Ventura dining > Confused and concerned

[Frontera2]

We made a booking this morning directly on the P&O website for a 2 week Canary Islands cruise on Ventura in June next year.

 

During the booking process we requested “club dining”  and early sitting and are therefore concerned that our booking confirmation actually states “Freedom dining - confirmed” as this isn’t what we booked.

 

Logged on to the “My P&O site” and, unlike for our upcoming Cunard trip, there’s no option to either view or change our dining preference.

 

We detest freedom dining, having tried it on Iona last year ( personal choice and all that ) and would rather not go at all if we can’t have club dining. 
 

Is this normal now, or likely to be a mistake by P&O ? 

[Selbourne]

Did you book a Select fare or Saver? If you booked a Select fare, all you need to do is call P&O tomorrow and request that your dining is changed. This far out I should think that you won’t have any problems, although first sitting Club is the most popular of the 3 dining options. However, in the unlikely event that it’s already full, I should imagine that you could get 2nd sitting Club confirmed. 
 

If you made a Saver booking then you can only express a preference and won’t know what you have been allocated until you board the ship. Although Ventura isn’t currently using the MyHoliday app for main dining room bookings, the well publicised issues on some of the other ships since its introduction is causing a number of people who have always used Freedom dining to switch back to Club, which may push more Saver customers towards Freedom. 
 

Unfortunately P&Os IT system isn’t fit for purpose, so anything is possible!

[Frontera2]

We booked the select fare, for the reason that we wanted to choose ( request ) our dining arrangements but also because we had a preferred stateroom that we wanted.

 

I’ve dropped P&O an email so hopefully they’ll respond soon. 
 

We really didn’t like our experience on the Iona last year, especially the hanging around in the evening in virtual queues to try and have a table for dinner - was enough to put us off cruising. 

[AchileLauro]

Assuming that you have gone for select fare it's probably a simple mistake and easily rectified.

Freedom dining on Ventura is not so bad, we've done it a couple of times. However we are in total agreement with you regarding freedom dining on Iona, it just didn't work and we absolutely hated it.  Never, ever again!

To be absolutely honest with you I very much disliked Iona for a number of reasons not just the freedom dining farce and am extremely unlikely to sail on her again, or on her sister ship.

[Selbourne]

Just now, Frontera2 said:

We booked the select fare, for the reason that we wanted to choose ( request ) our dining arrangements but also because we had a preferred stateroom that we wanted.

 

I’ve dropped P&O an email so hopefully they’ll respond soon. 
 

We really didn’t like our experience on the Iona last year, especially the hanging around in the evening in virtual queues to try and have a table for dinner - was enough to put us off cruising. 

Sounds like an IT glitch then. I doubt that you will have any issue changing it, but I’d call them as soon as they open tomorrow if you are able to. Apparently it can take well over an hour to get through if you leave it any later and P&O are notoriously poor at responding to emails, often taking many weeks. 

[Frontera2]

We’re with you there. The sea days on the Iona are the only time we’ve ever been bored on a cruise.

 

Even on the single formal night on our week on Iona, it felt like a cross between a floating Wetherspoons and Butlins ( I’ve been in / to both ) and just had no style at all. 

[Selbourne]

1 minute ago, AchileLauro said:

Assuming that you have gone for select fare it's probably a simple mistake and easily rectified.

Freedom dining on Ventura is not so bad, we've done it a couple of times. However we are in total agreement with you regarding freedom dining on Iona, it just didn't work and we absolutely hated it.  Never, ever again!

To be absolutely honest with you I very much disliked Iona for a number of reasons not just the freedom dining farce and am extremely unlikely to sail on her again, or on her sister ship.

We probably won’t go on Iona a second time either, but for different reasons. Even though the ship was packed, Freedom dining seemed to be working quite well and certainly an awful lot better than it had on Britannia the month before.
 

My theory was that with most cruisers on Iona being first timers they were using the app as requested and, as a consequence, it seemed to work well. On Britannia however, where most of the passengers  were experienced P&O cruisers, a lot of people were unwilling or unable to use the app and, as a result, several different systems were in operation. This caused confusion and at busy times the app was switched off and very long waits ensued - much longer than any waits we had experienced on our 3 previous Britannia cruises (all Freedom dining and pre-app). 
 

I quite like the app but it only works properly if everyone uses it. As this doesn’t happen, those just turning up were getting seated quicker than those of us using the app, which made a nonsense of it. 

[molecrochip]

It may be that club dining is full and therefore you’re waitlisted, meanwhile currently confirmed as freedom.