Selbourne

The Silent Disco was far from silent whenever we passed it, with lots of people singing VERY badly 😂

That’s a really good idea. I might do that when we are on Ventura in October. Much as we enjoyed the cruise, we are looking forward even more now to our two Cunard cruises next year, where we won’t have any of the hassle or worry about dining arrangements or times.

Hopefully we’ll get some free ones on Ventura then, as we are in a Superior Deluxe Cabin. Absolutely no water at all in our standard accessible balcony cabin on Britannia though. Can you remember if you had any complimentary water in the deluxe balcony cabin that you had on Iona? I’ve booked 3 of those cabins for August and was going to suggest that we all take a small bottle each, but may not bother if some is provided.

The formal nights on our recent 14 night Britannia cruise were incorrect on the cruise Personaliser until the week before we sailed when they changed, and there was no itinerary change! It was an error.

Water is plentifully supplied in the restaurants. The water out of the taps tastes vile if you drink it immediately, but leave it in the fridge in your cabin overnight with the lid off and it tastes fine the next day. Don’t ask me to explain why 😂

Yep.

It may be that they still offer this service in Club dining? Perhaps someone who has been in Club dining recently can confirm?

This is the sole reason why we are reluctant to change to Club dining. If we could 100% guarantee a table for 2 we would change in a heartbeat.

This was the biggest issue for me Andy. We used the app religiously, yet those that didn’t were often getting seated quicker, which makes a mockery of the whole thing. Given that there are people who can’t or won’t use the app, they have to have two systems running and the app becomes the casualty, as it’s easier to press the ‘Queue Full’ button than manage disgruntled passengers face to face. That’s why I think that the previous sole system of first come, first served worked so much better for both passengers and staff. We have used Freedom Dining since it first started and loved it. Now you need a logistics strategy to dine when you want to 😂. If people don’t want to deal with these challenges the two options are Club dining or if using Freedom, dine early.

AND FINALLY…. A few final bits and bobs that are worth mentioning. Passenger Profile - concern has been expressed on this forum that the cheaper prices will change the demographic of P&O customers beyond all recognition. Even though this was a keenly priced cruise, we found the profile to be very similar to our past cruises and we had a lot of enjoyable chats with fellow passengers. Maintenance - absolutely no evidence of any cost cutting here. Everything was in excellent order (apart from some persistent lift issues). Cleaning - again, excellent. Every toilet that we used around the ship was always spotless. Let’s be honest, that doesn’t always happen elsewhere. Air Conditioning - One cost cutting measure that is probably resulting in massive savings but nobody had mentioned previously, is that the thermostats appear to have been cranked up a few degrees. In the past, my wife used to often comment that certain areas of the ship felt very cool and in the evenings she would often put on an extra layer. Both of us commented that this wasn’t the case this time and, if anything, there were a few areas that were a bit too warm, where a tad more air con would have been appreciated. Service - If P&O are going to persevere with the app, they need more staff in the MDRs to clear tables and re-lay for the next guests. This was taking too long, especially when you then have to factor in the 15 minutes that people are allowed before turning up at the restaurant. This was another factor that contributed to the long wait times. However, that aside, the service that we received throughout the ship was very good and didn’t feel any different to pre-Covid. FINALLY FINALLY! I am conscious that I have mentioned all the things that we noticed were missing or had changed but I will end where I started and say that, in totality, we still had an enjoyable cruise and have certainly not been put off from using P&O. Having read countless reviews over the last year or so, we were fearful that our days with P&O might be coming to an end. This is not the case based on this cruise. Those who are new to cruising will not notice all these things and those of us who miss some of them have the consolation that we are paying less for our cruises now than we were before. Admittedly, we have booked a few more Cunard cruises because their dining arrangements suit us far better, but for what we paid for this cruise it was excellent value. Over the next few months we have cruises on Iona and Ventura. It will be very interesting to see how they compare.

