Selbourne

You couldn’t use the MDR on disembarkation day? Is that a new thing? You always could.

I am keeping everything crossed that our experience on Iona mirrors yours, and not that of some others 🤞

The odd thing is that we enjoyed Freedom Dining for many years on all the P&O ships without any of the issues that now exist. Worst we ever had was a 45 minute wait with a pager for a non-sharing table when on Britannia in the peak summer school holidays. I repeat. Fixing a problem that never existed.

Ok. I think the time makes the biggest difference. At 6.45pm the restaurant will be full with nobody yet leaving. I am hoping that by leaving it until later we might find it moves quicker. There will be six of us. If each couple joins a virtual queue for a different restaurant (as you did) and I send one of the younger ones down to get a pager, we have four chances 😂 All joking apart, I wonder how many groups are joining multiple queues to try to beat the system? Whilst understandable, it would partly explain some of the problems. I know that I have said it multiple times, but P&O have fixed a problem that never existed - and caused loads more as a result!

Ok. We will check it out and maybe try it on a port day when most people are ashore. Same approach with Keel & Cow. We didn’t like the Glasshouse on Britannia as it was too open, used as a general seating area and difficult to get served. Presumed it would be the same on Iona and Arvia due to the same position adjacent to the atrium. As for the Glasshouse on Aurora, if you go past the raised area there are plenty of tables that have level access. They are all along the side where the windows are, although the only ‘view’ is the side of the lifeboats 😂

Something must be drastically wrong. I’d hazard a guess that the two MDRs on Arvia must have a capacity of around 800 covers each? Let’s say that each table is only used twice per evening, that’s 1,600 people per MDR. Nobody leaves in the first hour, so let’s say departures are phased over 4 hours. That’s 400 people leaving per hour. Makes me wonder if walk ups are getting priority?

Given the size of the MDRs, a queue of 40 should be absolutely nothing and should shift within 10 minutes or so. I am intrigued and anxious, in equal measure, to see how things pan out for us on Britannia in July and Iona in August. We know one of the senior food and beverage managers very well and I am really hoping that he is going to be on one of those cruises 😂

That’s great to hear. Thank you for sharing. We will be experiencing 3 different P&O ships over the next 10 months, so will be very interested in forming our own opinions as to what the ‘new’ P&O looks like.

Thank you for your comprehensive and balanced review. We have two 14 night cruises booked on Ventura over the next year, so I was disappointed to read that your MDR experience was below par. Whilst we felt that the food quality and presentation in MDRs wasn’t quite as good in the few years before Covid, it has always been fine for us in the past (dinner better than lunches), and we won’t want to be using speciality restaurants for all 14 nights! The MDR experience is an important part of a cruise for us.

Thanks. A 2 hour wait for a table in the MDR really is rubbish. I wonder how much of that delay was because there were 8 of you? We would need a table for 6. I really don’t fancy Chefs Table at all, so we do intend to use the MDR on celebration night. We plan to dine later when hopefully those who dined early are moving on. I hope that it improves for you.

Many a true word spoken in jest. Give it time……. 😂

When we first cruised (Oriana 1996) the menus were quite special. They were card and each one had a beautiful artwork on the front from the P&O collection. How things change!

Thanks. I agree that the Glasshouse on Aurora is lovely, in a nice quiet area with little passing footfall. I’ve just remembered that we didn’t like it on Britannia, for the reasons that you’ve mentioned, so might give it a miss on Britannia and Iona. That presents me with a dilemma though. The Glasshouse is usually the only place that has Peller Ice Cuvée 🤔

Unless they’ve changed the format, they can’t re-use them as they have the date on them. I should imagine that they are just thrown into the recycling bin. Shame, but I guess it’s one less thing for the waiters to have to do before they head off to service cabins and work in the bars 😂

It’s a shame if they have gone. As I mentioned on another thread, I keep a pack of memorabilia from each cruise we have been on, and the cruise log has always been a nice summary of the voyage.

With the advent of the app and virtual queues, have the days of just popping in to the Glasshouse on a whim for a drink gone? Do you have to dine there, or virtual queue just to have a drink, or do they still allow walk-ins?

