Britannia to Northern Spain and France

[P&O SUE]

I’ve just come back from Britannia 14th -21st June . I put a few thoughts and photos in the ‘how are things with you’ thread but I know not everyone goes in there and I’ve thought of more to say!

Overall we enjoyed the cruise, we do feel the food in the MDR isn’t as good as it once was and the app was a bit frustrating. We had excellent food and service in the Glasshouse for a lunch and an evening meal. We went to the Beach House twice, one pre booked before the cruise and one booked onboard as we couldn’t face the MDR again! Nice ambience and service there but the food isn’t completely to my taste , eg there’s only one main dish I like!

 

We might have been unlucky but our waiters in the MDR weren’t overly engaging.

 

Anyway - highlights - we really enjoyed Ian Gunn’s talks in the theatre about his time as a prison governor. It was great to have a talk on a sea day in the theatre as we’ve only done four night cruises since 2020 and you don’t get them on them.

 

Mr Tickerton’s Clockwork Circus was very impressive, first time we’ve seen that show. Also John (husband) hadn’t seen Astonishing before and he finally got to see it. I still don’t understand how the card trick works and the theatre gasped at that! I saw it in 2018 on Ventura when I went on a cruise with a friend. I thought the main show was better on Britannia than it was on Ventura, perhaps because of Britannia’s more high tech theatre?
 

The ports were Gijon, A Coruña, Vigo and Cherbourg.Vigo was a substitute for Santander announced by the Captain as we sailed away from Southampton. I think the reason given was ‘we were unable to obtain a birth’ ?? A shame as Santander isn’t often on cruise itineraries. We’ve driven through it once on a Brittany Ferries holiday!

 

 Some photos 

(Utah beach,Vigo lovely in the afternoon, not nice in the morning! A Coruna, Gijon, formal night)
 

 

Edited June 22 by P&O SUE
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[P&O SUE]

The wine and beer we had in A Coruna, it only cost 6 Euros and came with free crisps! We asked for a menu and the guy said ‘no menu, no food’ so we just said a beer and a white wine . We then worried if he took cards as we only had 10 euros in cash! I couldn’t believe it when John came back from paying and said the price!

[Landon90]

We were also on this cruise and had a great time. Our first on Britannia and my new favourite ship. 
 

We were also shocked at how cheap drinks were in a few of the ports (not Cherbourg though). 
 

Was a little gutted we didn’t go to Santander as I really like it there. Glass House food was great as was Sindhu. Dining room we only went twice and food was average in our opinion. Staff were great especially in sunset bar. 
 

Laura Evans in the theatre was really good. The comedian in the live lounge wasn’t to our taste. 
 

Our room flooded one night along with quite a few others at the aft on floor 8, they dealt with it all quickly though. 

[P&O SUE]

It’s funny you said about the comedian. We went to see him on his second evening at 8.30. They warned it was unsuitable for under 12’s but didn’t make a thing of it . Anyway there were quite a few children there and he started to chat with some of them. All fine. After 25 minutes he was still just having banter with the kids and I felt like we were still waiting for his act to begin. Then suddenly he said goodnight and walked off! It wasn’t even 9pm! 🤷‍♀️ Usually the acts are about 45 minutes? We were too tired to check his 10.30 show and see if it was better/longer!

[Landon90]

6 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

It’s funny you said about the comedian. We went to see him on his second evening at 8.30. They warned it was unsuitable for under 12’s but didn’t make a thing of it . Anyway there were quite a few children there and he started to chat with some of them. All fine. After 25 minutes he was still just having banter with the kids and I felt like we were still waiting for his act to begin. Then suddenly he said goodnight and walked off! It wasn’t even 9pm! 🤷‍♀️ Usually the acts are about 45 minutes? We were too tired to check his 10.30 show and see if it was better/longer!

We were in the same one I think. We also didn’t try the later one. 😁

[CCFC]

I was on this too but will do a cruise review as there were some things not right. Embarkation was chaos. We did the MDR twice and the food was mediocre, loved the Beach house, Limelight club but was left very disappointed by the Epicurean. Ports of call good though.

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

I thought there was a rule that everyone who goes to A Coruna has to post a picture of the statues by the terminal😊

[P&O SUE]

6 hours ago, CCFC said:

I was on this too but will do a cruise review as there were some things not right. Embarkation was chaos. We did the MDR twice and the food was mediocre, loved the Beach house, Limelight club but was left very disappointed by the Epicurean. Ports of call good though.

Our embarkation was fine, agree about the MDR food sadly.

[P&O SUE]

I forgot to mention we went to a special sail away event from Vigo. We were outside the Cookery Club high up aft. I was looking forward to taking photos of the lovely views as it was a gorgeous evening. We were soon joined by another couple at our table and had such a good laugh with them that I hardly took any photos! The event was supposed to run for an hour but we left after two hours! We did pay £25 each (less our loyalty discount) but we did get four cocktails and lots of canapés. Very enjoyable.

 

 

[Josy1953]

Lovely photos Sue.  

We did the maiden voyage on Britannia  and loved the ship but for some reason we have not been back on her.  I think that we need to book on her for next year we are booked up for this year.

Being the maiden we were given a gift which was a Wedgwood commemorative cup and saucer. 

DH was still working at Wedgwood at the time and like a good potter looked at the backstamp and immediately saw that they had been produced in Indonesia so was not happy because at the time Wedgwood were making redundancies and moving the jobs to Indonesia which is why they live in the loft.

[P&O SUE]

6 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

Lovely photos Sue.  