Speciality Restaurants, Bars & Entertainment SPECIALITY RESTAURANTS We dined in Epicurean four times, Sindhu & the Beach House twice each and Limelight Club once. We enjoyed most of our meals, and service was generally very good, but there was probably more inconsistency in these restaurants than the MDR. I’ve covered the detail in my review but, in summary, the first of our four meals in Epicurean was below par, as was the second one in Sindhu. There was evidence of cost cutting in speciality restaurants as well, which I was particularly disappointed with given that you pay extra to use these restaurants. This was most evident in Epicurean where the table side prep has yet to return, in spite of being advertised (I believe that this may be unique to Britannia and they told me this will return in August - let’s see). This isn’t just about theatre - the crepe’s Suzette, which used to be excellent, was pre-prepped in the kitchen and was very poor. The lovely choice of petit fours has gone and all you get now are the same ones that you get in the MDR. In Sindhu the petit fours have disappeared completely and you don’t get offered tea or coffee, but it’s available if you request it. No hot drinks offered in the Beach House either, but that might always have been the case - we couldn’t remember. Oddly, some tables in the Limelight Club were offered tea or coffee but others, including ours, weren’t. The waiters seemed to vanish once the act had finished (worth noting that the performances are shorter now than they used to be). Any amuse bouche, whether in the MDR or speciality restaurants, are no longer food, but little drinks served in tiny glasses. Bit of a waste of time IMHO. BARS There are no pre dinner canapés in the posh bars any more and even the nibbles have disappeared. In all honesty, with the amount that we eat on cruises they aren’t necessary, but it’s another nice little touch that’s gone. One thing that threw us was that there was a much reduced choice of drinks in the bars (e.g. non-alcoholic cocktails down from about 6 to 2). However, a few days from the end of our cruise we discovered that you can order drinks that aren’t listed. Strange policy not to list them. Some drinks aren’t available due to shortages of ingredients though 🤔 ENTERTAINMENT Evening entertainment seemed to be similar to pre-Covid. Daytime entertainment has always been weak IMHO and remains so, but we really noticed the cut back in the one thing that usually does appeal to us - guest lecturers. On 14 night cruises there used to be at least 2 guest lecturers on sea days, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, covering very different subjects. That had been cut to one for the whole cruise and unfortunately the subjects of his talks did not appeal to us. We really missed that and our saviour was the interactive TV that the newer ships have, as we caught up on some films. On the older ship, we would have been bored rigid on the sea days as the TVs are almost unwatchable and don’t have films on demand (unless that’s changed).

Next topic - Included Restaurants (MDR & Buffet) Whilst there were a lot of noticeable changes, I will start this section by stressing that the meals that we had in the MDR were, with just one exception, excellent and all were served hot. Portion sizes were also OK. Less than I’d serve at home, but as you eat so many meals on cruises it wasn’t an issue. The Marco Pierre White Celebration Night menu was the weakest meal that we had all fortnight in the MDR. MDR Reduced Choice - It is indeed the case that there is less choice now than before at dinner. This is because the menus have been padded out with the previously ‘always available’ items now being listed within the main menu each night, so it gives a bit of a false impression. That being said, there was only one menu where neither of us fancied anything, so we went to the Beach House instead (thankfully they had a late slot available). Afternoon Tea - The MDR version has gone. We never rated it, but I know that many did and used it if returning to the ship after lunch service had ended. There is a poor man’s version from the buffet but no clotted cream - just the squirty stuff 🤢 Wine Waiters - These have gone and you order through your waiter and a separate person delivers what you have ordered. The waiters only offered drinks around half the time, so you may have to ask. With just one exception, the drinks arrived promptly. Wine Storage - The ability to have a part used bottle of wine retained for your next visit has gone. You either have to carry the part used bottle out with you or do as we did and just order by the glass. Tip - Unlike in bars or restaurants at home, it’s no more expensive to buy wine by the glass. Whilst it wasn’t our intention, we found that this policy meant that we drank far less wine in the MDR than before, as we didn’t want to be carrying around bottles. A case of unintended consequences me thinks 😂 Food ordering - Many waiters will now ask what you’d like for dessert at the same time as you order your starter and main. We refused to play along with this and just politely said that we would decide what we wanted once we had eaten our main course. This was never a problem. Cheese - This is now shown in the menu as one of the dessert courses, rather than as an extra course. However, it was never a problem having both. On the occasions that I did, I told the waiter that they could bring the cheese at the same time as the dessert, which helped them and also suited me as I prefer cheese at room temperature. Lunch - The idiotic new menu layout (which was introduced pre Covid) remains, so you have no idea with some items whether they are a starter or a main. The equally daft ‘sharing platters’ can be ordered by one person, so why bother? Breakfast - I was really pleased to see that Eggs Benedict is now available daily and not just one day per week. The smoothies have been watered down and had an unpleasant texture and tasted odd. Shame, as I used to love those. You can now buy (at extra cost) proper freshly squeezed orange juice, which was very good. One change that I really didn’t like was the removal of the new mini glass pots of conserves. You now get open tubs which look like they’ve done the rounds. I found that a bit off putting. Given how good P&O are at recycling, they can’t use that argument for stopping the little pots and the waste from the much larger open pots must be vast. BUFFET We don’t use the buffet, so have very little to comment here, but people that we spoke to who had cruised with other lines cited the buffet as being a P&O weak point by comparison. I called in late on a couple of nights to pick up a hot chocolate and noticed that the cheese had reduced from a choice of 3 (cheddar, Red Leicester and blue) to just one, which was poor. I was also surprised that there were periods when no food was available e.g 5pm to 6pm and 10.30 to 11.00pm. If we did use the buffet, I would find the abolition of trays irritating and a number of people commented on this.

