white_bear

We're on this cruise as well (and also in guarantee veranda). This is port-intensive France and goes nowhere near Bay of Biscay - we are just Southampton to Bordeaux - so it's pretty much coast-hopping. 7001 looks a lot better than the cabin we've been assigned!

Yes, we have had (and done) the P&O questionnaire.

We were on this crise (R401) also, and have enjoyed the daily blogs - agreeing with some, and not others (as you would expect). A couple of comments: 1. On phoning Nationwide FlexPlus insurance today to make our "missed ports" claim, it became apparent that they have also had a lot of Covid/ gastro claims. Came as news to me! 2. Re MDR food - yes, menus were repetitive, but overall, we thought food OK. My main complaint was that menus too much biased to veg/vegan, compressing options for meat and fish eaters.

When we were on Adonia some years ago, a couple didn't have up-to-date YF documentation and would have been denied entry into one of the Caribbean ports after the Amazon section of the cruise. They had to leave the ship before we left the Caribbean, missed all the Amazon bit and had to fund a 2 week stay before being permitted to rejoin. Not P&O but port authorities. Similarly , on the visa front, when on Aurora doing the "postal route" world cruise, several passengers had got the wrong visa (the cheap e-visa only valid for air travel) for India and had to leave the ship at Dubai and fly to India. P&O did a lot to support them, including getting the authorities to allow them to rejoin the cruise in Mumbai. The lesson from all of this is that if you think the bureaucracy here is bad, it is a lot worse in many other places.

There were newspapers, puzzles, extra copies of Today and board games in the Library on Spirit of Discovery just now (we disembarked this morning). I cannot comment on the afternoon tea offer - enough food with 'just' breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Just off Spirit of Discovery and, yes, the drinks menu has a range of non-alcoholic spirits. Not sure about wine and there is only Heineken Zero on the beers list.

We were on Arcadia's Christmas cruise as well and it probably rates as the worst one we've done (and we have done plenty). The "app" didn't work (although they kept telling us to use it) so getting into Freedom dining at the time we wanted was hopeless. Organisation of the Freedom dining MDR was poor - inexperienced wait staff and tables not being cleared/reset meant that there were long waits as the tables weren't being made available to a second sitting. We were also amazed at the (apparent lack of) protocols when the norovirus outbreak hit - we were still being given shared items on the MDR tables. The buffet was ghastly and the wine "service" was appalling. Having second thoughts about an Arcadia cruise this summer.

Almost certainly, unless the bridge instructor fails to embark for some reason. We had bridge on Arcadia's Christmas cruise (much to our surprise, as it was only a short cruise) and also on Aurora in October. Standard format - beginner and improver lessons in the morning and duplicate pairs tournament (2hrs) in the afternoon.