Slow service on large ships?

[Bobblehat71]

Just off Azura and bar service generally was very poor throughout the ship. 

Brodies was particularly bad and they would often refuse to serve you at the bar which meant you had to wait for one of the very few waiters to get served.

Service around the pools was completely non existent and queues at the bars huge.

Service in the MDR also felt rushed.

The general feeling was that they are massively understaffed in all areas. I've cruised with 3 other lines in the last 12 months and although they will have had the same staffing issues you never really noticed. I think P&O's cost cutting may have gone a little too far.

 

[daiB]

36 minutes ago, Bobblehat71 said:

Just off Azura and bar service generally was very poor throughout the ship. 

Brodies was particularly bad and they would often refuse to serve you at the bar which meant you had to wait for one of the very few waiters to get served.

Service around the pools was completely non existent and queues at the bars huge.

Service in the MDR also felt rushed.

The general feeling was that they are massively understaffed in all areas. I've cruised with 3 other lines in the last 12 months and although they will have had the same staffing issues you never really noticed. I think P&O's cost cutting may have gone a little too far.

 

All bars on all ships will ask you to place your order with a waiter. I have not seen any understaffing at busy times. I take notice of what is going on around me and will count the number of staff. On Ventura in Jan. In the Metropolis I saw 6 waiters before dinner, second sitting all very aware of customers needing to be served. In the glasshouse again 6 with a further 2 just for food.

[Fionboard]

On Arvia at present. Seems to be a lack of sufficient staff in most bars. Long waits for drinks and tables not cleared. Dining rooms seem to be OK though. 

[amurray88]

I'm late to the party but we sailed Azura in January with our 6 month old. We booked Sindhu for 5pm (his bed time was 7:30pm). We got our starters...rushed our mains then had to leave. At 6:30 we alerted our waiter that this really was taking much longer than we anticipated and asked him for a jug of hot water that we could put our babies bottle in. By 7:15, we were no further forward and when pressed the waiter said "The chef is just making your hot water". I'm not trying to be funny......but seriously?

 

At 7:30 we had to get up and walk out (we normally would hate this sort of rudeness). The waiter came after us saying we can't leave because we've not signed a receipt yet and I had to be quite forthright and say we can't wait until the chef makes a receipt for us (looking back, I shouldn't have said this) but the point stands.

 

Having said that...... ALL of our other dining on Azura from memory we couldn't complain about.