritants 😂 

 

We weren’t at all hungry at lunch time but, conscious that on sea days the app closes after 30 mins or so, we joined the queue at 12.25pm with 37 in the queue and were called 40 minutes later. Having already done most of our packing, at 2pm we attended an art talk on street art (Banksy etc) in the Live Lounge. The first 45 minutes was very good before it cleverly morphed into a sales pitch, telling us all that we won’t get a better investment opportunity than to buy some of the pieces that they have on board 🤔. Afterwards, we returned to the cabin to watch our final film of the cruise on our interactive TV. As we had enjoyed the previous Timothy Spall film so much we watched another - this time Mrs Lowry and Son. 

 

Pre dinner drinks in the Crows Nest was followed by our 4th visit to Epicurean. Our 7.30pm booking coincided with our entry into the Dover Straights, so we were on migrant watch, especially as the seas were flat calm! With our bridge talk still fresh in our minds, I should imagine that those dinghy’s must be an absolute nightmare for the lookouts. In a case of cruise ship versus dinghy there’s only ever going to be one outcome. Incidentally, the sea has been like a mill pond today. Flat calm, yet there’s been an awful lot of vibration at the aft of the ship, even up on deck 14 where we are. 

 

Our Epicurean meal was excellent (so that’s 3 out of 4 that lived up to expectation) and it was a lovely way to end the cruise. It didn’t start well though, as when we exited the lift on deck 16 and started to walk towards the restaurant we could hear a very loud baby or toddler. When we got to the restaurant there was a couple with two young children, one of which was in a high chair, and the kids were full volume. I then couldn’t believe what I saw. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least one square meter of the carpet underneath the tots high chair was absolutely covered in food mess. It was everywhere. When our kids were that young we wouldn’t have taken them to a restaurant like that in the first place, but even in a pub if food fell off the high chair, as it inevitably does, one of us would pick it up. We would never just walk off and leave the staff to deal with it. Not this couple. Not a care in the world as Dad just topped up the wine. Thankfully we were seated quite a way away from them (I’d have refused to sit any closer) but we could still hear them for the first hour of our meal. This is one problem that we discovered with Epicurean when we used to use suites. If you get a family like that staying in a suite, you have the pleasure of their company every morning for breakfast! 

 

Finally, we ended the day with a rare thing - a Headliners show that we hadn’t seen before - Mr Tockerton’s Clockwork Circus. Well they saved the best till last. I never really get the story lines of these shows and the first half was just OK, but then they upped the ante with a much better second half including a few hits from the Greatest Showman. We both enjoyed it. 

 

Although we disembark Friday morning, it has been possible for the entire cruise to make speciality dining reservations for Friday night. Whether this is a P&O IT glitch that will take a few years to fix, or a nice option for anyone doing a back-to-back, is anybody’s guess. I can’t help but wonder how many who are leaving the ship tomorrow made a reservation for what they thought was their last night on board and have been disappointed when they turned up at the restaurant to find that they didn’t have a booking?

 

I will update with Friday mornings disembarkation process once we have arrived home and I will also do a final summary of our thoughts on our first P&O cruise since Covid. As for Britannia, she remains one of our top 2 ships on P&O (the other being Aurora), although we’ve really missed not having a promenade deck, especially on the sea days. I like to walk a few laps a few times a day in the fresh air. If this ship had been built with a wrap around promenade deck and midship stairs it would be nigh on perfect. We have certainly appreciated the more accessible nature of the ship compared to Aurora, which can be challenging in places. We shall look forward to ‘promenading’ on Iona in 4 weeks time, especially as there’s the added attraction of nosing in on all the Conservatory mini-suites 😂. Whilst all ships operate a bit differently, I’m hoping that the knowledge that we have gained on this cruise as to how to work around the challenges of the app will stand us in good stead. Wish us luck 😂 

 

 

 

Another informative and detailed report, young man.👍

 

It's good to hear you had another good meal in Epicurean, apart from the irresponsible parents with the messy child.

 

The ability to book for the evening after you have disembarked has been an option for us on Arvia and Iona this year; obviously an anomaly of the app. I can't see it being left on just for those that are doing a back-to-back; I wouldn't expect there to be that many of them.

 

Perhaps the fella sat on the helicopter was a crack sniper, ready to take out the noisy brats near you. Unfortunately, he got a 'stand down' at the last moment.🤔

 

I hope that when you are Iona you are sandwiched between two other accessible cabins; less chance of being disturbed by unruly kids.

