Selbourne

Thanks. All meals hot so far and service has been fine everywhere. Just to clarify, we waited 45 mins for our table but the problem was that this was preceded by 45 mins when you couldn’t book a table at all unless you went for a pager (which I couldn’t be bothered to do as I wanted to hear the Captain, but if I’d known he wasn’t turning up until 8.20pm I would have done). So, yes, it was technically 90 minutes but in reality, as we wanted to dine at 8.30pm and were just trying to get in a queue, we only felt like we were waiting 45 minutes (if that makes sense). It was fine though as we were chatting to a really lovely elderly couple for whom this cruise is the first time that they have left their home county of Derbyshire since Covid.

Snap!. I’ve not seen anyone that I think could be you yet Dai 😂 I shall definitely seek you out before the cruise is over though if we don’t just bump into each other. We tend to use the Glasshouse just occasionally at lunchtime and we don’t use the Casino, being at a show or in bed, so our paths haven’t crossed yet.

It’s bizarre that accessible cabins get short changed with certain things for no logical reason!

Unfortunately I was on the balcony watching the sail in when she was calling me and I didn’t hear, but she managed eventually.

Just looked for you and there’s good news and bad. Yes, there is one under a pull up waterproof cover BUT the holes don’t quite fit my wife’s electric toothbrush charger. They are just slightly out. Never had that issue before. It’s also worth saying that there are very few sockets in the cabin. Just one on top the worktop (plus the one for the kettle) and two just above skirting board level which are less practical to use.

Yes the Cherry Bakewell one was the nicest of the two 👍 We are definitely prepared to give Epicurean at least one more try. I certainly won’t bin it off based on one mediocre meal, but I felt a bit ripped off paying £60 for what we had. It just wasn’t good value, even with the great service and ambiance. Sindhu tonight so I hope that’s better. Yep, Haugesund today. It’s a glorious day here. 22 degrees and sunny. We are still on the ship and are going to attempt to get into town after lunch. I can see the Trolley Train and Hop on Hop Off Bus from our balcony and there seems to be a shuttle bus, even though most passengers are walking into town. Perhaps it’s a pay for one? I can’t see a wheelchair space on the road train but remember you saying that there was one, so we shall see what our options are when we get off later. I certainly don’t fancy pushing my wife over that bridge. It looks longer and steeper than I remember 😂

Here's a photo of the bed lever installed Michelle. As I say, a bit different to the one on the website but does the same job. My wife says that she cannot feel the bit that goes under the mattress when she’s in bed. The accessible bathroom is very good although my wife is struggling to get up from the shower seat. She has knocked the plastic cowling off the basin u-bend a few times with the wheelchair, so the steward has given up now and removed it 😂 All a lot more modern than Aurora though and the ship is far easier to move around as most doors are automated. Very accessible friendly.

Thanks Andy. Yes, the passenger profile does seem very different to your cruise. Clearly the difference, as you said, is most likely influenced by cruise length. I suspect it’s the same on Iona & Arvia as well. The Captain didn’t mention the average age of passengers this time, but the vast majority are middle aged or above. I presume that there must be a lot of kids on board but we haven’t seen as many as we’d expected. Those that we have seem to be mostly Scottish as their school holidays are earlier. Other than the kids in the cabin next to us thudding around a bit and letting the cabin door slam shut, we haven’t been bothered by them at all. One important thing that I forgot to mention is that the ship hasn’t felt overcrowded anywhere. I know that this is often mentioned by those who avoid the bigger ships. Always somewhere to sit quietly if you so wish.

