Switch from RCI to P & O will i like it

[daiB]

to be honest Im VERY nervous - so much so Im starting to pretend she is Genesis to get me through it LOL we have only moved across because of the itinerary

 

 

Hi MK

 

You really have to stop worrying about your cruise. The thread on here has been commented on on another board and these are some of the positive comments from people who were on the cruise in question and ones just before it. There were NO adverse comments about Arcadia on this or the other cruises this winter.

 

You will have a great time!!!

 

 

"I was on this cruise and completely agree with Annie. We had a great time, far too much gorgeous food, and thought Gary did a great job."

 

"Libra Lass. I do not think you have to worry unduly about your upcoming cruise. When we were on at Christmas the food was very good."

 

"I was on this cruise and it certainly was not terrible. I think the original poster was one of an incredibly small minority. Yes it was a shame that we had to miss out Key West but it wasn't the end of the world and we were compensated. Let me tell you what actually happened."

 

"Now I don't know how anyone could expect any more. Yes it was unfortunate that we had the delay, yes it was a shame we missed Key West but we were still on a lovely ship (our first time on Arcadia) and we felt P&O did all that was possible. Very few people were moaning about it. The odd one did say they had looked forward to Key West, but that's cruising. Sometimes you can't land because of weather."

 

"Did all this ruin our cruise? Absolutely not. We had a fantastic time, enjoyed Arcadia, and the food was great. I think when you consider how the problem was dealt with we have nothing to complain about."

 

"I was on the Panama Canal cruise before New Orleans, and while the food and some of the entertainment may not have been of such a high standard as other P&O ships it is all relative & I did struggle to equate the comments with my experience just the cruise before. The efforts of the crew could not have been faulted. "

 

 

 

Go for it and be positive and you will have a great time.

 

 

 

 

:):)Happy Cruising Pet:):)

 

 

 

 

:cool:

 

 

Dai

[LibraLass41]

Agree Dai

I fully intend to have a lovely time:D

Hope you are well

 

Sue x

(now wheres my ballot form for the Ventura visit thats what i want to know!)

[Deeliteful]

Hi All

 

I thought I would add my thoughts to this thread having travelled on P&O as well as RCL and Celebrity (plus Fred Olsen).

 

I believe most cruises are what you make them - there are always some positives and negatives but hopefully mainly positives.

 

I loved my first cruises with P&O but they definitely are more British (for good or ill!) I thought the food was fantastic, the entertainment good and the lack of service charge on every bill a definite plus.

 

However with RCL and Celebrity it is a much more cosmopolitan feel, food also great but not keen on the buffet style cafeteria type option (maybe cos I'm a Brit!). With the dollar/pound exchange rate the drinks etc., are now very cheap even with the service charge added in. I like the ice in my room, the bigger casinos and the spas.

 

But I would happily cruise with any of them again as I have always had a ball on whichever ship I have been on.

 

Happy cruising!

 

Pat

[LibraLass41]

Ah, but I also like the 'child free' aspect, which I can get on pando, RCL have big family ships which don't appeal atall to me, but I would try Celebrity - do you agree they are 5* compared to pando's 4* ?

 

Sue

[Sparkle 123]

Hi Sue

I would agree that Celebrity are a 5* compared to P&O and RCI 4*.

Little extra touches such as a welcome glass of bubbly opon boarding and being escorted to your cabin set Celebrity apart. We also like the fact that all the room sevice items are free unlike P&O and you can get a cooked breakfast and dining room menu items delivered to your cabin also.

We like the child free aspect of the Arcadia too but we have also cruised with RCI in September on a New England itinerary and had very few kids onboard. I think if you choose an itinerary in school time which is not your typical Caribbean beach type holiday then there will definitly be less families on board.The Jewel of the seas(RCI) or Celebrity Constellation out of Harwich to the Baltics would probably be good ones to choose. Both are beautiful ships.

[LibraLass41]

Ummmmmmmmmm Celebrity to the Baltics sounds good, we like sailing from Southampton, and haven't done baltics yet....

thanks, will consider that :D

 

any photos of celebrity ship I could see?

 

Sue

[Sparkle 123]

OK heres the rear end of the Constellation!!!

 

 

We had one of the aft balcony cabins, it was fab, had breakfast and lunch on our huge balcony most days, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming off there!!!

 

 

By the way thats only half of the balcony, we also had 2 sun loungers as well!

 

For more pics from Celebrity ships click on this link to see some of our other photos.

http://www.cruisemates.com/gallery/search.php?search=lisa+hubball&match=1

 

Hope this helps!!

Lisa

[LibraLass41]

Oh Lisa, I just love the wake, and would love a aft cabin like that - hubbie loves it too, but he is worried about engine rumble being at the stern and the noise of the waves breaking...??? He has good hearing, and even air-con bothers him sometimes... did you find it noiser there than in midships?