Thanks to similar advice on this forum, I purchased 100 Carnival Shares last month for £700 and, as a result, my Shareholder benefit OBC for our P&O and Cunard cruises during 2023 and 2024 has totalled £950, plus the shares have gone up £100 in value. So a £700 outlay has generated £1,750 in a matter of weeks and will continue to grow in the future. Why can’t all my financial investments perform like that? 🤔😂

Although it is sometimes the case that the additional OBC offered on a Select fare equates to the additional price premium over a Saver, especially when you take parking into consideration as well, so you are effectively paying the same as a Saver but getting the Select benefits.

Of course, the trick (from a consumers perspective) is to nab a cruise at at time when there is both a very low headline price and additional OBC. We’ve managed that on Britannia in July by booking after balance due date. I will still make pre-bookings to get all the discounts and just use the OBC for drinks on board. In the past it was always a case of OBC just being used to ‘balance’ the cruise price (higher cruise price with more OBC, lower cruise price with no OBC - net virtually the same), but different rules seem to be applying now, especially after balance due dates. P&O now has a heck of a lot more capacity to fill and the key is to get bums on seats (or berths), at knockdown last minute prices if necessary, with the profit coming from on board spend.

If you pre-book from home using the Cruise Personaliser you are ahead of those who rely on the App, as the latter can’t be used until you are on board. According to Megabear’s experience, this may mean (on Arvia) that you are disappointed. Restaurants may be sold out or you may not be able to get times that suit. Whilst OBC is very nice to have, there are some limitations. You can’t use it in advance to pre-book via the Cruise Personaliser (so you don’t benefit from the 20% discount) and when you spend on the ship your OBC is used up first and no loyalty discount is applied until after it is all used up. That’s why I am a bit of an anorak and monitor cruise prices very carefully, working out the net price after OBC. Using my previous example, if I have paid £2,000 but got no OBC, I will get 20% pre booking discount on restaurants and 10% loyalty discount on top, plus 10% discount on excursions, spa treatments etc booked in advance. Once on board, all my drinks etc will get the 10% loyalty discount. Conversely, if I’d paid £2,500 but received £500 OBC (so the same net price), I might be inclined to wait until I’m on board to book anything, so as to use my OBC. This means that I get none of the discounts. Also, none of my on board spend attracts loyalty discount until it is all used up. Hope that all makes sense? Basically, if you were to work out after the cruise your total net expenditure - cruise price less OBC plus on board spend (less any loyalty discount that applied), you could find that a cruise with a large slug of OBC may have cost you more, which is why it’s such a good marketing tool for P&O.

They should change the promotional pitch on X-Factor, the prize being an opportunity to be a singer on a cruise ship 🤔😂

Nothing to do with the app. These are bookings made from home up to 2 weeks in advance via your Cruise Personaliser. If you book on board using the app (the only time you can use it) you don’t get the 20% discount. Some may have large slugs of OBC so that won’t matter, but P&O tend to use OBC as a marketing tool that often makes the net price the same (e.g. cruise price may be £2,000 with no OBC, next month may be £2,500 with £500 OBC). I never consider OBC to be ‘free’ money as you’ve usually paid a higher base price to get it. I work out my net cruise price as the fare less OBC, so if I have booked when there is no additional OBC, but a lower headline price, the 20% becomes very useful.

Probably the My Holiday ‘app that isn’t an app’ is the best option, but I don’t know if you can book for the whole cruise on day 1 or if it’s only day by day. I doubt that there will be anyone in Epicurean when you board. There always used to be staff members in the priority lunch who could take bookings, but that may be something that’s gone with the advent of the app. I’ve never made restaurant reservations at reception, but I suppose that’s a good fall back option.

I agree with your sentiments. Just because someone has a different experience doesn’t mean that they are wrong. Re Aurora, you forgot the Beach House. Like you, on all our cruises on Aurora we have never had a problem getting in to any of the speciality restaurants and none was bookable pre cruise.

I have to say that I don’t recall ever getting any pre-booking discount (beyond loyalty discount) but that was pre Covid when things were more straightforward 😂 However, I am certain that several posters have referred to the pre-cruise speciality restaurant bookings having a discount versus the price that you pay on board and loyalty discount is given on top of that. In fact, one or two posters have shown the maths showing what they ended up paying. Can anyone clarify?