Having said that I wouldn’t do a live blog, we had a sea day yesterday and none of the daytime entertainment appealed, so I had tons of free time, so here is some (hopefully balanced) feedback on our experiences since departure from Southampton on Friday. I forgot to say in my initial post that first impressions of the ship when we boarded were excellent. This is our 4th cruise on Britannia, but the last was in 2017. I can only assume that either the ship has had a minor refit since then or we have poor memories, as we both commented that some of the bars and public areas looked even nicer than we remembered them (particularly around the lower atrium). We took up residence in the Crows Nest for the sail away from Southampton and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t full. There were no noisy groups to spoil the experience either (which we had once on Aurora, surprisingly) and a very proficient pianist (unfortunately playing Jazz, which I hate, but you can’t win ‘em all 😂). Having made the most of the freebie booze at the loyalty lunch, we decided to pace ourselves for Epicurean and both fancied a non-alcoholic cocktail. We were surprised and disappointed to see that they now only offer a choice of two in the Crows Nest (I’m sure that there used to be at least half a dozen?) but both were very nice and we would buy them again. Dinner was in Epicurean. Being the first night there were only around 4 other couples and a small group. Having said many times on this forum that this is our favourite restaurant at sea, I’m sorry to say that we were a bit disappointed. To start with the positives. The ambiance was lovely. Thankfully there was no sign of any noisy groups that had somewhat spoilt @AndyMichelle experience last week, so it was a relaxing way to spend the first evening. The waiting staff were all efficient, friendly and welcoming. The not so positive was, unfortunately, the quality of the food. My pea and crab starter looked lovely but surprisingly had very little flavour. My wife said that her scallops were over cooked. We both had the black cod and lobster tail main. I’m not a big fish fan but I quite liked it, especially the cod. My wife is a big fish lover and was less impressed (the cod was over cooked apparently - she would know). We ordered 3 of the 4 sides. The spinach with onion was delicious. Bizarrely (and exactly the same as Andy’s experience) the 4 or 5 chips were undercooked! The biggest disappointment however was the Crepes Suzette, which as Michael Winner would have said, used to be ‘historic’! Not only is it not prepared and flambé’d table-side, this wasn’t even done elsewhere in the restaurant, as others had reported (maybe that was another ship though). It was all prepared in the kitchen and completely lacked the quality and flavour of the previous incarnation. I summed it up as “here’s one I prepared earlier”. I mentioned this to the waitress who said that she completely agreed, that it wasn’t how it should be done in Epicurean (she had worked in other Epicurean restaurants across the fleet) and that many previous customers had said the same as me. Apparently they have all the kit, it’s a training issue and proper service should resume next month. I think others were given that same spiel a few months ago, so make of it what you will 🤔 Very kindly, she asked if I’d like another desert or cheese, so with @TigerB in mind, and rising to his challenge (even though I was quite full), I opted for the cheese. No photographic proof as my phone was out of puff by now and I have to admit that my wife helped me out and I did leave some! In summary, we were glad that we went, but did we feel that it was £60 well spent? In all honesty, no. We have 3 future bookings and the next isn’t until the end of the first week, so we will take a view then as to whether we go with the final 2 reservations. My concern would be that if they can’t cook things properly when there’s only a handful of guests, what will it be like when the restaurant is busy? Further to a recent debate on this forum about non-suite guests taking breakfast in Epicurean for a fee, this is apparently not possible on Britannia (I asked the Epicurean manager). As @Molecrochip had stated, this is because they need all the tables for the number of suite passengers (something like 176 on this cruise apparently including, I presume, kids) whereas there is spare capacity on Iona and Arvia. There was a Headliners show called ‘On the Horizon’. Again, positives and negatives with this. Positives - We got there