Selbourne

Interesting. Our last P&O cruise was November 2019 (so just a few months before Covid) on Aurora and cheese was served at the table from a board, but admittedly the choice was very poor compared to previous years.

I’m so sorry to hear about this. We had been assured that all this nonsense of unacceptable cabin changes had come to an end, but clearly it hasn’t. The term “operational reasons” is the stock excuse used by P&O for anything and everything and does nothing but irritate people, most of whom would prefer honesty. The compensation offered is a joke. As many of us know, you will be able to get considerably more, but it is a battle, takes ages and involves you having to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I have used NDA’s myself when dealing with company takeovers or very senior hiring or firings, but never for a customer complaint! It’s just completely over the top in such situations, but it’s how they operate. I’ve had 3 of them during our 25+ years with P&O, one for a four figure sum (ironically for problems with an aft suite), but in all cases I would rather have received no compensation whatsoever and had a hassle free cruise. As an aside, I’m staggered that they have offered you the one and only accessible suite. The higher level accessible cabins usually sell out very quickly. We tried to book a late cheap cruise on Iona for the end of this month and there’s not a single accessible cabin available on the ship. Oddly, they thought that the one accessible suite (aft) was available, but then said that they couldn’t sell it to us. I wonder if it’s for the same reason as yours I.e. they are going to move another suite passenger into it?

That’s a shame. First I’ve heard of it. Doubtless one of the things that was changed “because of Covid” but has become a permanent feature with the lower staff numbers. We’d have to make sure that we sat on the same table, as I love blue cheese (which you don’t) and I don’t like Red Leicester , so we could swap 😂

P4C give you several prices based on differing terms. The extra price of a package offering free cancellation can often be minimal.

We posted at exactly the same time. Your explanation was far better than mine 😉

A certain poster who raises this matter continually whenever anyone dares to make a criticism of P&O will no doubt be along shortly……….😂

Keep in mind though that it’s never free, as you have to decline additional OBC to get ‘free’ parking. Often you can get parking with an alternative operator to CPS for far less than the extra OBC that you get by declining the free parking!

We’ve used both and you will be fine with P4C. Although you have to walk to and from the nearest short stay car park, you avoid the holding lines that CPS use so it can actually be a lot quicker. Also, returning from your cruise it’s often a shorter walk to the short stay car park than where your car is parked with CPS so, again, quicker. CPS prices tend to be more expensive because vast numbers of their customers are using them as part of a package (such as ‘free parking’ with P&O), but whilst we book Select, we always price match the extra OBC on offer versus the cost of booking parking with P4C.

This happened to us once. When I called they said it was the mini bar, which we never use. I put it down to steward error. It was refunded, but I wonder how many people don’t bother chasing it or give up trying to get through to resolve the issue. Nice little earner (or perhaps not so little) 🤔

Thanks Andrew. I’m very relieved that we’ve booked Britannia Club, which means that we have a personal table for our exclusive use for breakfast, lunch and dinner, in a (smaller) dedicated dining room, which we can use at whatever time we like with no need to book, so we shouldn’t have any queues 🤞 Looking at some of the comments on the Cunard board, some seem to be fearing that Queen Anne is going to be an Arvia / Iona, but she’s actually Ventura size so hopefully, as you say, chalk and cheese!

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback. We are on Iona in the August school holidays when passenger numbers will be significantly greater, but if the core procedures are working correctly then they should be able to cope as the numbers crank up.

Many thanks. We tend to dine later - around 8.30pm. From what you’ve heard, is it still OK then?

Whilst it might not be the most PC thing to say (but, hey) isn’t it as a simple as different P&O ships, with different pricing structures, attract very different passenger profiles? It surely can’t be to do with drinks packages and Brits. If it was, then the most riotous cruise line would be Saga 😂

I sincerely hope that the grown ups at Carnival and, in particular, Cunard are reading all the adverse PR about Arvia’s early weeks (rather than the spin being fed to them by the P&O President) and making sure that there’s no repeat on other new ship launches. We are booked on the second cruise of Cunards new ship Queen Anne 🫣

Well, at least we know from the P&O President that 99.99% of the passengers in that photo had an absolutely fantastic cruise and experienced no problems whatsoever 🤔

Sad to hear that the problems on Arvia have not been solved, in spite of assurances by Paul Ludlow that they would be. Is Iona still having problems as well? I hope that all the extra cost restaurants are open, fully staffed and with all menu items when we are on Iona in August. I can see us using them every night and avoiding the MDR, other than for breakfast and possibly lunch (unless someone tells me that they are problematic as well)!

You have to pay when you book (unless it’s changed now some restaurants are pay per item), so you can’t use OBC but any loyalty discount will be applied.

For those who might not have read it, here’s what Paul Ludlow said to journalists regarding the maiden cruise of Arvia; “As ever there were a few bugs in the system and a handful of guests - and it really was a handful of guests out of 5,000 guests - that had some problems on Christmas. What I can say though is that across the 14-day holiday - that all of those guests experienced - they had a wonderful time. The vast majority of people - 99.9 per cent of people - went away delighted," Mr Ludlow told gathered journalists. He said his team onboard "knocked it out the park" on the maiden voyage, and he is "more than confident" the current Caribbean cruise would not see problems with a "phenomenal" team on the ship. He said the glitches on the first cruise happened in just a couple of hours and were rectified "within hours".

