Selbourne

It makes perfect sense, because I’ve had exactly the same thought, but decided against saying it for fear that someone might think I was nit picking, but you are spot on 😂 If you have decent loyalty discount, it’s far better to have a lower price with less or no OBC. It always makes me smile when people talk about OBC as being “P&Os money and not mine”. No it isn’t! People have usually paid an inflated base price for the cruise in order to get that ‘free’ money. When we were on Ventura last week they were promoting triple OBC. Sounds great until you look at the base prices, which were way too high. They rely on the fact that most people aren’t as anal as us and don’t do the maths, so get suckered in by the headline offer 😂

When was that? We were on Britannia in July and it was never mentioned or promoted. I had assumed that it was just a trial on Ventura.

In the meantime, here’s the MDR one from Ventura last week, which I suspect is the same

If it’s the same as on Ventura, it’s kept secret. Our waiter was surprised that I knew about it and had to dig the menu out of a drawer. As someone said when I reported this on my live blog, it seems as though the waiters see it as extra work so don’t promote it, in the hope that it will fail due to lack of take up 🤔

Yes, I remember it. It wasn’t terribly accurate. Also, in addition to errors, it only tracked the base price. As we know, P&O have a habit of using on-board credit to mask price fluctuations and imply ‘deals’ that aren’t really there. For example, one cruise may evolve through several offers such as; Launch price - £2,500 No OBC Post Launch - £2,750 with £250 OBC Double OBC Promotion - £3,000 with £500 OBC ’Sale’ Price - £2,500 No OBC If, as I do, people work out the net cost of their cruise as the base price less OBC, then all 4 different promotions amount to exactly the same net cost, yet a tracker site would imply something completely different 😂 Now if someone could devise a tracker that monitors the price net of OBC then that would be useful.

I’m not sure that I’d even make it until the end of the cruise if I drank only a fraction of that 😂

I’ve had the email too. I clicked on the ‘book now’ button to see what the price would be for our 65 nighter. It didn’t appear to deduct the 10% (maybe that only happens at checkout?) and, of course, I’d get loyalty discount as well. Clearly with those discounts it will be an absolute steal, but for some reason I was a bit nervous about clicking any more buttons……….😱🤪

That’s how we’ve always found Aurora, and all the other ships as well. Iona was a unique experience for us.

That sounds like the sort of sea day that we used to enjoy on Aurora. None of the sea days on Britannia, Iona or Ventura has come close to that over the past few months, so I had assumed that it was the same for all the ships nowadays. If we get speakers and musicians of that quality on Aurora in January then I shall be very happy.

Sounds like a wise decision to me. We also didn’t miss cruising during the shutdown, which was a surprise. We have started again and are enjoying them, but the main reason that we cruise is because they are very well set up for those with disabilities. If my wife was able to fly then we would do far less cruises and more touring holidays / city breaks by air. We were poised to book a Saga cruise, but as a result of your experiences and feedback, plus their eye watering prices, we have gone cool on the idea. Never say never, but our post Covid P&O cruises have been better than we had expected and we’ve since discovered Cunard, so between the two companies we can probably fulfil our requirements. Like you, when paying Saga prices our expectations would be sky high and some of the issues that you had would be disappointments for us too.

Thanks. I’m glad that you enjoyed it! The lift issues that we had on Iona were definitely exacerbated by it being August school holidays and there being 5,750 passengers, but there’s no doubt that the lifts are too small for how busy that ship can get. Able bodied folk, or those with hidden disabilities (so can presumably stand), won’t have any issues, but my wife’s wheelchair (which isn’t big) takes up almost half a lift on Iona, and usually the lifts were more than half full. The other factor was that the passenger behaviours on Iona were entirely different to anything that we had experienced on any other ships, before or since. Almost zero lift etiquette or consideration for the challenges that we were facing, other than the children and teenagers who were great. Ventura was so different it was incredible. The lifts are bigger, the ship never felt packed (as Iona had) and 95% of the time we could get into the first lift that arrived. Our fellow passengers were fabulous and were always holding lift doors for us and telling us to go first even when they’d been waiting longer (we never expect to queue jump, but it’s nice when people are so thoughtful). As I said in my review, it was chalk and cheese compared to Iona. However, I’m conscious that other wheelchair and scooter users have had no issues on Iona, albeit cruising at quieter times, so we might just have been extremely unlucky. Either way, my wife still steadfastly refuses to consider any further cruises on Iona or Arvia as a result, which is a shame as there was lots to like.

Yes, that’s a good point, there are additional things that aren’t on the menu. In addition to smoked salmon they can also do omelettes, albeit very small ones that have a touch of ‘here’s one I prepared earlier’ about them 😂

We’ve been on 3 different P&O ships over the last 4 months and use the MDR for breakfast daily. It’s still very good IMO, but there have been a number of changes post Covid that you might notice. Bircher muesli is alive and well, but it’s a tiny portion. I have it daily - as a starter 😂 They now put dried banana pieces in it which don’t work when in milk, so I fish those out! Toast is still white, brown or mixed, served in a toast rack (although I can never tell which is which). Very thin and usually cold, which to be fair is inevitable in a mass catering environment. You can ask for thick toast, but that’s the other extreme. It’s ridiculously thick and most people would struggle to get it in their mouth! The individual glass pots of conserves have gone and you now have open yellow tubs of strawberry jam and marmalade, sometimes smeared up the sides which looks a bit unappetising and doesn’t seem terribly hygienic to me. The daily fruit smoothie remains, but is very watered down compared to how it used to be. The quality of the cooked food remains very good IMHO and whilst the daily specials have gone, you can now get Eggs Benedict every day, which is a positive for me.