quite early to get a wheelchair space and we were instantly reminded of how much better the seating provision is for wheelchair users and companions in the theatre on Britannia than it is on Aurora. Surprisingly the 1030 show ended up full. The Headliners were very enthusiastic and the quality of the dancing was excellent. Negatives- The first night show is usually not the best of the cruise and this one seemed to follow that pattern. Entertainment is entirely subjective and some others would have loved it, but we were underwhelmed. The music in the first segment just wasn’t to our taste and whilst the dancing was very good, the singing wasn’t the best that we’ve had from a Headliners troupe. The music got a lot better later in the show, with lots of James Bond themes but, in all honesty, the lead singers voices weren’t strong enough to do justice to the songs. As I say, 10/10 for effort, if not for content, and I suspect that the shows will get better as the cruise progresses. When we retired to the cabin we both agreed that in spite of the slight disappointment with Epicurean, the first day had gone well and we were very glad to be back on Britannia. DAY 2 I didn’t have the best nights sleep (note to self - don’t drink coffee after dinner) and I’d forgotten how much vibration you can get in aft cabins! Whilst the vibration itself doesn’t disturb us, it has a habit of finding anything remotely loose in the cabin and causing a rattle. Eventually I managed to stop the TV rattling by a bit of pushing and pulling 😂. At 0640 (or 0740 after allowing for the clock change) we were disturbed by the noise of outdoor chairs being dragged around. I thought it might be a thoughtless neighbour, but it went on and on for a good 10 minutes, so I came to the conclusion that it might have been the staff moving the tables and chairs around outside the Beach House / Buffet even though they are 2 decks above us. One thing we are delighted to find since our last P&O cruise is that last admission for MDR breakfast is now 30 minutes later on sea days (10am). We always felt that it ended far too early when you are on holiday. Unfortunately the extra 30 mins doesn’t extend to port days, where last entry is still way too early at 9am. I duly joined the virtual queue at position 18 and within 5-10 minutes our table was ready, even though it was a table for 2 with a wheelchair. Impressive. Worth noting that when we arrived at the restaurant at around 0950 they were telling people who were walking up with no booking that they had closed to new arrivals. As we had booked we were OK. The restaurant manager wasn’t happy because tables that had been assigned by the system for those in the virtual queue (including ours) were already occupied. However, after a couple of minutes we were shown to a different table, so they coped well with the glitches. Another positive about the MDR breakfast is that Eggs Benedict is now available every day, not just one day a week. They asked if I wanted 1 or 2, which was appreciated. My wife had the crushed avocado on toast. When it arrived I almost took a picture of it as it was so tiny it was absolutely lost on the plate. To be fair they had asked my wife if she wanted 1 or 2 and she said 1. Thankfully she isn’t as glutinous as me (which probably explains why she’s half my size 🤔) and my wife said that it was fine for her. I should add that she said that it was absolutely delicious. After breakfast we had a wander around the shops (the sole daytime presenter was giving a talk on Vikings, which didn’t appeal to either of us). There was very little of the tat that I recall from previous cruises. In fact, the new operators seem to have taken the shops far more upmarket and there was quite a bit of very expensive designer stuff, so keen shoppers will be impressed. When I picked up my Britain Today newspaper I commented that it was a good sign that there wasn’t a long queue at reception (first day cabin complaints etc). However, when we passed again 10 minutes later a long queue had appeared 😂 Having touched on the My Holiday ‘app that isn’t an app’ earlier, I have been determined to try to embrace it and I seem to be succeeding. It’s frustrating that you have to keep logging back in (although it does remember your login details) but, other than that, I’m getting on just fine with it. I mentioned previously that when we embarked I had secured all our speciality restaurants on it, and I used it ‘live’ for the first time for breakfast, both without difficulty. There was quite a queue of people waiting at the podium for support with it though, and there had been some mention that it had crashed at some point yesterday, but this had passed us by. When we were in Epicurean the first night I got a bit addicted to watching how the MDRs were faring, and I was surprised that the queues don’t get as long as I might have expected. I think 100 or so was the most I saw, but that seems to be because when the number gets too high it says “Queue Full”. However, by looking at it periodically I could see that MDRs that had stopped taking new bookings would suddenly open up again. Word of warning. 