Selbourne

Thanks. Certainly a step up from todays offer. The menu mentions that there is also a selection of ‘lighter choices’ for both starters and mains, which are in addition. The only difficulty I’d have with that menu is deciding between the four mains that I really like the sound of. Can’t say that I’ve had that dilemma for some time 😂

Thankfully my favourite special which, from memory, was only available on Monday’s, has now made it on the the daily menu - Eggs Benedict 👍

Yes, I do. However we are away on holiday at present (not on a cruise) and they are in my garage loft, so that’s a job for a day in the depths of winter when I’m at a loose end 😂 My perception is that there is less choice, but primarily because some of the items that used to be in the ‘Always Available’ section at the bottom of the menu are now listed within the main menu in order to pad it out. Having had cruises on Britannia and Iona over the past 2 months, I would say that we have been pretty happy with the MDRs on both. We could usually find something that we fancied. All meals were served hot and with only a few exceptions, quality was perfectly OK as well. I’d say 3 to 4 star hotel equivalent. Portion sizes are definitely smaller - sometimes laughably so - but given that we are never too far from the next meal I haven't had to ask for more! I still marvel at how they can churn out so many meals in a mass catering environment and still get most of them to a pretty good standard. Reports from Ventura don’t sound so good, but we are on her next month so will see how we find it.

I’ve just looked through their T’s and Cs. Unbelievable. “Mystery Parking” says it all 😱

There are still an awful lot of people who much prefer a physical book and don’t use Kindles at all, my wife and I being two of them!

P4C don’t respond to emails. I emailed them 3 times to let them know that Queen Anne is not on their database and they ignored all 3 emails. I then phoned and left a voicemail which did eventually elicit a response. This was at least 6 month ago and Queen Anne is still not listed on their website! I’ve used them a few times before and they were very good, but their admin is atrocious and I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable about them.

Which company?

Yes, not P&O specifically, but looking at the pathetic selection of books on Iona you can see the direction of travel!

From what I can work out from the countless reports, the issues seem to be less about cruise to cruise and more about when people prefer to dine. It seems that most regular contributors to this forum prefer to eat early, often pre 7pm. I might be mistaken, but I think that most people who like to dine early rarely, if ever, experience issues. Those who prefer to eat later tend to encounter more challenges, as we did on Britannia when the app was clearly abandoned for long periods as the staff couldn’t cope with app users, walk ups and those with pagers all conflicting with one another, so the app was always the first to give. That being said, one of our daughters used the MDR for dinner a couple of times on Iona at peak times and encountered no issues, but there is significantly more MDR capacity on Iona than Arvia, hence why they allow pre-booking for early dining on Arvia in an attempt to ease pressure on peak times. I agree with your comments about pre booking shows. We pre-booked all the shows on both Britannia and Iona and half the time the staff weren’t even bothering to check people in which made a farce of it. Also, the argument that it allows you to turn up at the last minute knowing that you’ve got a seat doesn’t hold water. They allow those who haven’t booked in from 5-10 minutes before the show starts and some who had pre-booked couldn’t get in when they arrived a few minutes before the show!

Yes, we were able to pre-book entertainment for our Iona cruise last month, but bookings didn’t open until the Monday (the dining reservations having opened at midnight Friday / Saturday. However, it’s worth noting (based on our recent experiences on both Iona and Britannia) that the bookings that you make often have no bearing to what actually ends up happening on the cruise! Shows often end up happening on completely different days to those you have booked and on the first night on Iona the show was not the one we had booked but was a completely different one that hadn’t even been bookable on the cruise Personaliser. Usually the daily Horizon schedule shows the correct show, but even that was incorrect on the first day on Iona! One final tip. The headliner and guest act shows are under ‘Entertainment’ on the Personaliser, but there was an additional theatre show called ‘Wavelength’ (a game show that was actually quite entertaining due to the entertainment manager who was very funny). This appeared under a different part of the Personaliser (from memory ‘Experiences’) so I nearly missed it. They put it on at 2pm on the last sea day, so we watched it prior to going to the 3pm Afternoon Tea in Epicurean (which we also enjoyed).

Not so. The OP asked “Not cruised with P&O since July 2019. How does it compare now to then?”. That, to me, is a generic question that applies to ALL aspects of the cruise experience, not just one specific thing. The OP went on to say that on their post Covid Celebrity cruise they had experienced poor menu choice & quality of food however, I repeat, their original question in relation to P&O was NOT solely asking about the MDR. Hopefully, if the OP reads the thread that I have provided the link to they will gain a thorough understanding of all the changes (albeit some will be specific to Britannia, whereas others are fleet wide), which may put into perspective some of the posts in this thread which are focussing on one specific aspect only.

You can book a table for 4 against your cabin. We recently returned from Iona and there were 6 of us in 3 cabins. I made all the bookings for the 6 of us.

We have always used a cab, which you can get from the main gate (you need to hop on the free red port shuttle bus from the ship to the port gate). Best to pre-book. I can recommend ‘Martin’s Taxis’. Cabs are allowed to drop off and pick up right in the centre of Bruges, whereas coaches (and train) involve a walk in from further out. We got a cab to Ghent one time, which we probably preferred to Bruges. If you use Martin’s Taxis and want a bit of entertainment on your journey, ask for “Lou with the hair in the air” as she calls herself 😂

We were there with P&O in July. The shuttle setup was very impressive. It was pretty much non-stop busses with very short waits. By contrast, one of our daughters went there with MSC and had to wait 90 minutes for a shuttle.