 

Enjoy you last breakfast tomorrow; hopefully you will get off easily enough and have a safe and unremarkable trip home.

[TigerB]

12 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

 As I say, we are clearly just very unlucky 😂 

 

So, from hereon in you will be known as Unlucky Alf, and your good lady as Unlucky Alice.😄

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by TigerB

[AndyMichelle]

6 hours ago, Selbourne said:

I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed the updates. We seem to be unlucky with noise on cruise ships. Some people never have a problem yet we have had noise issues on probably half our cruises. We find that sound insulation between cabins is very poor and I guess it doesn’t help that we get no noise at night at home, living on a no-through road. 
 

We’ve had a number of issues on Aurora as well, which seems to be particularly badly insulated for noise. In addition to the ‘drawer slammers’ (who never remember where they’ve put anything, so open and close every drawer every time they want anything) we’ve had people who are a bit deaf and put their TV on at full volume very early (it doesn’t help that the default sound setting is way too loud). On one cruise we could hear every word of the couple’s conversation next door as they both had loud voices (some of it was quite amusing though). On another Aurora cruise we were woken at 5.30am every morning with the chap next door having a sneezing fit (no attempt to suppress the noise) and on yet another the person above used to get out of bed in the early hours for the loo but it sounded like he fell out of bed and we were woken with an almighty crash overhead every night. There are plenty of other examples I could give. As I say, we are clearly just very unlucky 😂 

So what am I going to look forward to reading in the morning before work now??? 😂

Can you stay on for the purpose of research and keeping us entertained. 

It's been said before, but you really have a fantastic ability to express your experience in words and you have inspired us to book another Britannia cruise today... 

As for the sound proofing between cabins, we commented how good we thought it was on Britannia compared to the older ships, perhaps we just had more considerate neighbours. 

Welcome back and thank you. 

Andy 

 

[Ranchi]

Thanks for your posts. Like you, we would put Britannia as our second favourite P&O ship after Aurora. We were on her about a month ago and our cabin deck 14 (way back near the aft suites) didn’t suffer from any vibration. We were quite happy with the MDR evening offerings (obviously not the hopelessly confusing layout of the lunch menu - we often used the buffet am & some lunchtimes.) though disappointed with Epicurean at £100 a couple with a glass of Chateau Thames Embankment each to accompany (extra tax due to UK cruise.)

Off to dip a toe in Princess waters soon. 

[grapau27]

8 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

DAY 14 (Sea Day)

 

We usually find that time passes slowly on cruises. A week often seems like a fortnight and a fortnight usually feels like a month. Not this time though. This cruise seems to have gone quite quickly for both of us.

 

A little bit of excitement pre breakfast as a large grey military helicopter with a soldier sitting in the open doorway came down very low on our side of the ship (it was the noise that alerted us to it), took a good look at us and then flew off again! The Peninsular restaurant had gone ‘Queue Full’ at least 30 minutes before last admission today, rather than the usual 20 minutes, so we got in the queue for the Oriental restaurant for the second time and were called after 15 minutes. Whilst the food is the same, service was a bit slower than in the Peninsular restaurant. 

 

I have started noticing a number of people with coughs over the past day or so. Hope it’s not you know what. I had to move seats on the shuttle coming back from Hamburg, as the lady in front of me kept hacking away, and in the restaurants I have tuned in to a few people with persistent coughs. Thankfully none have been that close to us or I would have asked to move, but there was one lady that was close enough today given that she looked pretty rough and was coughing and blowing her nose continuously. She seemed intent on infecting everyone in the entire restaurant! Perhaps she is unaware of room service 🤔

 

The same solo guest lecturer that we have had all cruise is doing a talk on Mary Queen of Scots today. Doesn’t remotely interest us, especially as yet again it’s smack bang in the middle of lunch at 1pm but there are a lot of Scots on board! Edit - it was announced that ‘due to popular demand’ the talk will be on at 11am as well (suspect that it’s more likely that people have said ‘what idiot planned the one talk at 1pm? 😂). In the absence of anything else to do we used the rest of the morning to pack everything that we won’t need for dinner or the final morning, accompanied of course  by the constant crashing, banging and thudding from our lovely next door neighbours. I hope for their sake that we don’t meet them in the corridor when we leave our cabin for the last time tomorrow morning 😡. This is one of the major things that plagues us on cruises. Sound insulation between cabins is poor and we always seem to get a thoughtless occupant(s) one side of us, opposite or above us. It’s not just kids. We’ve had it on Aurora a few times as well. One of the few things to look forward to about getting older must be partial hearing loss, when you no longer hear these irritants 😂 

