Bad Behaviour Onvboard (P&O)

[lostinvegas]

Not yet I called but he was not in, Dave is an ex work collegue I have not seen for a while. I was really worried when I read this story as he has been very ill in the past and has been through a hell of a lot, so I hope he had a good time. I have dropped him an email so will come back with what he says as soon as he responds.

 

Incidently Dave was the reason we got into cruising, he went on Oriana about 7 years ago, it sounded so good we booked on P&O ourselves 2 years latter.

 

Chris

[The Welsh Man]

Thanks Chris,

 

Will be interesting to hear another version of events.

 

My wife and I have done around 10 cruises mainly P&O,but have also done Princess and Thomson. Always enjoyed.

 

I've never seen any sort of bother on these cruises, but I have been told after the event people have left the ship (gossip).

 

I'm sorry if people's cruises have been spoilt on this trip but I guess its a reflection on where our society is going, there seems to be to a total lack of respect for anyone but themselves.

 

I personally think this is the start of worse things to come, nothing to do with class or money.

 

I hope I'm wrong

 

Carl

[stopgo]

lostinvegas

Cool Cruiser

Join Date: Jul 2008

Location: Tamworth

Posts: 64

 

 

This does worry me a little. One of the reasons for paying so much money to go on a cruise is so we don't have to put up with "insert

 

I don't like the tone of this phrase

[cruiseaholic10]

It is so simple I am British but NEVER travel on a British cruise ship have done in the past and it was awful. The germans have a reputation for bagging the sun beds but they havent a chance when the Brits are aboard en mass they are awful :(

OK American ship easy to get to the bar, :)

British ship impossible to get to the bar

American easy to get a sunbed :)

British impossible to get a sunbed

American need to book the gym

British no need to book the gym

We may speak the same language but culturally we are as different as chalk and cheese. I know what I prefer

[lostinvegas]

 

I don't like the tone of this phrase

 

Now thats not a very good apology after putting words in my mouth. The tone is how you perceive it, its written word, I guess your just looking at it negatively. No one else has made a comment on it. What I said certianly contained far less descrimination than other posts.

 

I apologise to the other posters for going off topic.

 

Anyway now thats cleared up back ON TOPIC:

 

My friend who was on the cruise sent me the following email. It makes for very interesting reading. Dave and his wife Polly are in their 50's and are regular cruisers on P&O, as well as other cruise lines. They are very easy going and 2 of the nicest people you will ever meet.

 

Hi Chris and Anna,

Happy New Year and we hope you had a good xmas.

 

You have obviously read or heard about the xmas/new year cruise on Ventura and I am afraid to say that it is mainly true. Not all the problems bothered us that much because the ship was so big, we stayed well away from trouble and mainly ate in the restaurants and stayed out of all other main public areas where there were a lot of 'not the usual cruise kind of people'. (Bars, Havana etc). We met some fantastic people and had a great laugh.

Entertainment was not as good as it should have been for xmas and we were at sea for many days because of not docking due to wind. Having said that, Polly had picked up germs and actually benefitted from being able to sleep for about 4 days and do absolutely nothing.

 

In all, it could have been better, and I am sure that if P & O are hit by a lot of complaints, they will sort it fairly quickly as they cannot afford to have their reputation ruined. Some other friends have emailed us today as they are going on the same cruise at the same time as you. Wouldn't it be funny if you end up sharing a table with them? The only thing I would mention is that after a lovely experience in Garry Rhodes on Arcadia, 8 of us signed up to New Years Eve in Marco Pierre-White's. Disaster - long story but briefly, we never got to eat because they couldn't cope with a table of 8. Max no. is 6 apparently but they made us feel very uncomfortable and we ended up walking out. We complained bitterly to a lad that didn't look above l5 and in the end didn't get charged the £30 per head surcharge (because it was N.Y.Eve.) Food was probably very good, pity! We ate in East twice and that was very good.

We did feel that P & O cannot afford to offer these 'Butlin's' type deals as people generally pay expensively for exclusivity. Some other friends of ours went on this cruise early in December and they said exactly the same.

 

Have tried to be honest Chris, don't let it put you off because I think out of school holidays and because the 'high spirit' xmas thing will not apply, it will be a very different cruise. Also if the weather is good, you will visit all islands. If you need to know any more, just give us a ring.

 

Regards,

Polly and Dave, x

 

I am not sure what to make of it all really. Its not put me off I am still really looking forward to going. But part of me thinks it might be a different experience to my last cruise on P&O. I am going with an open mind. If I find its not my cuppa tea I will find another cruise line to travel with next time.