In all honesty, of all the P&O cruises that we’ve been on, the only one where I remember a number of people moaning was our very first one on Oriana in 1996. The complaints related to them preferring Canberra which, having seen the deck plans with the spartan cabin facilities, rather surprised me! Thinking about it, tender operations tend to cause a lot of frustration, but that’s justified as I think that P&O make quite a meal of it. We’ve certainly had the folk who are intent on bragging about what a cheap price they paid and we just smile and ignore them. I recall one chap on Ventura who mentioned it two or three times in one conversation, obviously desperate for me to inflate his ego even more by saying that we had paid a lot more. He failed to mention that the cheap price he paid was almost certainly for an inside cabin, just as we decided not to mention that we were in a Penthouse suite 😂

These bad reviews are certainly stacking up. It will be interesting to see how many of the 99.9% who had a fantastic cruise post an entirely positive review 🤔

I agree. We might be described as P&O traditionalists, but we go on all the ships for different reasons. We prefer the itineraries and passenger profile of the smaller ships, but we prefer the more modern facilities and additional dining options on the bigger ones. Other than tender operations (which are more time consuming on the bigger ships), I can’t say that we have noticed more overcrowding on the bigger ships, but we are booked on Iona in August when I suspect that we will be with 6,000 other guests……. As you say, it’s how passenger flow is managed that is critical. Even Aurora can be unpleasantly crowded around the atrium on sea days, especially in poor weather!

We very much look forward to reading your comments. The President of P&O cruises has already responded. 99.9% of passengers on your cruise had a fantastic time and the tiny few that didn’t experienced some minor issues that won’t be repeated 🤔

We have only cruised with P&O (we’ve done some ships tours, meals and overnights on a couple of other lines, but that doesn’t count) and, like you, I really like reading the posts of those who are able to compare P&O with other lines. One or two posters seem to get very agitated when people make comparisons, which is completely illogical to me as it is one of the main objectives of a site such as this. However, many of us who have only cruised with P&O, but for many years (in our case since 1996) are also able to make very valid comparisons, and that is the comparison between P&O as it was and P&O as it has become. IMO, those opinions are equally valid and should not be dismissed. For the first 20 years or so of our cruising with P&O we felt that it was a decent 4 star experience (I’m talking quality, rather than facilities). In the 3 years 2017-19, leading up to Covid, we did 9 cruises across 4 different P&O ships and during this period we started to notice a gradual erosion in the quality of the experience, such that we now feel it has become a 3 star experience (again, I’m using this term to describe quality rather than amenities). I should say at this point that this is why I get irritated when one or two posters continually dismiss the opinions of those who haven’t cruised since Covid, as we were noticing the changes for several years before the pandemic. However, I must be balanced here and say that along with this gradual change in the product offered by P&O, the prices, in real terms, have fallen (the exception being the adult only ships, which can still be quite expensive). I have also said several times on this forum that whilst I don’t particularly like the way that P&O has repositioned the brand, it makes a great deal of sound business sense. They simply couldn’t fill the vast capacity that they have now if they still offered a 4 star experience at 4 star prices. We still have a couple of P&O cruises booked as, whilst we have been deeply concerned to read all the negative feedback, we don’t want to write P&O off without experiencing the post Covid P&O for ourselves. I even tried (unsuccessfully) to book a last minute cruise on Iona at a very cheap price - our view being that whilst me might have gone with fairly low expectations, the price reflected that! However, P&O simply cannot still be using Covid as an excuse for poor standards. My concern is that having run on low staffing levels for so long, they will try to maintain overly tight crew numbers even with higher passenger numbers in order to squeeze more profit per cruise. Whilst our commitment to two future P&O cruises shows that we are keeping an open mind and haven’t written P&O off, we have seen enough since 2017 to tell us that we need to start looking at other options. That is why we have booked our first full cruise with another operator - a 2 week Cunard cruise next year in Britannia Club which, from the reviews I have read, sounds as though it may be the type of cruise experience that we would enjoy more. However, the prices are comparable to a suite on P&O, so whilst it might irritate those who dislike comparisons being made, we fully intend to compare and contrast with our two 2023 P&O cruises and will report back here accordingly!

Thank you so much for clarifying this vital issue. Thank goodness that common sense has prevailed at last. That is a big worry taken away from us and will allow us to consider more bookings now, with more confidence that we will end up with the cabin that we booked and not having to worry about being imprisoned!

Could you clarify exactly what this means please? Has P&O dispensed with ALL requirements to quarantine (just as at home, or on any other type of holiday), or do you mean that there are no longer zones of quarantine cabins that people are moved to? We have 3 Deluxe Balcony cabins booked on Iona in August at considerable cost and it was my intention to cancel all of them before balance due date if quarantine zones were being maintained, as the last time I checked they were in the quarantine zone, so we would have had changes to our cabins a few weeks before departure that would have been unacceptable to us. If, as I suspect, you mean the latter (I.e. people still have to quarantine, but in their booked cabin), I’m curious to know what happens to those in inside cabins who test positive when the ship is fully booked, as it could well be when we are on her.