 

We weren’t at all hungry at lunch time but, conscious that on sea days the app closes after 30 mins or so, we joined the queue at 12.25pm with 37 in the queue and were called 40 minutes later. Having already done most of our packing, at 2pm we attended an art talk on street art (Banksy etc) in the Live Lounge. The first 45 minutes was very good before it cleverly morphed into a sales pitch, telling us all that we won’t get a better investment opportunity than to buy some of the pieces that they have on board 🤔. Afterwards, we returned to the cabin to watch our final film of the cruise on our interactive TV. As we had enjoyed the previous Timothy Spall film so much we watched another - this time Mrs Lowry and Son. 

 

Pre dinner drinks in the Crows Nest was followed by our 4th visit to Epicurean. Our 7.30pm booking coincided with our entry into the Dover Straights, so we were on migrant watch, especially as the seas were flat calm! With our bridge talk still fresh in our minds, I should imagine that those dinghy’s must be an absolute nightmare for the lookouts. In a case of cruise ship versus dinghy there’s only ever going to be one outcome. Incidentally, the sea has been like a mill pond today. Flat calm, yet there’s been an awful lot of vibration at the aft of the ship, even up on deck 14 where we are. 

 

Our Epicurean meal was excellent (so that’s 3 out of 4 that lived up to expectation) and it was a lovely way to end the cruise. It didn’t start well though, as when we exited the lift on deck 16 and started to walk towards the restaurant we could hear a very loud baby or toddler. When we got to the restaurant there was a couple with two young children, one of which was in a high chair, and the kids were full volume. I then couldn’t believe what I saw. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least one square meter of the carpet underneath the tots high chair was absolutely covered in food mess. It was everywhere. When our kids were that young we wouldn’t have taken them to a restaurant like that in the first place, but even in a pub if food fell off the high chair, as it inevitably does, one of us would pick it up. We would never just walk off and leave the staff to deal with it. Not this couple. Not a care in the world as Dad just topped up the wine. Thankfully we were seated quite a way away from them (I’d have refused to sit any closer) but we could still hear them for the first hour of our meal. This is one problem that we discovered with Epicurean when we used to use suites. If you get a family like that staying in a suite, you have the pleasure of their company every morning for breakfast! 

 

Finally, we ended the day with a rare thing - a Headliners show that we hadn’t seen before - Mr Tockerton’s Clockwork Circus. Well they saved the best till last. I never really get the story lines of these shows and the first half was just OK, but then they upped the ante with a much better second half including a few hits from the Greatest Showman. We both enjoyed it. 

 

Although we disembark Friday morning, it has been possible for the entire cruise to make speciality dining reservations for Friday night. Whether this is a P&O IT glitch that will take a few years to fix, or a nice option for anyone doing a back-to-back, is anybody’s guess. I can’t help but wonder how many who are leaving the ship tomorrow made a reservation for what they thought was their last night on board and have been disappointed when they turned up at the restaurant to find that they didn’t have a booking?

 

I will update with Friday mornings disembarkation process once we have arrived home and I will also do a final summary of our thoughts on our first P&O cruise since Covid. As for Britannia, she remains one of our top 2 ships on P&O (the other being Aurora), although we’ve really missed not having a promenade deck, especially on the sea days. I like to walk a few laps a few times a day in the fresh air. If this ship had been built with a wrap around promenade deck and midship stairs it would be nigh on perfect. We have certainly appreciated the more accessible nature of the ship compared to Aurora, which can be challenging in places. We shall look forward to ‘promenading’ on Iona in 4 weeks time, especially as there’s the added attraction of nosing in on all the Conservatory mini-suites 😂. Whilst all ships operate a bit differently, I’m hoping that the knowledge that we have gained on this cruise as to how to work around the challenges of the app will stand us in good stead. Wish us luck 😂 

 

 

Thank you @Selbourne for another interesting read.

I'm pleased to hear you had another great meal in Epicurean.

All of our recent P&O cruises have had an option to book shows, restaurants etc for disembarkation day which would be handy for people doing B2B cruises.

I hope you have a safe journey home.

[DamianG]

Thanks @Selbourne I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your comments (especially as I wasn't expecting such detail when you originally suggested that you wouldn't be posting a full "live" blog!).