Next topic Cabins. We noticed quite a lot of changes here. Turndown Service - As has been well documented, there is no longer an evening turn down service, unless you are in a suite. This means that you don’t get fresh towels (if you need them) and chocolates. In all honesty, we didn’t miss it, so it wasn’t an issue for us. I’m sure that the cabin stewards would oblige with additional towels for those who require them. Towels - Small face towels are no longer provided, but others have stated that stewards will supply those on request. The blue pool towels are also no longer provided in cabins, but are available in the pool areas. Toiletries - We had a White Company liquid hand wash, which we prefer to soap (which is no longer automatically provided) but, as with face towels, others have indicated that stewards will provide them on request. There were two pump dispensers in the shower - body wash and shampoo. Fine for me, but my wife goes armed with an arsenal of Liz Earle products 😂 Biscuits - You now just get one packet of biscuits at the start of the cruise and they are never replenished thereafter. However, when I queried this with our steward after a couple of days, we had them replenished every day thereafter, so it is still possible. The variety of flavours has gone though, and all they have are some St Michel (as opposed to St Michael) things that are like rich tea with an egg glaze 😂 . Water - The two complimentary small bottles of water are no more. You can buy cans of water but they are expensive. Tip - Next time we will take a couple of small bottles in our hand luggage and when we have drunk them we will top up from the bathroom tap and leave in the fridge overnight with the lid off so the odd taste goes. Furnishings - The decorative bedding / bed runners etc have gone so you just have a stark white duvet, which looks a bit cheap and nasty but obviously had no impact on our holiday. Obviously with no turn down service, it would be a faff for passengers to have to remove them and they’d just get stuffed in a cupboard. Passenger Information - An end of cruise ‘Cruise Log’ is no longer provided, which we thought was a shame. You are no longer issued with the cruise card holders with the fold out deck plan. Tip - these are still available from reception. In all honesty, whilst that’s quite a list of cutbacks just for cabins, none of it impacted on our cruise experience and, as I have demonstrated, there are work-arounds for many of them.

My Holiday App - I was absolutely determined to use this for everything, firstly so that I could give robust first hand feedback on it and secondly to see if the issues that I foresaw with it were unfounded. I use an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch so am confident with technology, but it became apparent that a lot of passengers weren’t using it, either because they couldn’t or simply refused to. It all started well, with me being able to make all of our speciality restaurant reservations within 10 minutes of sitting down for lunch after we boarded. Thereafter, it was OK most of the time but the system falls over at busy times and shows as ‘Queue Full’, so app users cannot even join a queue whereas non-app users can. We spoke to a few people who had started off using the app but had ditched it and gone back to just doing walk-ups because of this, as they were getting in quicker than using the app and, in some cases, immediately. Those who dine in the first half of each meal session, whether that be breakfast, lunch or dinner, will probably find that they have no issues with the app and it will be the most convenient way to get a table. Those who, like us, prefer to eat towards the end of each meal session will need to be alert to a number of things (see tips below). The other problem that the new system has caused is ‘table down time’. With the original Freedom dining concept (first come, first served), as soon as a table was vacated and re-layed, the next guests to arrive were shown to it. Now, people are told that their table is ready and have 15 minutes to get to the restaurant. We saw tables sitting empty for considerably longer than this, even though the app was showing ‘Queue Full’. The cumulative effect of this seems to be causing longer wait times than we had experienced before the app was introduced. Tips; The 6 digits that you need to activate the app (the last 6 digits on your key card) are the same as the last 6 digits on your boarding pass, so you can start using the app as soon as you are in the terminal or ship, for example whilst having lunch. Handy to get reservations in nice and early. iPhone users need to switch the phone to Airplane mode, switch WiFi on and connect to the free P&O guest WiFi. Worth remembering this as the WiFi signal is very patchy and I had to keep going through the process of reconnecting, which I think is what throws most people. When setting up the first time, click the box to remember login details as this makes it much quicker each time you log in (which I had to do continuously). When in a queue, it is worth refreshing the page regularly. The page will sometimes update on its own but doesn’t always, especially as the WiFi signal is so poor. This will also flag if the signal has been lost and you will need to get back on to the ships WiFi for your queue position to update. Breakfast - Last entry was 9am on port days and 9.30am on sea days. However, the app was showing ‘Queue Full’ at least 10 minutes before these times and sometimes earlier than that, and never opened up again. As you have 15 minutes leeway, I would advise getting in the queue no later than 20 minutes before the last entry time (ideally 30 mins). Lunch - On sea days, the app was showing ‘Queue Full’ from around 45 minutes after the MDR had opened for lunch, so get in the queue by then. It was fine on port days, with most people being ashore, but waits of an hour were not uncommon on sea days. We’ve never experienced that before. Dinner - Formal nights can be problematic, particularly the ‘Celebration Night’. The app queue closed at 7.45pm and didn’t re-open until 8.25pm. We then joined the queue and weren’t called until 9.15pm In summary, once you know when the queue is likely to become full and how long the waits are likely to be, you can join the queue at a time that should result in you dining roughly at the time you want to. We coped with it, and if we were early diners we would be fine with it, but it’s a faff and if we could 100% guarantee a table for 2 on Club (fixed) dining we would probably revert to 2nd sitting to at least alleviate the hassle with dinner.