 

Chris

[Bar-fly]

Feel sorry for them.:o

 

Ok but only to a degree, I know that P&O have to now fill up these big oversized ships that their American masters give them, and by having a cut price sales drive in Chav towns means lots of Chavs buy the tickets and P&O are quite aware of this, and by operating a 3.300 passenger ship aimed at families it would now seem that P&O are reaching out for new markets by advertizing all in cabin prices and family deals.

It's all about safeguarding well paid P&O jobs by putting bums on seats.

 

As 5waidos said "Where were their parents" I'm afraid many of the parents are also of the era where discipline was lax or none existant, and now the do-gooders in Great Britain and the EU have stopped teachers from punishing kids, and now even parents are not allowed to punish them so this is the result.

The American owners have not figured out that we don't all want climbing walls and ice rinks to go cruising and the downside to this new breed of holiday camp ship is that traditional cruise lovers will flock to the smaller ships and that will put up prices for traditional cruisers.

[Janey]

Surely bad experiences on Ventura doesn't mean deserting P&O, just stick to Aurora or Oriana and your cruise will be quite different. And to all those people disappointed with Ventura to coin a phrase "Should have gone on Ocean Village". Any ship with 3000+ people on it school hols would ring alarm bells with me. Ocean Village has no problems, 1800 passengers and plenty of room for sunbeds etc and it is very seaworthy. And it isn't cheap either if you want a decent stateroom. This only confirms that Ventura is to be the new OV, but not as good.

[excitedofharpenden]

There was a lively discussion about this cruise on Jeremy Vine yesterday.You can listen to it on bbc iplayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/vine/

Click on the right hand menu "Listen again" its on the last 15 mins of the programme. Glad we went on Celebrity this Christmas now!

Enjoy...

Lisa

Lisa, thanks for the link. I always enjoy a spirited discussion on the Jeremy Vine radio show. Much more interesting than "Eggheads".;)

 

Phil

[julie Morris]

I have to say having just returned from a terrible two week cruise on the P & O Oceana - obviously the passengers on the Oceana were related to those on the same two week cruise on the Ventura!.

 

I've never met such individuals with no manners or social graces.

 

It was a disaster - the other passengers completely spoilted the cruise for me. In the two weeks cruise there were two deaths - due to shorex accidents!, families deported in Limon/colon for fighting , climbing over balaconies and parents buying kids booze that were clearly underage and families deported in Jamaica for smuggling drugs.

 

I actually ventured on 9 cruises during 2008 and the P & O one on the Oceana was the worst -even worst than Carnival Splendor. Not only were the other passengers horrid but the ship was dirty and very poorly maintained with tacky and ameuteurish entertainment!

 

Since P & O was taken over by Carnival the standards have dropped beyond belief.

[Bar-fly]

What a pity your cruise was spoilt, the sun class ships are so nice and in my opinion as large as anybody really needs for a nice cruise, although as I pointed out earlier it all depends on where the company intensify their sales drive.

On the last P&O ship I cruised on most pax were from one area of England and I don't think any of them owned a jacket let alone a tie, one chap only had a string vest for day wear and football shirts for evening and not one of the ships officers had the guts to ask him to find a proper shirt.

Unfortunately standards are dropping on P&O but the galling thing is that we the customers can see what is going wrong, and when you write or complain to P&O they don't listen, and you get a letter back full of waffle saying that they really know best, perhaps it is to the Carnival Corporation that the complaints should be addressed, one thing is for certain P&O are going to have to pull up their socks. (I wonder if P&O read these forums) If I was the boss and saw these complaints, heads would immediataly roll !!!!!

[jeanlyon]

Can I just ask the poster above how many people were on this cruise? They can't ALL have been a disaster. Also which ship was it?

[jeanlyon]

Sorry, you did say Oceana, didn't read it properly. Are you really saying that out of hundreds of people, they were ALL a disaster???????

[supered]

I heard an interesting thing last night on the Then One Show on BBC1. Aparenetly the Tie will become extinct in about 2038 according to a boffin who predicts the future. This is based on the continual "casualisation" (is that even a word?) of people's dress.

 

Where will that leave the world of cruising I wonder? It's quite interesting:)

 

Eddie

[jeanlyon]

Hi there, well I didn't notice it at all on Artemis, so as I planned to avoid Ventura anyway and stick to Adults only, perhaps that's the best option :-)

[stopgo]

There is alot of scaremongering going on, far too much in my opinion. I would think far more people have enjoyed their holidays on the Ventura than not. Isolated incidents can occure anywhere as regards alledged punch ups. Okay the Ventura maybe not to everybody's taste but I would urge anybody to go with an open mind, and make up your own mind about it.

[supered]

Hear heare stopgo! Couldn't agree with you more. We had a great time on Ventura on October/November and didn't come across anything other than very minor things.