We did the maiden voyage on Britannia  and loved the ship but for some reason we have not been back on her.  I think that we need to book on her for next year we are booked up for this year.

Being the maiden we were given a gift which was a Wedgwood commemorative cup and saucer. 

DH was still working at Wedgwood at the time and like a good potter looked at the backstamp and immediately saw that they had been produced in Indonesia so was not happy because at the time Wedgwood were making redundancies and moving the jobs to Indonesia which is why they live in the loft.

What a shame Josie they weren’t made at Wedgwood.

[JeanieC,Aston]

Hi

We we’re on the cruise before yours,looks like you got some sun.

The week before the weather was awful.

Gijon and Santander were the reasons I booked the cruise (new ports for us) Gijón on a Sunday was shut and stayed onboard,,,Santander it rained all day and again stayed on board…A Caruna was a coffee and brandy on the front and Cherborgh was a visit inside the nuclear submarine,,,great experience.

 

Because we came by Eavesway it was straight into the terminal and a great debark at 08:15.

Was the comedian the Irish guy we had?,,,useless

The Glasshouse was the worst visit in a dozen visits over the years but I thought MDR was better than usual,,the Epicurean food OK but a 2.5hr meal is to long for me,,,although the staff did say beforehand the could hurry it up if we wanted to be in and out.

 

[JeanieC,Aston]

17 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

forgot to mention we went to a special sail away event from Vigo. We were outside the Cookery Club high up aft. I was looking forward to taking photos of the lovely views as it was a gorgeous evening. We were soon joined by another couple at our table and had such a good laugh with them that I hardly took any photos! The event was supposed to run for an hour but we left after two hours! We did pay £25 each (less our loyalty discount) but we did get four cocktails and lots of canapés. Very enjoyable.

Hi Sue

This must be a new thing,,they had it on our cruise prior to yours.

People I spoke to thought it was a bit expensive at £25 each for a couple of canapés and cocktails,,,was there many in attendance?

[CCFC]

This was us queuing outside the Ocean terminal, we were here for about 40 minutes, 7 queues plus priority.

And inside, this went back and forth half a dozen times, you could not sit down, this took about an hour.

Glad Im in a suite next time!

 

Edited June 23 by CCFC

[P&O SUE]

19 minutes ago, JeanieC,Aston said:

Hi Sue

This must be a new thing,,they had it on our cruise prior to yours.

People I spoke to thought it was a bit expensive at £25 each for a couple of canapés and cocktails,,,was there many in attendance?

There were quite a few. I didn’t get my invitation til the night before and the money didn’t come off my account until after so I did wonder if it would be cancelled. We had 4 or 5 cocktails! They can’t be that new because the couple who joined us said they’d been before. We had quite a few canapés as well as the couple we were with kept asking for more! 😁 so all in all we did get our moneys worth.

 

Re the ports it was dull and sometimes rainy every morning but the sun came out later. Gijón was Sunday for us too but we did wander around for a couple of hours. A Coruña was dull all day but quite warm. 
We didn’t get to Santander, they gave us Vigo instead.

[P&O SUE]

9 minutes ago, CCFC said:

This was us queuing outside the Ocean terminal, we were here for about 40 minutes, 7 queues plus priority.

And inside, this went back and forth half a dozen times, you could not sit down, this took about an hour.

Glad Im in a suite next time!

 

It’s annoying you can’t go in and sit down now. I’m paranoid about leaving the car with luggage so I’d happily go in and sit down until my time.

We got there about half hour early and were waiting in the queues outside for a while can’t remember how long but it was good natured so we just shuffled round til we got in! I was surprised how long the queue was inside but we were constantly moving.

Edited June 23 by P&O SUE

[P&O SUE]

Oh and I don’t think the comedian was Irish, think his first name was Mark but can’t remember! 

[smokey01]

1 hour ago, P&O SUE said:

There were quite a few. I didn’t get my invitation til the night before and the money didn’t come off my account until after so I did wonder if it would be cancelled. We had 4 or 5 cocktails! They can’t be that new because the couple who joined us said they’d been before. We had quite a few canapés as well as the couple we were with kept asking for more! 😁 so all in all we did get our moneys worth.

 

Re the ports it was dull and sometimes rainy every morning but the sun came out later. Gijón was Sunday for us too but we did wander around for a couple of hours. A Coruña was dull all day but quite warm. 
We didn’t get to Santander, they gave us Vigo instead.

I’m not one for canapés but how easy was it to get drinks? You say you had 4 or 5 so not to bad. Could you have gone wild and got a 6th? I don’t find their drinks to alcoholic so bit non plussed if only 4 slightly alcoholic drinks. Also I travel with my mother who wouldn’t want to go, would I feel like billy no mates if I went solo?

[CCFC]

5 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

Oh and I don’t think the comedian was Irish, think his first name was Mark but can’t remember! 

Mark Oliver, his late night one was about the only funny one of the three appearances.

[P&O SUE]

5 hours ago, smokey01 said:

I’m not one for canapés but how easy was it to get drinks? You say you had 4 or 5 so not to bad. Could you have gone wild and got a 6th? I don’t find their drinks to alcoholic so bit non plussed if only 4 slightly alcoholic drinks. Also I travel with my mother who wouldn’t want to go, would I feel like billy no mates if I went solo?

Not sure about a 6th, we were cheeky getting a second one of one - they came round each time with a different one. We were given Prosecco on arrival as well though it’s that awful stuff you get at sail away!

 

I don’t know if you’d feel a Billy no mates or not. We were approached quite early on by another couple and stay d chatting with them for the rest of the evening. Officers were mingling, so hopefully one would go and talk to you if they noticed you alone.