 

Overall it seems that there were far more positives than negatives but those niggles which are ultimately caused by poor parenting sound particularly annoying. Wish us luck on Arvia in a couple of weeks' time! 😟

 

It seems to be the way of the world these days for some parents to prioritise holidays over school attendance. Even allowing for those who had already broken up I'd bet there were plenty who just decided that their kids could just skip the last week or two of term. That certainly appears to be the case at the primary school where my wife works with attendances down this week and some kids openly speaking of their excitement of going on holiday (this week) at the end of last week.

Edited July 21, 2023 by DamianG

[purplesea]

Thank you for an informative and interesting read on your cruise.

We are on Britannia in the middle of September and have club dining, but was interesting to learn of your experiences of using the app. It sounds better than the fiasco we had on Arvia.

[Britboys]

Thanks for taking us along with you @Selbourne, interesting and fun posts as usual. I think I am likely to try Britannia some time but as I am doing Norway this year, it's not likely to be until 2025 when she does a Northern Spain itinerary for 7 nights. I certainly don't want to do a two-week cruise due to her not having a Promenade Deck. Like you, I use a Promenade a lot to get some exercise on sea days. Just have to hope they keep Club Dining on her as I wouldn't want Freedom...

[FangedRose]

2 hours ago, DamianG said:

Thanks @Selbourne I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your comments (especially as I wasn't expecting such detail when you originally suggested that you wouldn't be posting a full "live" blog!).

 

Overall it seems that there were far more positives than negatives but those niggles which are ultimately caused by poor parenting sound particularly annoying. Wish us luck on Arvia in a couple of weeks' time! 😟

 

It seems to be the way of the world these days for some parents to prioritise holidays over school attendance. Even allowing for those who had already broken up I'd bet there were plenty who just decided that their kids could just skip the last week or two of term. That certainly appears to be the case at the primary school where my wife works with attendances down this week and some kids openly speaking of their excitement of going on holiday (this week) at the end of last week.

Not necessarily. Scottish schools (and private schools) broke up at least three weeks ago. There can be a week or 10 days difference in school holiday dates in different parts of the country. There can be scarcely a weeks difference in one breaking up for summer and another, not a million miles away, starting back for the long slog till C******s.

[Dermotsgirl]

On the subject of noise, we had our worst experience on Aurora, in 2018 on a 24 night cruise.

 

There were 2 men in the next door cabin. They weren’t particularly young, one looked in his 50s and the other in his 30s.

 

One of them ( I think it was the older one) had a really loud laugh, and some nights they’d be up until about 3.30am, talking and laughing loudly. I have reduced hearing in one ear, and even that didn’t block the sound of that laugh! 
 

Apart from that, we haven’t had problems with noise from the adjacent cabins, so I think we’ve been lucky.

 

I’ve only been on Britannia once, which was the maiden, so I haven’t really got an emotional attachment to this ship. But, based on Selbourne’s reports, if the itinerary was right, I would give Britannia consideration in this new era. 

[Astrajet]

2 hours ago, Britboys said:

I certainly don't want to do a two-week cruise due to her not having a Promenade Deck. Like you, I use a Promenade a lot to get some exercise on sea days. Just have to hope they keep Club Dining on her as I wouldn't want Freedom...

We had a super two week Med cruise on Britannia last September and DH, who is a dedicated walker, used "The Promenade" on deck 18 to walk several miles on most days. Like yourself, our favourite ship is Aurora but we really enjoyed Britannia and have booked on her again for next year and also 2025!  We too sincerely hope that Club Dining on her remains in place.

 

Have a great cruise to Norway on Aurora - we thoroughly enjoyed ours and it was great to be back on Aurora.

[Ardennais]

Another vote of thanks here Selbourne for a super read throughout.

 

So glad that you’ve had a good time - the food sounds so much better than we found it back in April. Shame about the noise, very unfortunate. 
 

I don’t think we’d go for Britannia again though. She seemed very underwhelming after our Iona cruise a few weeks previously. I think I’d go for the other extreme and choose Aurora which has always been a favourite of mine. So from now on, I guess it will be Iona or one of the older ladies! 

[Selbourne]

6 hours ago, AndyMichelle said:

So what am I going to look forward to reading in the morning before work now??? 😂

Can you stay on for the purpose of research and keeping us entertained. 

It's been said before, but you really have a fantastic ability to express your experience in words and you have inspired us to book another Britannia cruise today... 

As for the sound proofing between cabins, we commented how good we thought it was on Britannia compared to the older ships, perhaps we just had more considerate neighbours. 

Welcome back and thank you. 

Andy 

 

Thank you for your kind words Andy and I’m pleased that you enjoyed the review, as I did yours and those provided by others. 
 

