nomadgirluk

2 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

So I guess that was an error as most others have said there was a dispenser by the sink.

No error.  The crew were very clear to us on this particular cruise and other passengers that if soap was required in the bathroom, we needed to specifically request it.  No idea if it was an experiment or the shape of things to come.  I personally think bars of soap are very wasteful because we didn’t use ours up during our 2 week cruise, so all of the partially used soaps would have needed to be thrown away.  The refillable pump dispensers must surely be more economical.

My point was that NO soap of any description was provided, whether it be liquid or otherwise and we were told that if anyone wanted soap, they had to request it. The pump soap dispensers had been removed.  When we got to our cabin we naturally wanted to use the WC, but had to use some of the shower gel to wash our hands.  Even if we had brought our own soap with us, we wouldn’t have been able to access it until our luggage arrived.  There was shower gel and shampoo in dispensers in the shower cubicle but no hand soap by the sink.  Having spoken to other passengers, it appeared that this was the norm.  

Just returned from the round Britain cruise. Lots of good and not so good aspects, but the one thing which stood out for us was the fact that hand soap is no longer provided in cabins. We queried this with out cabin steward and were told that soap is now an “on request item” only.  When we requested soap, we were provided with a small bar.  Rather defeats the object of P & O telling us at every turn to wash our hands! 

Thanks for the replies.  The reason I ask is that recent videos of Britannia only show small bars of soap in bathrooms.  No sign of the pump dispensers.  On Azura at Christmas we did have pump soap, shower gel and conditioner but no body lotion.

Am I right in thinking that the White Compamy hand wash has now been removed and replaced with individual bars of soap? I believe the shower cream and shampoo provided remain the same.

We have just been advised that the itinerary in the second week of our Caribbean cruise has changed.  Not a huge problem for us, but have also noticed that the excursion we had booked with TUI for Antigua is no longer in our planner, nor is it available to book. I assume it is cancelled, but have received no notification of this.  Is anyone able to say how long TUI take to refund the cost of cancelled excursions?  Thanks.

We are booked on a Caribbean cruise on Discovery in March, flying to Barbados and calling at various islands, including US Virgin Islands and St Lucia.

Information on the Marella website only advises that we need to complete the health questionnaire for Barbados.  However, it appears we also need to complete something similar for St Lucia and, from what I can gather, we will need an ESTA for the US Virgin Islands.  
 

is anyone able to confirm this, or is the Marella website correct?  I don’t want to find out at the last minute that we are missing vital documentation.

Many thanks.

Our boarding passes are now showing the upgrade, so all good.  As others have said, we had to upload our own photos, together with credit card details.  From videos I have seen, it looks like our cruise cards will be waiting for us outside our cabin.

Many thanks.

Hi all

i have just checked in for our Azusa cruise on 24 December and it looks like we have been given an upgrade.  However, while the itinerary and luggage labels reflect the upgrade, the boarding passes still show the original cabin number.  Am I right to assume that the luggage labels show the correct cabin number and that they will automatically be taken to our new cabin number?

The hairdryers on Ventura are perfectly fine.  I have very thick hair and it takes ages to dry, even with a powerful hairdryer, and I found the one in our cabin to be very much up to the job.

Are you referring to P & O specifically, or music themed cruises in general?

15 minutes ago, wowzz said:

As MajorTom has just said, you are incorrect. To be honest, I was not aware that shorts were acceptable in certain venues only, in the Caribbean.

Just wondering, on a cruise to or from the Caribbean, when exactly the ruling comes into force.  

We have just returned from a cruise on Ventura to northern Europe and also did the Fjords last June.  On both cruises, smart shorts were acceptable everywhere except the main dining rooms and speciality restaurants.  My husband wore black tie on the formal nights and long trousers and jacket on casual nights in the main dining room, but wore smart shorts on every evening in the buffet (as did many others).  The only rule regarding long trousers applies to main dining rooms and speciality restaurants only.

On 7/1/2019 at 11:04 PM, wowzz said:

Ideally men need to wear a suit plus tie, but the code only applies to the mdr and certain bars. If you don't want to dress up, you can use the buffet, or the speciality restaurants, but no shorts anywhere on the ship in the evening. 