Many thanks Pete. Only interested in the MDR times for breakfast if that helps. Good to hear that the cut off is 10am but very surprised it doesn’t start until 8.30am, as this must cause congestion, especially as many older folk are up and about very early! When we were on Britannia the cut off was 10am on the first sea day (after the clocks had gone forward) but reverted to 9.30am thereafter. Pleased to hear that you are off to a good start and especially that you have no creaking! If you hit the sort of weather we had then ask the maintenance guys to come armed with WD40. Worked a treat in our cabin on Ventura 😂

Well the title of your thread will certainly attract interest but, unfortunately, you have failed to mention which ship you are talking about! I think I’ve worked out that it might be Arvia?

Have a fantastic cruise @pete14. When you get chance, could you please let me know what the cut off times are for MDR breakfasts on Aurora? Pre Covid they used to be 9am on port days and 9.30am on sea days, but on some of the other P&O ships since Covid it has become 9.30am on port days and 10am on sea days, which we have much preferred. I’d also be interested to know whether they still do the ‘tiffin lunches’ in Sindhu on sea days. Many thanks.

No rush, you clearly have your hands full. Pleased to hear that your wife is on the mend.

@TigerB I hope that you had a safe journey home and that your wife is now feeling better? Have you posted your review of your Iona cruise? If you have, can you point me in the direction as I must have missed it?

I usually manage to get service for an hour or so when going through the Straights of Dover but, other than that, not a hope until you are within sight of a port.

TBH haven’t been on Arcadia for years. Cruises this year were on Britannia, Iona and Ventura. When we did our two Northern Lights cruises on Aurora the staff made no secret of the fact that they hated those cruises as they felt so cold. The ones that I felt most sorry for were the security staff and those that were dealing with embarkation and disembarkation in the ports. They looked like they were really suffering. They had multiple layers on but the embarkation points were like wind tunnels with -25 degrees winds. It was bad enough being in that area for minutes, let alone hours.

I have a hunch that P&O aren’t cooling their ships interiors to the same degree that they used to. In the past my wife would often comment that some areas of the ship were too cool for her. Also, in our cabins, she was rarely happy if the thermostats were much below the half way point. We have been on 3 different P&O ships over the past 4 months and there have been areas of the ships that even my wife has conceded need more cooling. Also, even with our cabin thermostat on the lowest (coolest) setting they have still felt too warm at times. When you think about all the relatively small cutbacks, that cumulatively have obviously saved P&O substantial sums of money, setting the thermostats so that the air con isn’t cooling the interiors as much as it was has the potential to save far more money than many of the other cost saving measures combined! Of course, if they are heating the ships too much in colder weather that contradicts this, but having done two Northern Lights cruises the crew (who are mostly from warm countries) really struggle in Norway in the winter and their comfort has to be taken into consideration as well.

For keen photographers, the Northern Lights are a dream. I attempted to take photos with my iPhone and even using an app they were rubbish. There were a few guys with decent cameras on deck who were taking some spectacular shots. The camera lens can see colour that we cannot see with the human eye, so good photos are always significantly more impressive than you have actually seen in reality. We were lucky that the first time that we went we had two nights of really strong displays, but even on the night when we couldn’t really see anything with the naked eye these guys were getting great shots! It’s a great cruise even if the lights don’t make an appearance. The scenery is spectacular. Enjoy.

Thanks. Enjoy your cruise and fingers crossed that the skies are clear for you. If the Northern Lights make an appearance they get picked up far stronger by cameras than they do than by the human eye, so you’ve a good chance of some decent shots.

Whilst (sort of) understanding the logic for this, having to be offloaded for 6 hours would be a major problem for us. My wife’s disability means that we have to find fully accessible toilets that are large enough to accommodate a wheelchair (with room to manoeuvre) and me (to assist). Nigh on impossible to find these in most ports, hence why we tend to only spend 2-3 hours ashore in each port. We were on Aurora when her lines broke in Civitavecchia and passengers were stuck ashore for much less than 6 hours, yet even able bodied passengers struggled with the lack of facilities. Thankfully, we were on the ship when it happened.

Interesting feedback. We had 350 more passengers than you did when we were on Iona and it certainly felt very crowded. Our main problems were two that you also experienced - lack of lift capacity and poor lift etiquette, so much so that my wife (a wheelchair user) won’t entertain going on her again. We’ve just got off Ventura and it was chalk and cheese compared to Iona in these two regards. No lift issues at all and other passengers were very considerate to the needs of wheelchair users. Luckily we had no noise issues with our cabin on Iona (other than some thumping around on the balcony above us) and having been alert to the challenges getting into specialty restaurants we had booked them all when bookings opened at midnight 2 weeks before the cruise. Would you be happy to go on Iona again?