10 mins before last admission both freedom MDRs closed to new bookings (the same as happened at breakfast this morning) and didn’t open up again, so my advice is don’t leave it until the very last minute. We had a look at the MDR menus for lunch and Celebration night on the digital screens outside the MDR. Both seemed underwhelming. No Marco Pierre White menu mentioned as I would have expected for a Celebration night (this was an error though - see later). I still don’t get the daft way that they present the confusing MDR lunch menu now. What’s wrong with having starters and mains? So Glasshouse for lunch. Once again, my feedback is entirely consistent with what Andy said about the preceding cruise. The food was excellent. We both had the 3 x small plates and, unlike Epicurean, the scallops were cooked exactly as they should be. The other food was excellent as well. Seems daft that they have the better chef in here rather than the fine dining restaurant. Best of all we had our long overdue bottle of Peller Ice Cuvée, which we didn’t manage to fit in yesterday 👍 My wife was booked in to the spa for some bizarre nail ritual during the afternoon, so a quiet chill for me before celebration night. Freebie drinks in the atrium at 8pm for the captains welcome but annoyingly he didn’t turn up until around 20 past, by which time both Freedom Dining restaurants had been showing as ‘Queue full’ for 40 minutes. We started worrying that we wouldn’t get dinner, so we booked a table in the Glasshouse (which had suddenly popped up with spaces) but within 5 minutes of doing so the Freedom Dining MDRs finally opened up again, so we joined the queue which automatically then cancelled our Glasshouse reservation. Phew. We didn’t get called in until 9.15pm, having been trying to join the queue unsuccessfully since 7.45pm, but at least we were in. Thankfully there was a Marco Pierre White menu that hadn’t been showing on the menu boards earlier. I had the full Marco menu, which we hadn’t seen before. In all honesty it didn’t feel a special menu in the slightest, and a couple of the courses were a bit weak, but at least it was free and didn’t leave me with a £60 bill as Epicurean had, so all good. Resident band Pulse were doing a 70s set in the Live Lounge. Mrs S was tired, so after taking her back to the cabin I went on my own for the 10.45pm ‘Thanks for the 70s’ performance, as others had said how good they were. My 70s music tastes are far less disco, but they are an excellent band and can certainly belt out a tune. Very good indeed. Finally (and with tongue in cheek) I am just thinking about a few random things that others have raised recently. There are no bars of soap in the cabin bathroom, just liquid soap (fine by us as we prefer it). The bars do have coasters for drinks but the issuing of them is patchy. Mercifully, no plastic ducks to be seen, even though there are kids on board! Some cabins have odd things hanging from their doors, but no pineapples spotted yet 🤣 Whilst I can’t promise to provide this level of detail throughout the whole cruise (especially if I get snide remarks in response) if anyone has a future cruise on Britannia, or is considering one, and would like me to check anything out for you please just ask. I should conclude in summary by saying that whilst I will always give honest and balanced feedback, we are very much enjoying the ship and the cruise. Following feedback from others over the past year or so, we had wondered what the passenger profile might be like and I’m pleased to say that it feels no different to any other P&O cruise we have been on. Everyone is very pleasant and we haven’t had a single eyebrow raising moment 😂 We’ve no major concerns whatsoever so far and I’ve even fully embraced the ‘My Holiday’ app! P.S. For those who like statistics, there are 3871 passengers on this cruise of which 1325 are newcomers to P&O. In addition there are 1348 crew from 50 nationalities.