As those who have been following my ‘Live from Britannia’ thread will know, my wife and I have just returned from 14 nights on Britannia. By way of background, this was our 20th cruise with P&O and our 4th on Britannia but, most significantly, our first P&O cruise since Covid. As regulars on this forum may know, I had been concerned about what the post Covid P&O would be like, especially having heard about all the cutbacks and reading quite a few mixed reviews. I am pleased to say that it was a lot better than we expected. Most of the cutbacks didn’t affect us as much as we thought they would (and some not at all) and we certainly didn’t feel that the product had changed beyond all recognition. Many of the things that we liked about P&O were still present. The customer profile (on this cruise anyway) was no different than before Covid. We coped well with the app whenever we could, but IMHO the concept is flawed and causes inefficiency that wasn’t there before, which impacts on both staff and customers alike. Specialty restaurants were a bit inconsistent, but the biggest and most pleasant surprise was that both the food and service in the MDR, once you got in, were excellent. Rather than just repeating what I’ve already said on the other thread, I thought that I would use this thread to address the concerns and issues that had been flagged by others before our cruise and to also go through the cutbacks that we noticed and say whether or not they impacted on us. Most importantly, I can offer some ‘work-arounds’ for some of them. I would like to stress that these were our personal experiences and opinions based on one cruise on one ship. Others on the same cruise (and certainly other cruises) will have had different experiences. Furthermore, just because we didn’t have issues with certain things doesn’t in any way mean that I doubt that others had problems in these areas either on Britannia or other ships in the fleet. To keep this manageable, I will split this over several posts and the next post will deal with the biggest change since we last cruised with P&O - the My Holiday ‘app that isn’t an app’.

I’m going to struggle to explain how I did, it but I’ll try. I entered the gym from open deck side. I walked the length of the gym, past all the exercise equipment and past the aerobics studio on the right where they do classes (and have more equipment). I then did a dog-leg right and immediately left, which lead me directly out to the aft lift area. I definitely didn’t go through the Cookery Club. I’ve just looked at the deck plan and you can see the route I’m describing. I should say that although I walked through the gym 3 or 4 times, it was always from the open deck side towards the lift lobby, not the other way around. I guess that there’s a possibility that the door out to the deck area from the gym can only be opened from the outside, but if so that would seem to be a fire risk? Edit - Just re-read your post and you meant the little bit with the terrace pool right at the back. I thought you meant the main open deck areas of deck 17 which are all forward of the gym. Apologies. I never went to that bit.