 

 

Sue

[seattlelover]

I think P&O and RCI offer different products. As has been previously mentioned P&O cater more for the traditional British cruiser and RCI more cosmopolitan. IMHO I do think RCI food standards are above P&O. I can only compare with the cruises I've personally expereinced with P&O against those on RCI.

 

Sue, Libralass, you mentioned Celebrity. You may recall from P&O CC or CN that we sailed to Alaska on Infinity in August 2006. We also had an aft cabin like Abbafan and it was no noisier than midships. It really is lovely to be on your (way bigger than midships) balcony and look at the wake. IMHO Celebrity are a notch above P&O and I think they adhere more to traditional cruising than RCI do. I like the other cruiselines for the good mix of nationalities. The only plus for P&O is the amount of cruises sailing out of Southampton, but with more cruiselines offering this there's now more competiton. A pity Celebrity haven't got anything ex Southampton.

 

Bev

[LibraLass41]

Bev

If Celebrity did sail from Southampton, I would definatly give them a try.

The do Occasionally sail fro UK though don't they?

Would there be lots of Americans on a UK sail -out cruise?

 

 

Sue

[BrianI]

Bev

If Celebrity did sail from Southampton, I would definatly give them a try.

Sue

Get your skates on, there is one this year, Summit on 29 April to Med from Southampton to Barcelona -12 nights.

There are several to the Baltics from Harwich on Constellation. Great area to cruise regardless of cruise line.

There is good chance of lots of Americans on American ships, but thats not a problem for me.

Brian

[Scorpio1411]

Oh Lisa, I just love the wake, and would love a aft cabin like that - hubbie loves it too, but he is worried about engine rumble being at the stern and the noise of the waves breaking...??? He has good hearing, and even air-con bothers him sometimes... did you find it noiser there than in midships?

 

 

Sue

 

Hope you don't mind me chipping in but we had an aft cabin on the Arcadia on the Mexican Riviera Cruise and it was fantastic. You couldn't beat it. Not only are the cabins bigger, we didn't have to worry about getting a sunbed round the ship because we had one each on our balcony. The pool was just above so if we fancied a dip in the pool we just jumped in the lift right by the cabin and we were there in minutes instead of a long trek. We could hear the music from the Sailaway parties if we stood on the balcony but that only lasted for an hour and it made for the atmosphere of sailing away anyway. Because we went down the Panama we had fantastic views and the only time we left the balcony was to get something to eat. Before the cruise, my husband was adamant he wouldn't stay on the balcony for the whole time as he wanted to look at the Canal from all views but even he ended up staying on the balcony all the time. We certainly didn't think the engines were noisy and when the doors were shut we didn't hear anything outside. We absolutely loved being in an aft cabin (D182) and would recommend one to anyone who asked about them.

[Sparkle 123]

I echo the statements of scorpio and seattlelover. We are now aft balcony addicts!! We loved our aft on the Arcadia Panama canal cruise and were lucky enough to get one on the Constellation. Now we are looking forward to our Hawaii cruise on the Millenium with 5 sea days to enjoy the huge sheltered balcony, another advantage to the aft is that its protected from the wind and rain. The only thing that might be a problem on the Millenium class ships is if you have one on deck 9 directly underneath the cafe bar, you will hear music and chair scraping. Decks 7 and 8 are the best chioces.

[LibraLass41]

Get your skates on, there is one this year, Summit on 29 April to Med from Southampton to Barcelona -12 nights.

There are several to the Baltics from Harwich on Constellation. Great area to cruise regardless of cruise line.

There is good chance of lots of Americans on American ships, but thats not a problem for me.

Brian

 

Brian

Not this year I am afraid, a few days after 29April I will be boarding Arcadia (5 May) for a 16n cruise to Venice with a balcony cabin, which I am looking forward too, as haven't been to Venice.

Perhaps next year!

 

Sue

[KimmyUK]

KimmyUk

Were you on our cruise? With regard to reading more positive reports, not many people are signed up to this site............so I don't think you can guage what the feeling on board was really like unless you were there. Or was it you at 6.00am putting your towel on a sunbed?

 

Well all I can say is that I have read more positive reports than negative ones regarding this cruise and how you can say only 10% thought it was OK is exaggerating to the extreme.

 

If you did not enjoy the experience then fine, say so but do not claim 90% support when that is clearly tripe.

 

You do not mention the £100.00 compensation offered for the first day delay?

 

You do not say what was wrong with the Quiz only that you did not like it in the room you happened to be in. There are other bars to go to.

 

I repeat if you had a bad time then say so but do not claim that everyone else did to justify your complaints.