Although we had some noisy kids next to us, I would agree that the sound insulation between cabins is far better on Britannia that Aurora. We didn’t hear anything whatsoever from our neighbours the other side of us and we couldn’t hear voices / TV / drawers closing etc even from the noisy cabin as we often can on Aurora. The problem that we had was that the kids seemed to stamp their feet heavily when in their cabin. Sounds daft but it was ‘thud, thud, thud’ whenever they moved around, which was almost constantly. We also seemed to be surrounded by people who always let their cabin doors slam closed and, when it was our neighbours, our cabin literally shook, including our TV. We spend quite a bit of time in the cabin during the day and it was just so irritating. Other than the noise, the cabin was near perfect. Quite a lot of vibration even when the sea was calm, but we don’t mind that (when I’ve suppressed the rattles) 😂 

[Selbourne]

12 minutes ago, Ardennais said:

Another vote of thanks here Selbourne for a super read throughout.

 

So glad that you’ve had a good time - the food sounds so much better than we found it back in April. Shame about the noise, very unfortunate. 
 

I don’t think we’d go for Britannia again though. She seemed very underwhelming after our Iona cruise a few weeks previously. I think I’d go for the other extreme and choose Aurora which has always been a favourite of mine. So from now on, I guess it will be Iona or one of the older ladies! 

Thanks. Interesting to hear that you prefer Iona. We are on her in 4 weeks time and I’m still quite anxious about it, in spite of just having had a good cruise on Britannia. August school holidays would be our absolute last choice for a cruise on Iona or Arvia, but one of our daughters partners is a teacher so we have no choice 😱

[happy v]

Thank you for taking me with you on your cruise. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have to say you and a lot of the others who have done blogs write very well. A lot more enjoyable read than a lot of books.

Now, a positive for Iona. As I am sure you are going to start stressing about it next week! 😄 There are no drawers to bang.

Seriously though I am delighted you and Lady Selbourne have enjoyed your return to P&O

[two hoots]

Just to add another thank you for taking us with you on your cruise 🙂

 

[AndyMichelle]

24 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks. Interesting to hear that you prefer Iona. We are on her in 4 weeks time and I’m still quite anxious about it, in spite of just having had a good cruise on Britannia. August school holidays would be our absolute last choice for a cruise on Iona or Arvia, but one of our daughters partners is a teacher so we have no choice 😱

It's now your job to sell us Iona in school holidays... 

Good luck with that😂

Andy 

Edited July 21, 2023 by AndyMichelle

[alpha whiskey]

Thank you Selbourne for all your reviews.

We were also on this cruise, and couldn't have reviewed it any better ourselves.

Unfortunately we also had neighbours that were vocal. Adults this time, that were obviously not getting along so well with one another. Language that even made my husband blush, and he was used to working on many a building site in London! 

We were also witness to some very poor restaurants habits, but thankfully also some impeccably behaved young souls, who were an absolute credit to their parents.

We are off on Celebrity in a few weeks time....twice the price of P&O, but will it be twice as good?! 🤔

[Angel57]

I’m already looking forward to your Iona review @Selbourne if you have the time and the signal.

I’m giving it a go in early June next year for a week (after half term and hopefully before kids on holiday), so will be most interested in your thoughts and experiences.

Thanks for taking the time to post whilst you were on Britannia.

 

[Ilovemygarden]

Thanks from me too - I’m looking forward to boarding in September.

[Megabear2]

Very many thanks for the highly enjoyable diary of your voyage.  I'm so pleased that you appear to have enjoyed it so much.  I found your "blog" informative and amusing and very much look forward to hearing how your Iona trip goes.

 

I recall your trepidation on reading other people's experiences so it just goes to show every cruise is different and going with no preconceptions is the only way to go.  Once again thank you for taking so much time and effort to inform and entertain us.

[Son of Anarchy]

Thank you Selbourne for sharing your experience of Britannia.  Was especially interested to read of your MDR experiences, as I was aware that you previously appeared to use speciality dining far more than we do.  I'm too mean to pay for Epicurean!  Pleasing to read that your MDR experiences went well, and that Epicurean improved during the cruise.

 

Looking forward to hear of your forthcoming Iona adventures if you have the time and opportunity to share with us all again.

[Presto2]

Thank you for an excellent 'diary' Selbourne. As it is the weekend (nearly) I am going to read it all again ! 

On a different note, just to share that I have just had this back from P&O re booking speciality restaurants

 

Rest assured that we reserve a select amount of entertainment/ dining spaces for the second wave of guests on each voyage based on the number of guests booked onto the second wave.