Not quite accurate.  You can certainly wear smart shorts anywhere on the ship in the evening, apart from the main dining rooms and perhaps the speciality restaurants.  Shorts are perfectly acceptable in the buffet.

We are on a cruise departing 14 July which we also booked specifically for the overnight stop in Amsterdam.  Travel agent says that the change is because of the €8 per person berthing fee which the city has imposed.  I tend to agree that there has to be more to it than that, as the cost of laying on shuttle buses will far outweigh the €8 fee.  We are rather disappointed that we won't be able to come and go as we first thought and the shuttle business will require some planning, especially since they don't appear to be stopping anywhere near Dam Square.  If there is a petition or similar, I will gladly add my name, but I fear that any court action will be drawn out, expensive and ultimately futile.  I feel that life is just too short to get bogged down with this and we will make the most of our cruise, despite this change to itinerary.

Good morning Annie.

 

I guess some of us go with P&O to enjoy ourselves and the company.

 

I always get the impression that seasoned P&O cruisers set out with the intention of enjoyment.

We always go with the intention of enjoying ourselves, wherever we might be, and we did enjoy our time on Oceana. However, we do not have rose tinted glasses and certainly no affiliation or loyalty to one particular cruise line. There were many positives about our cruise, but also some negatives, most of which have been borne out by a number of other CC members.

We removed the auto tips upon boarding (as did many others) and encountered no problems whatsoever. We would always tip face to face (and did so) rather than tip in advance for what might turn out to be mediocre service.

Do P&O still do that....come round the MDR with a questionnaire on the 3rd night? I have asked the question before but haven't had an answer. So not sure if it is now standard procedure or if it was that the food was so dire.

 

We were not given a questionnaire at any point, other than the end of cruise form which is left in your cabin.

Hi Nomadgirluk.

 

 

Of course I wasn't on this cruise with you but I also found it laughable that folk left..." the main dining room after eating and going straight to the buffet to fill up on what was there"

Perhaps this just demonstrates how laughably tiny the portions are in the main dining rooms...

My husband and I were on the Oceana in April and whilst the food was not five star, in our opinion it was very good for the price we paid for the cruise. The sizes of the portions were right for us, and if we had wanted more we only had to ask. My ice cream automatically came with three scoops and I regularly requested that to be reduced to one. As for not being able to tell what was being served in the buffet, do you not have a tongue in your head? The food being served nowadays on most of the main cruise lines is not what it used to be, but neither are the fares. I have done almost thirty cruises with P&O, Princess, Cunard and RCI so I do know what I am talking about. 'You pays your money and you takes your choice'. However please don't complain when that bargain cruise doesn't deliver the same as the one that you paid almost twice as much for.

You have obviously not read my comment about getting what you pay for. Based on the price we paid, we did not do this cruise expecting 5 star food but we did expect food of a reasonable standard and quality. My comment regarding the similarity to school dinners still stands I'm afraid.

Surely the point is that one shouldn't have to ask? Some of the portion sizes were so ridiculously small as to be laughable (e.g. a portion of ice cream amounted to half a scoop!).

We have just returned from a 7 night cruise on Oceana, sailing from Genoa to Venice and these are our thoughts on the total experience.

We flew on BA scheduled flights from Gatwick, which worked out pretty well. Genoa airport is very small and because we were on a scheduled flight we had to collect our luggage from the carousel and take it to the coaches. This didn’t go too badly and the P&O staff were visible every step of the way, so you really couldn’t go wrong. Transfer to the ship took around 20 minutes and we were on board around midday. However, our luggage did not arrive at our cabin until 5.15 p.m! We barely had time to start to unpack before muster stations at 5.30 p.m. We can only assume that rather than pay for a lorry to make the individual journey with luggage as each flight lands, P&O are making the lorries wait until a few flights have arrived so that if you happen to be on an early flight, your luggage will be held at the airport until the later flights arrive.

The boarding process was very quick and easy and we were pleased to find out that, despite having booked an Early Saver Fare, we were given Freedom dining.