 

Eddie

[jeanlyon]

So you get fisti-cuffs on Ventura? Oh well, you only get whingers and moaners and sunbed baggers on Artemis :-)

[supered]

So you get fisti-cuffs on Ventura? Oh well, you only get whingers and moaners and sunbed baggers on Artemis :-)

There was no fisti-cuffs when I was on Ventura, but there were some moaners and sunbed baggers!

 

Eddie

[LauraS]

I have to say having just returned from a terrible two week cruise on the P & O Oceana - obviously the passengers on the Oceana were related to those on the same two week cruise on the Ventura!.

 

I've never met such individuals with no manners or social graces.

 

It was a disaster - the other passengers completely spoilted the cruise for me. In the two weeks cruise there were two deaths - due to shorex accidents!, families deported in Limon/colon for fighting , climbing over balaconies and parents buying kids booze that were clearly underage and families deported in Jamaica for smuggling drugs.

 

I actually ventured on 9 cruises during 2008 and the P & O one on the Oceana was the worst -even worst than Carnival Splendor. Not only were the other passengers horrid but the ship was dirty and very poorly maintained with tacky and ameuteurish entertainment!

 

Since P & O was taken over by Carnival the standards have dropped beyond belief.

 

Hello:

 

We received the following clarification from a P&O spokesperson to the above information:

Tragically one male passenger died whilst on a scuba diving excursion in Tortola. There were no other deaths on this cruise and no passengers were landed or deported during this cruise."

We hope this helps,

 

Laura

[ro2427]

It seems to me that there is a lot of tension between the socio-economic classes in the UK, and this manifested itself in the P&O incident. It is never ok to pigeonhole an entire group of people into a negative stereotype merely because of how much money they earn (or pay fpr cruise tickets). For example, I could turn the argument in this thread around and argue that upper class members tend to cause more incidents because they feel that they are entitled to a certain degree of treatment and that it was they and not the low-priced tickect consumers that caused the problems aboard P&O. In short, I could argue that they behaved liked spoiled children and acted out because of the missed port of calls and because of the admission of low-price ticket consumers. However, this argument would be unfairly prejucial and unsound. There are badly behaved people in any social class.

 

Finally, as a Latina I would like to say that I am greatly offended by the postings of some of the members here, some of which suggest that Puerto Ricans are badly behaved party goers. FYI, Puerto Ricans, like most other racial groups, are hard working people. Like many poor carribbean countries, they work hard cleaning up after cruise goers to ensure that members here have a good time when they go to visit their islands. To enjoy visiting these islands while at the same time looking down upon fellow passangers from these very same islands reeks of racism. I think we all need to respect racial and class groups so that we can enjoy each other's company on the high seas.

[LibraLass41]

There is alot of scaremongering going on, far too much in my opinion. I would think far more people have enjoyed their holidays on the Ventura than not. Isolated incidents can occure anywhere as regards alledged punch ups. Okay the Ventura maybe not to everybody's taste but I would urge anybody to go with an open mind, and make up your own mind about it.

 

 

Agree too.

The Ventura cruise after the christmas cruise has just finished and reports are that was just fine, I think the Christmas cruise was just a isolated bad cruise:cool:

[Gerrym]

Sue, are you sure about that????

 

The last 5 cruise reviews on a well known review site would seem to differ from your opinion.

1 person gave it 5 out of 5

1 person gave it 2 out of 5

3 people gave it 1 out of 5.

 

I am not knocking Ventura, I am merely pointing out that the Ventura world is possibly not as rosy as some might believe.

 

 

 

Gerry

[LibraLass41]

Where did you get that info Gerry?

I was reading posts from pando site cruise connections from cruisers who have returned from the latest Ventura cruise, the one after the christmas 'nightmare' cruise...

[Gerrym]

Where did you get that info Gerry?

I was reading posts from pando site cruise connections from cruisers who have returned from the latest Ventura cruise, the one after the christmas 'nightmare' cruise...

 

 

Hi Sue, not sure if I am allowed to post the link but it is cruise dot co dot uk.

 

There does seem to be a good balance of reviews there. Many positive ones!

[miss mental]

Hello,

I was on the cruise and it was a massive disappointment. We still had a good time, no thanks to P&O.

We booked this cruise on the day it went on sale in April 2007. We spent 18 months saving up for this holiday of a life time. We had been really looking forward to going to the Caribbean for the first time, particularly Tortola to visit the Virgin Gorda.

We have previously sailed twice with Royal Caribbean and once on Ocean Village & QE2. We have always enjoyed our previous cruises and had no complaints.

We were overall very upset and disappointed with this cruise and feel that P&O did not provide us with the cruise we were hoping for. Many others onboard echoed our thoughts. On booking this cruise we thought we would have a very special Christmas & New Year experience.