We are on Ventura in October. If nobody responds I’ll let you know then.

The cabin is HD grade deck 14 aft, so probably the same one as yours! The device is called ‘Bed Lever 2’. Here’s the link though my wife says what we have is a bit different. https://www.mobilityatsea.co.uk/bed-lever It’s £45 plus £3.50 a day. They board the ship and set it up to your pre-determined preference. When you disembark you just leave it and they board to collect it. As you will know, things like this can be a life saver. I will admit defeat now re the double desserts (please don’t hold me accountable for your misunderstanding 😉) but I am up for the pud followed by cheese if I’m still peckish 🤣. First Epicurean visit tonight as we always avoid the first night scrum in the MDR. I am so hoping that we have a better experience than Andy (food and service) and don’t have any noisy groups. 🤞

The biggest ‘top tip’ so far (which I can’t claim as my own) is that you can log on to My Holiday using the last 6 digits of your boarding pass number and don’t have to wait until you get your cruise cards. By 4.30pm most of the bookings we made earlier for speciality restaurants are no longer available. There are still spaces for earlier and later times, but one or two days are sold out already.

Clearly the ships crew are as confused about this as we are. Just had an announcement on Britannia saying that we had to go to our muster stations for the drill. Cut off half way through. A few minutes pause then a further announcement correcting the first, saying that we didn’t need to attend the muster stations 🤔😂

Good afternoon all. As some of you know, we have boarded Britannia today for our first P&O cruise since Covid (we did an excellent one on QM2 in May). First of all, may I thank most sincerely those of you who have wished us a very happy cruise, which we certainly intend to have. In particular, I would also like to thank @AndyMichelle @P&O SUE @TigerB @Interestedcruisefan and others for their excellent tips based on their recent cruises, all of which are much appreciated and duly noted! I don’t intend to provide a live blog, primarily for two reasons. Firstly, I never buy the wi-fi package (I’m too tight, I use the free port Wi-Fi instead 😂) but also because one of our esteemed community seems to wait in anticipation for me to post anything that might not be 100% positive and pounces, making a sarcastic comment in response. In all honesty, I just can’t be bothered when I’m on holiday 😂 Anyway, I often say that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Well, here’s mine based on our embarkation process and first afternoon so far. We arrived at Mayflower Cruise terminal at 1150. There was a long queue of the early arrivers, but as we had priority boarding and a 1215 time, by the time we had checked the car in with CPS and I had taken our suitcases to ‘Pod B’ (there are at least 4 pods) we were just a few minutes early. We were asked to show our boarding passes and were directed straight into the terminal 👍 I was tempted not to bother with assisted embarkation, but we were intercepted by a ‘pusher’ as soon as we entered (there were a few waiting) and what followed was a blur 😂 We were checked in, through security and on the ship by 1210. Hugely impressive and sincere thanks, as always, to the assistance team. I was glad that I had a pusher for my wife, as you now have to go directly to your muster station to be scanned, which was quite a trek, especially with hand luggage as well. Also, we were then given duff info about where the priority boarders lunch was. We were told it was deck 6 but when we got there it was deck 5. Anyway, we grabbed a table in Meridian restaurant and bade farewell to our lovely pusher. Well, the priority boarders lunch was a pleasant surprise. I have often spoken disparagingly about the poor buffet, but this was a proper restaurant meal, and very nice it was too. My dessert was poor, but that’s minor as the starter and main were excellent and service wasn’t rushed at all (we were asked to order desserts at the start, but we said we wanted to order after we’d had the main. No problem. The freebie fizz (not champagne) was better than the anti-freeze we’d had before and the red wine, whilst the cheap plonk, was also fine. Glasses were topped up regularly. Some of you will know that we were anxious to get all our speciality restaurant bookings secured, and I managed to do this in minutes whilst waiting for our lunch to arrive. 4 x Epicurean, 2 x Beach House and 2 x Sindhu all sorted. We only intend to have dinner in the MDR on formal nights, unless the speciality restaurants disappoint, in which case we shall cancel future bookings and go to the MDR more. May I thank whoever it was who had said that the last 6 numbers from your cruise card (which you don’t get until you get to your cabin later) was the same as the last 6 digits on your boarding pass. I’d already downloaded the My Holiday ‘app that isn’t an app’ before we left home, and this worked a treat in order to secure our bookings quickly. Our cabin is absolutely fine. Better flow space for my wife’s wheelchair than we had in our Princess Suite on Cunard in fact. Nice and modern. No sofa, but we knew that as it’s a standard (accessible) balcony cabin this time. Our cabin steward, Neville, has already introduced himself and asked if there’s anything else that we need, which is impressive. Mobility at Sea had fitted the bed lever (grab bar) by the side of the bed, which will be a great help to my wife. We have some noisy kids next door, which is a worry, but hopefully they will calm down once the initial excitement fades🤞 Hopefully I’m not tempting fate by saying this, but it’s been 10/10 so far.