Our cabin was a double inside on Deck 10 and was pretty much what we expected. Not huge, but loads of storage space and the bed was pretty comfortable. It was kept very clean by our cabin steward who, along with most of the rest of the crew, was pleasant, approachable and efficient. The shower gel is topped up when required and shampoo, conditioner and body lotions are also provided. The only comment I would have regarding the cabins is that the furniture is looking decidedly tired and needs an upgrade.

The public areas are all spotless and pleasant places to sit. However, there always seemed to be a problem with the WCs as there was never a time when all were available or working. The outside of the ships is in need of some maintenance with signs of rust in a number of areas. The maintenance crew worked every day on a different area to repaint where handrails etc were rusted, but the outside of the ship also needs a good clean and repaint.

The entertainment was OK to average at best and not as good as on previous cruises we have taken.

Drinks prices were comparable to those in the UK but our main comment about the drinks is the poor choice of beers at most of the bars. While P&O advertise a range of ales and lagers, they are not available all the time in all of the bars and the publicity regarding drinks is very misleading.

We took one excursion with P&O (to Florence) and this was very enjoyable and well organised. In the other ports of call we either did our own thing or booked an excursion with a separate tour company, which worked out very well and much cheaper than P&O (we used cruisingexcursions.com in Naples to visit Pompeii and Sorrento).

However, along with others, our main complaint was about the food. We ate a few times in our assigned dining room (Ligurian) and, while this is laid out very nicely and the service is spot on, the quality, choice and portion sizes of the food are poor. In fact, the portion sizes were so small that we saw people leaving the main dining room after eating and going straight to the buffet to fill up on what was there. The menu is unimaginative, uninspiring and repetitive. We ate on a few occasions in the buffet and, again, the food was of poor quality and unimaginative. There seemed to be a distinct lack of chicken dishes and we have no idea why as this is surely one of the cheapest, most versatile and most popular items. Even the fried fish was some sort of offcuts and not whole pieces of fish. The salads were the same offering every day. Unfortunately, we decided to dine in the buffet on our last evening and this was probably the worst offering of all with, among other things, black pudding fritters (obviously using up what was left over from breakfast) and a steak and kidney pudding where the pastry was like rubber and inedible. It seemed to us that the allocated budget for food has been pared back by P&O, but even with this in mind, we feel that the chefs could have come up with something better than this. Most of the time, the food in the buffet was like school dinners.

Despite being on a scheduled return flight, we still had to leave our cases outside our cabins by 11 p.m. the night before departure, even though we then had to wait for them to be brought to us at Venice airport so that we could check them in ourselves. No idea why this was necessary or where our cases were held from 11 p.m. the night before we flew until we next saw them at 2.30 p.m. the following day. I can see the merits if we had been on a charter flight and had the bonded luggage option, but since we had to check in our luggage ourselves, it made no sense for them to be collected the night before. To be honest, the whole luggage collection process at Venice airport was a bit shambolic.

At the end of the day, however, you do get what you pay for and the prices paid for this particular cruise are certainly not at the high end of the market, so, taking that into account, I guess we couldn’t expect the sort of food choice or facilities that you get on the likes of Royal Caribbean. From reading the comments of others, it seems that P&O is not delivering the same type of cruise as it did a few years ago, buy this is reflected in the price. I have a horrible feeling that all this cutting back could backfire on P&O in the not too distant future, when the old school P&O faithful are no longer around and the younger generation are looking for something with a bit more of a wow factor.

Based on our experience, we are 50:50 as to whether we would sail on the Oceana again (and indeed P&O in general) and would definitely do our homework regarding other P&O ships before making any future bookings. At present, the jury is still out.

Just do what a lot of others do and laminate the labels with Sellotape. Works a treat.

I had the same query. If you are on a scheduled flight (as opposed to a chartered flight, where all passengers will be for your cruise) then you do have to collect your luggage from the carousel yourself. The only luggage which is transported automatically to the ship is for passengers who are on a chartered flight.

It seems that you only get luggage labels sent to you if you book a select fare. For the other saver fares, you do get the holiday brochure but no luggage labels, presumably because cabin allocation doesn't take place until a couple of weeks before departure.