As this thread has turned in to a dialogue about one aspect only (MDR food), I thought I’d go back to your original question, which I assume related to far more than just one specific aspect of cruising! Like you, we hadn’t cruised with P&O since the end of 2019 until our cruise on Britannia two months ago (we’ve also been on Iona since). As well as a detailed ‘live from’ blog, I posted a lot of info afterwards on the ‘post Covid’ P&O. Whilst we noticed a good few dozen things that had changed (most often referred to on this forum as ‘cut backs’), if you can be bothered to plough through the 4 or 5 long posts that I made in this thread (each of which addressed a different aspect - dining, cabins, entertainment etc) you will see that the majority of them didn’t impact adversely on our cruise experience and even some of those that did had work-arounds. Hope it helps.

Yes I agree. £50 deposit is a no brainier. Easy to cancel and re-book if prices do fall. Also, a lot can happen in two years!

Ours was a balcony cabin, booked within 12 weeks of sailing on a Select basis, so there are definitely bargains to be had beyond inside cabins. Very cheap prices for next month too (also balcony) but unfortunately we couldn’t get an accessible one. Both Britannia. We’ve also booked a very cheap Ventura cruise for March quite recently. Again, well below £100 pppn on a Select basis. I guess there’s a chance they could have been even cheaper at launch, but I doubt by much, and I’ve never liked having to book more than 2 years in advance.

Thanks. We eat later. Luckily, as my wife has a wheelchair we tend not to be given the banquette style seating very often, but if they show us to one I ask if another table is available and am usually lucky.

Previously we have always booked at launch, partly because the launch prices have never been beaten and also because, like you, we need an accessible cabin and these are rarely available at short notice. The Britannia cruise in July that we were both on was interesting though. We didn’t book at launch, but I’d tried a couple of times to book in the intervening period and there were no accessible balcony cabins available. Just after balance due date I noticed that the price had dropped quite a bit. I was on the phone to our TA about another booking and mentioned it. They said “let’s have a look anyway” and, much to my surprise, there was a choice of two accessible balcony cabins so we booked. Now, in all honesty, I hadn’t kept a note of the launch price, but we paid well under £100 pppn for a balcony cabin on a Select basis, which we were happy with. From now on I’m going to retain a note of launch prices of any cruise that is of potential interest to us and monitor them, particularly when they get beyond balance due date (only Select prices - we wouldn’t risk a Saver). That being said, if there is a cruise that we really like the look of, we may book at launch, but only if it’s under £100 pppn a night for a balcony cabin. We won’t be booking Iona or Arvia though, even though I know that the majority of their cruises will be within this price cap. We’d possibly go up to £150 pppn on the adult only ships as they rarely have bargain fares. At those prices, even if they drop it won’t be by much and we will at least have secured the accessible cabins.

Many thanks. That’s useful to know. Do you happen to know whether those wanting a table for 2 are usually able to be seated immediately at breakfast and lunch (especially on sea days), or whether pagers are the order of the day? We are sorted for dinner as we have booked Club.

Thank you. Can I also ask what the situation is with the My Holiday app on Ventura, as it varies so much by ship? We have switched to Club dining, 2nd sitting, so won’t have any need to use it for dinner, but can you use it for breakfast and lunch in the MDR? If so, how are you finding it? We really liked using it when things worked well, but on Britannia it went to ‘Queue Full’ every morning in the 15 minutes or so before last admission (which is when we usually go) and lunchtimes were chaos on sea days, with the MDR going to ‘queue full’ an hour before the lunch session finished, resulting in people having to take pagers and many not getting in until 20-30 minutes after what should have been last admission. We persevered with the app, but those who refused to use it reported that they were getting seated far quicker by just turning up, which was irritating.

That’s right. You just go to your muster station first, they scan your boarding pass (as keycards are now not given at check-in - they are in an envelope in the mail slot outside your cabin) and then go to the designated MDR for your priority boarders lunch. On Iona it was a buffet (much better than the previous version) but on Britannia it was a waiter served meal, which we preferred. Either way, a nice start to the cruise and far better than the buffet. Enjoy!

We went to Istanbul on our very first cruise - on Oriana. Loved it. We’ve only been on Arcadia once and whilst we had a nice suite (which we no longer book) there were a number of things that we didn’t like about the ship. However, as we have had 7 enjoyable cruises on Aurora, and my wife isn’t prepared to go on Iona again or Arvia (time will hopefully be a healer 😂) I am wondering if we might try her again. The only problem is that the two adult only ships are always priced above our new self imposed price cap for P&O. However, if a cracking itinerary comes along……

I think that’s spot on. Although we have the added challenge of needing an accessible cabin, we shall only book at launch if the price is within our new target range. We nabbed an accessible balcony cabin on Britannia at a very good price after balance due date this year, but tried again yesterday for another Britannia cruise going in a couple of weeks time and it’s wait listed. I agree though that the days of the cheapest prices always being at launch seem to have gone.

We arrived at 1150 for a 1200 check in and CPS were very quick - and that was on a packed Iona on a day with several other ships in, so I think it will be a breeze on Aurora