 

 

 

:):)Happy Arcadian Cruising:):)

 

:)Roll on July

 

 

 

:cool:

 

 

Dai

Were you on our cruise? With regard to reading more positive reports, not many people are signed up to this site............so I don't think you can guage what the feeling on board was really like unless you were there. Or was it you at 6.00am putting your towel on a sunbed?

[forest_]

Kimmy happens on every cruise ship or line. I usually get up at 5.30 to

Your report sounds like one bad trip most post I have found on other boards saidl the cruise was fine. Some people are never happy!!! Its called life my Dear!!! :D

[tom_uk]

If Celebrity did sail from Southampton, I would definatly give them a try.

The do Occasionally sail fro UK though don't they?

 

Like P&O they do have a mixed bag of ships, and this can change the experience greatly.

 

The Century class - Century, Galaxy, Mercury - dates from the mid-90s, and you can regard them as being pretty similar in facilities to Oriana. The lead ship of the class has had a huge refit (2006, I believe) which among other things gave her a speciality restaurant and many more balconies. She's now a sort of cross between the post-refit Oriana and Aurora. The other members of this class have not had the major refit, and it's beginning to look as if they won't - Galaxy was due to have one this spring but it's been cut back to a 2-week lick'n'spit dry-dock. No extra restaurant, certainly. So she's very much like Oriana used to be; not many balconies, only one (huge) main restaurant, etc. Mercury is the same.

 

Then there's the Millenium class of four ships: Millenium, Infinity, Summit and Constellation. These are much more modern, and can be regarded as somewhat similar in size & facilities to Arcadia. There are a couple of extra restaurants, there are a lot of balcony cabins. Also the ships have pod propulsion (again, like Arcadia) so they enjoy very quiet vibration-free movement. (Although there have also been a number of failures with the pods which have lead to impromptu dry-dock visits and enforced cruise cancellations.) In contrast there are often complaints from Celebrity passengers about the noise at the stern of the Century class ships when docking/undocking, and also whenever one of these ships is being hustled along.

 

I've been on Galaxy twice and enjoyed the cruises, but because of the itinerary as much as anything.

 

I don't think I'd call Celebrity 'cosmopolitan'; more like '100% american'.

[K8T]

Hit

 

We have cruised both RC and Celebrity, although RC was quite a while ago, I would say that the P&O ships are of a slightly better standard, but that wasn't on one of the new 'superliners'. Having said that we enjoyed our cruise, the age group was younger than most of the ships we have encountered and a little bit more fun.

 

Celebrity however, we would hesitate to cruise again, I agree that it was 100% American and we sailed out of Rome. The ship was OK, a bit tatty and tired in places, but the food certainly not the best or what we would expect on a cruise - plenty of it, but lots of stodge.

 

The American part was OK, we were lucky enough to be on a 'young' table of eight, but generally it was a lot of stuffy Americans, that seemed to moan a lot!

 

We took our three year old, as we had been sold the cruise on the basis that they are trying to encourage more families, but they just are not geared up for it. The kids are all together in one place 3 year olds with teens - the toilets were filthy. Even the cot they provided had a stained smelly matress. We tend not to take dd to dinner - it should be for grown ups and generally she was in bed by then, but to try and find good wholesome food prior to dinner was impossible. Pizza and Burgers with Fries, we ended up waiting at the kitchen door just to get some Veg!

 

I would say Celebrity is ideal for the older Arcadia gang! (no offence intended), who don't really want a lot of children around.

 

I think the Ventura should compare well with RC and the younger cruisers that it attracts. I don't think you will be disappointed, but it will be interesting to see the reports but, P&O will have to pull their socks up and rise to the occassion if they want to keep their new customers, as standards have been slipping a little recently.

 

Kate

[Bennett'sCruise]

I think P&O and RCI offer different products. As has been previously mentioned P&O cater more for the traditional British cruiser and RCI more cosmopolitan. IMHO I do think RCI food standards are above P&O. I can only compare with the cruises I've personally expereinced with P&O against those on RCI.

 

Sue, Libralass, you mentioned Celebrity. You may recall from P&O CC or CN that we sailed to Alaska on Infinity in August 2006. We also had an aft cabin like Abbafan and it was no noisier than midships. It really is lovely to be on your (way bigger than midships) balcony and look at the wake. IMHO Celebrity are a notch above P&O and I think they adhere more to traditional cruising than RCI do. I like the other cruiselines for the good mix of nationalities. The only plus for P&O is the amount of cruises sailing out of Southampton, but with more cruiselines offering this there's now more competiton. A pity Celebrity haven't got anything ex Southampton.

 

Bev

 

BEV ~ if you catch this post, can you please email me? dbcruises AT att DOT net.

Thanks so much!!

~Dianne