Vibration issues tend to be restricted to the aft section, as it’s caused by the propellers. FYI you can walk through the gym from the lift area to the sun decks. It involves a dog leg, so isn’t obvious, but I did it several times. Your comment about the air con reminded me of something that my wife and I both noticed, but I forgot to mention in my review. On cruise ships the air con is always a bit too cool for my wife (fine for me) but Britannia was noticeably warmer than usual. We felt that some areas were quite warm and only one place that still felt quite cool (Crystal Room). It dawned on me that given how expensive it must be to cool a ship the size of Britannia, I can see why they would crank up the thermostat a few degrees. In warmer months it will save them an absolute fortune - far more than a lot of the other cost saving measures combined! One other thing that I forgot to mention was that the scrapping of the ability to have a part used bottle of wine kept for your next meal in the MDR resulted in us spending significantly less on wine for this cruise than previous ones. That policy is certainly one where the accountants didn’t allow for unintended consequences! It was almost the end of the cruise before we worked out that you can get drinks in bars that aren’t on the menu. I wonder who came up with the daft idea to only list ‘selected’ drinks? 🤔

Have a great cruise. We left her in good shape for you 😂 The vibration was a weird one. It was quite persistent some days and wasn’t dependent on sea conditions. Hamburg back to Southampton was like a mill pond (never seen the English Channel so calm) and yet the vibration in our cabin was noticeable all the time. It didn’t really bother us but might unsettle some. From memory, it wasn’t as bad at slower speeds. Freedom Dining definitely brings its challenges and having had a really good road test of the app for almost every meal over 14 days it gives me no pleasure to say that the problems that I could foresee with it before using it were clear for all to see at peak times. Early diners will have no issues with it, but we are late diners and we found that we had to adopt a ‘strategy’ so that we could eat roughly when we wanted to, which was a level of hassle that we hadn’t had before. I shall cover all of this, and some tips for others based on our experiences, in my final thoughts post.

Thanks for your support Dai 🤣 It was good to meet you both and I hope that you had a good journey back up to the North East.

Yes, our daughters felt the same Andy. They prefer the newer ships with better options, but it will be Dad who has all the stress of the pre-planning and staying up until the early hours securing reservations etc 😂 In truth, my wife and I are looking forward to trying the ship as well, as we have been on all the other P&O ships (except Arvia) as well a few that are no longer with us and we were booked on the very original maiden cruise - but that wasn’t due to be in the school summer holidays!

Thanks. I shall be booking everything as soon as I can. The Chefs Table concept just doesn’t appeal, so we will aim for the MDR for the formal night. When chatting to DaiB on Britannia he gave me a good tip that Keel & Cow is better for dinner than lunch, so we might go for an evening reservation in there and use Olive Grove for one or two lunches. We haven’t been to Hellesylt so thanks for the tip. We specifically booked this cruise as Geiranger was the only one of the ‘big 3’ fjords that we hadn’t been to. The irony is that after going on this cruise we still won’t have been there 🙄

Thanks. Interesting to hear that you prefer Iona. We are on her in 4 weeks time and I’m still quite anxious about it, in spite of just having had a good cruise on Britannia. August school holidays would be our absolute last choice for a cruise on Iona or Arvia, but one of our daughters partners is a teacher so we have no choice 😱

Thank you for your kind words Andy and I’m pleased that you enjoyed the review, as I did yours and those provided by others. Although we had some noisy kids next to us, I would agree that the sound insulation between cabins is far better on Britannia that Aurora. We didn’t hear anything whatsoever from our neighbours the other side of us and we couldn’t hear voices / TV / drawers closing etc even from the noisy cabin as we often can on Aurora. The problem that we had was that the kids seemed to stamp their feet heavily when in their cabin. Sounds daft but it was ‘thud, thud, thud’ whenever they moved around, which was almost constantly. We also seemed to be surrounded by people who always let their cabin doors slam closed and, when it was our neighbours, our cabin literally shook, including our TV. We spend quite a bit of time in the cabin during the day and it was just so irritating. Other than the noise, the cabin was near perfect. Quite a lot of vibration even when the sea was calm, but we don’t mind that (when I’ve suppressed the rattles) 😂

By the time you get your email you might be too late! Bookings open online at midnight 14 days before your cruise. In order to book you need to log in to your Cruise Personaliser using your P&O booking code. This is 6 digits long and a combination of letters and numbers. Emails about your cruise will contain this, as will your booking confirmation. Once logged in, go to dining or entertainment and you can then book. You can’t use Sindhu just for a drink, but there is often a linked bar just outside the entrance where you can. Limelight Club is a nice feature that we enjoy, but some acts are better than others, so best to go for someone that you know you will like.

I’ve no idea whether or not it will be the same on Ventura, but having disembarked a 14 night Britannia today, all speciality restaurants had Menu A for the first 7 days and Menu B for the second 7 nights.