Just boarded Britannia. Everyone had to go directly to their muster station on embarkation to be scanned. Hopefully that’s it.

I simply cannot imagine what you must be going through right now. My sincere condolences.

Many thanks Andy. I have really appreciated all your useful tips which we shall certainly deploy! I’m pleased to hear that you enjoyed the cruise, in spite of the things that were below par. We shall be leaving in an hour or so and, like you, will make the most of it, having managed our expectations accordingly! Hopefully we will get some pleasant surprises! I would wish you a safe journey home, but know that you live in Southampton, so welcome home!

There is a process whereby you can have your bookings ‘linked’. This will mean that you will all have the same dining arrangement. You just need to call P&O (if you booked direct) or your Travel Agent and they will do this. As for what you might end up with, Freedom Dining and First Sitting Club (fixed) are the two most popular, so whilst you might be lucky and get Freedom, you could just as easily get Second Sitting Club. There is no harm in asking on board if you don’t get Freedom. Many people have reported that they have done so and been successful. However, we have been on some cruises where there are notices at the Freedom Dining restaurant at the start of the cruise stating that it was full and requests to change could not be accommodated. In one of these cases there was a couple at the podium who wanted to switch to Club, so a couple wanting to switch to Freedom got lucky as the restaurant manager swapped them!

We are Caribbean and from memory to get half price laundry you have to be Baltic or even Ligurian? Good to know that the offers still appear from time to time though 👍

I’ve just finished packing for our 2 week cruise. We always take too much and I’m already thinking that I will need another holiday to recover from the mountain of washing and ironing that I will have to deal with when we return 😂 I have no intention of using the self service laundry or it won’t feel like a holiday (even though I know I will miss the best gossip 😂) and I’m too stingy to pay the full prices for the laundry that you can hand to the steward. However, I’ve just remembered that on cruises of 2 weeks or more they always used to have laundry offers where, for example, you could have 5 shirts washed and pressed at a discounted rate. Do these offers still exist? Many thanks.

I’ve noticed how tall the glass screens are on much of the promenade deck. Screens of that height are usually reserved for the much higher open decks on the other ships. I assume that because the promenade decks on Iona and Arvia protrude out they are more susceptible to wind than on the older ships where there is a degree of cover?

Yes, from the deck walk around videos I’ve seen there is a narrow section of promenade deck that looks as though it might be suspended above the water, but it’s too narrow for seats etc

We haven’t been on Iona or Arvia yet, but aside from the complete lack of privacy with deck 8 cabins I have to say that I really don’t like the fact that so many of the balconies on all decks are set so far back from the side of the ship (especially the aft cabins, which we usually love). I like to look down on the water when leaning on the rail of our balcony, not onto a promenade deck / whirlpools / bars etc. We booked Iona before we’d seen all the photos of how the ship looked ‘in the flesh’ and I’m extremely relieved that we booked on the widest part of the midships ‘hump’, as our balcony is pretty much at the widest point of the ship.

Thanks. I hope he’s OK.

Thanks Exactly. I should imagine that the proportion of customers requiring an adapted cabin on Saga would be several times what it would be on Iona. Also, Aurora has 8 accessible standard balcony cabins. The two new Saga ships have 2, so even allowing for the fact that Aurora is twice the size, Saga are proportionally still below par. I doubt it, as they aren’t governed by U.K. law, but I must commend P&O on the improvements that they have made to the accessible facilities on their new ships.