· We found that the ship lacked any atmosphere particularly in the evenings after dinner. We frequently wandered around after dinner searching for a bar with some entertainment but we couldn’t find anywhere to meet our needs. The Christmas decorations in the atrium were lovely. But in other areas it was easy to forget it was Christmas they were so sparse.

· The Entertainment was extremely poor. We found the bands ‘Fascination’ and ‘Shades’ to be old fashioned and dull. Fascination frequently played in an almost empty Havana. Their songs were repetitive and uninspiring. For a couple in their early 40’s as we are, there was nothing at all to interest us at all regarding music on this cruise.

· There seemed to be some bizarre and ill timed ‘quiz shows’. For example Christmas Day night in Havana @ 10.45pm they stopped the music for ‘Give us a Clue’. The audience was disinterested and we walked out. Another night they had a ‘Brain Teaser’ quiz at a similar hour. There was hardly any participation from the audience and again people left.

· We tried the ‘disco’ in Havana a few times with the intention of having a dance. However, apparently the disco didn’t get started till after 12.30am and we had had enough of the monotony of songs such as YMCA so left before 1.00am.

· The shows in The Arena were mostly poor ~ Saturday Night Fever, Grand Illusion to mention. We did enjoy Chronicles.

· We expected at least one star to entertain us for a Christmas / New Year cruise, but there wasn’t one. The best on offer was Scott Bruton who came 9th in X Factor this year.

· The sundecks - 15 &16 are overcrowded with sun beds and the area is known as the seal colony by the crew. This makes it almost impossible to walk around the decks; it was more like an assault course. It was a health & safety issue in my opinion. We have video evidence of this and on watching it back it seems worse than ever!

· We opted for Freedom Dining. We were allocated The Cinnamon Restaurant. We found the food to be of a good standard. Service though was poor. We were often left long periods without our water glasses being refilled.

· There was very poor management and organisation over Freedom dining for Christmas Day. We receive a letter a couple of days before Christmas Day informing us that there would be two sittings ~ 1st & 2nd sitting for Christmas Day & New Years Eve. We had to meet at Cinnamon Restaurant at 7.30am to book the tables. When we arrived promptly at 7.30am there was already a very long queue in front of us. There was only one person booking tables and in the end we waited 1 hour & 20 minutes to book our table. People in the queue were becoming angry & frustrated at the poor planning. We were unable to book for New Years Eve at the same time and had to go through the same process again another day. We felt that Freedom Dining is 2nd Class!

· Poor service in bars. On busy sea days (we had 6); it was difficult to get attention from bar staff and waiters. On New Years Eve, my husband waited 30 minutes for our drinks and when we went to ask where they were the staff spoke to us as if they didn’t care. We understand that the staff were busy and seemed understaffed but again it seemed very badly organised and mismanaged.

· We missed 3 ports of call; Grand Turk, Tortola & St Kitts due to bad weather. We hardly received any information at all about the reason and many went to reception to enquire what was happening but were given little or no response, so we didn’t bother. Remarkably the weather was fine to go on deck. The captain gave a brief message to say that he was trying to find alternative ports but this didn’t come to fruition. Apparently Ocean Village diverted from one of these ports (? Tortola) and went to St Maarten instead!

· Because of the missed ports we ended up with six sea days instead of three. Three of these were on consecutive days. This was unbearable due to the congested sun decks. We felt trapped almost like prisoners. Little in the way of entertainment was put on to compensate. When we missed St Kitts the captain sailed directly to St Lucia for an overnight stop. We did get off an arriving there but it was dark and felt most unsafe for example there were soldiers on the street.

· New Years Eve dinner was an anti climax. There was no big count down whilst we ate our dinner in the cinnamon restaurant at 8pm (London midnight). Our table and an adjacent one did this our selves. Apparently this did happen on Oceana last year.

· The New Year deck party was extremely cramped due to most passengers being on deck. At times it felt that it was getting out of control due to drunkenness of fellow passengers. P&O did seem happy to keep supplying alcohol to passengers no matter how drunk they were. I have confirmed reports of drunken fights and people trying to torch the Tamarind Lounge on deck 7. Also, someone glassed with a broken champagne bottle. We did witness many lit cigarettes being thrown overboard landing on balconies below. I would describe the atmosphere as ‘Benidorm at Sea’. There was distinct lack of security visible and it felt very unsafe.

In summary, we were extremely disappointed with many aspects of this cruise as we had been looking forward to it for so long. Many others on the cruise felt the same way. My family have sailed with P&O many times and recommended we sail with them.

We understand that the weather is unpredictable but we are surprised that P&O cruises were unable to avoid missing 3 ports in one cruise with no alternatives offered at all.

We do not feel at this time that we would like to sail again with P&O due to feeling let down by them.

I am entitled to my opinion and am fed up with anyone saying anything negative about P&O being shot down!

Happy Sailing!

Miss Mental.:)