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The trouble with mean averages they can be a bit misleading. From looking around this cruise (which admittedly is a school holiday cruise) there seem to be some distinct peaks of age groups - lots of families in their 30s with children and lots of couples in their 60s - which together would make an average of 40ish, but actually not too many real 40ish people around. What does seem to be missing from cruises in the past is lots of the very elderly - there are a few but not many.

The only show that is definitely repeated is the Thursday ‘guest night’ when they get the atrium singer in instead of the 710 band, and then the ‘app’ says you can’t book it if you booked the prior Thursday as it is already booked. Other than that, the daily themes are repeated, but from previous cruises they didn’t play the same set for that theme on the second week that they did the first.

That wasn’t possible on the cruise I am currently on. Horizon stated that the first night’s booking was only possible after 5.30pm and that was the case as it wasn’t present on the My Holiday ’app’ until that time. It also advised that the whole of the following two weeks would became available at 10.30pm which was also the case. I guess they are experimenting to stop the early boarders grabbing everything before anyone else has a chance.

Not one two litre bottle, but two litre bottles (plural).

It isn’t, which is why there has been the well reported closure of many vegan restaurants.

When I boarded Arvia a week ago nobody questioned or asked to look at the two litre bottles of squash that was in my hand luggage, so maybe it is selective checks.

Well it isn’t on this cruise, and half full on some cruises and less on others is hardly a success. And how many years has Arvia been sailing…

That is still a success for P&O getting people to spend, and spend heavily, as the drinks packages are damned expensive. A high quality fish restaurant being popular? No chance - there are damn all of those in the UK, so it is incredibly unlikely such a restaurant would appeal to those onboard, the same as a vegan/vegetarian restaurant isn’t.

Frankly I can’t see P&O keeping that location with its current menu for the long term. When I walked past at lunchtime yesterday there were fewer than ten people eating there and at 8pm in the evening there were only around a dozen - and that’s in a venue capable of seating more than a hundred and would be packed as the equivalent Olive Grove on Iona - it certainly isn’t earning its keep. And that isn’t because people on board are not spending, because I have never seen queues for the bars like it with them being 20 people long - the tills are going ‘brrrr’

Yes. The choice is far wider than the full ‘roast meat and two veg’ that the dinner menu is, and for example yesterday I had a delicious beef rogan josh, that had some interesting flavours and obviously had been cooked slow and long so the meat was falling apart.

Not quite. On Iona a small number of items have a supplement, but most don’t.

Currently sat on Arvia and agree with most points, but not all. MDR evening meals are as usual not as good as the MDR lunchtime meals, both a poorer selection and a more rushed delivery - I guess they are just under more pressure in the evenings. Disappointing that the version of the Olive Grove is not the same as Iona, so the same menu as the MDR at lunchtimes which reduces choice. And then the evening menu is a ‘dumbed down’ version of that on Iona, presumably because the food is prepared in the MDR kitchen and not a dedicated kitchen.

Well my prize was this!

A beautiful day here, the location of which I am sure some will be able to identify.

Sorry, but you are utterly, utterly wrong. There are two completely separate rules that are independent of each other. Rule 1 - Was your passport issued within the last ten years Rule 2 - Is your passport valid for three months after the date you intend leaving the EU. The two rules are not related, and an expiry date is an expiry date irrespective of when the passport was issued. A passport issued on 11 Jan 2016 that expires 11 October 2026 complies with rule 1 all the way up to 10 Jan 2026. A passport with an expiry date of 11 October 2026 complies with rule 2 until someone is returning up to 10 July 2026. Thus someone could travel on that passport on the 10th January 2026 for three months travel to the EU and return on the 9th April 2026 and it would be perfectly fine as there was more than three months before the passport expired. However would I suggest that someone did that - no I would not, because it is quite possible that someone with such a passport might encounter someone at an airport or cruise port check-in desk who has a poor level of training and so has the same misunderstanding of the rules that you do.

The part I have bolded is interesting phrasing - Do they really mean "declined" as opposed to 'not required'. On the cruise line you sail with, can someone 'decline' assistance and if someone 'declined' any assistance even though it was likely they would need it in an emergency, would the ship's crew say "bye" and simply let the passenger drown? I rather doubt it, and it is likely that they would put themselves at risk trying to evacuate the passenger even though they didn't have the staff numbers to do it. Is that fair to the ship's crew putting them at that risk? To reduce the risk to the crew and protect passengers from themselves, P&O seems to be taking the position that in some specific circumstances such as asking to rent a wheelchair during the cruise or turning up with an undeclared wheelchair, that whatever you say they consider that it is likely you will need mobility assistance in the event of an emergency and they won't let you board unless they have capacity for the crew to safely provide it without risk to themselves. Is that a sensible approach - personally I would say yes.

You said that every passenger needed to complete the form. If that was true then a passenger who didn't complete the form would not have complied with the requirements to board so would be denied. You are not seeing thousands of people denied because it isn't necessary for every passenger to complete the form, only those that cannot evacuate unaided. It is sensible to collect detailed information from every passenger? That's going to be fun for P&O when they need to recruit hundreds of new staff to review all those forms.

If that was the case then 99% of the customers would be denied boarding for not completing the form.

Not on the many ships I have been on they haven't been. So exactly the same as now and no change? The pop up asks you to complete the pre-registration if you need assistance. If you don't then there is no form to complete. Quite possibly, but that just means that even more people should be challenged and even more hassle for P&O when they enforce the safety procedures.

You want every passenger on board to complete an accessibility needs form, 99%+ pointlessly doing so, and with the vast majority of the remaining <1% doing so anyway, just to capture the one or two people who either didn't follow the instructions or had a poor travel agent. Hmmm...

And so the blame is with the travel agent, not P&O, and the only solution to that is either P&O stop selling through travel agents (not going to happen) or to email every single passenger to make sure they don't need assistance, which is many thousands of people being bombarded with irrelevant emails. As before, damned if they do and damned if they don't. Do they simply accept the word of the person in front of them that they can manage the stairs in an emergency when they only have one leg, and then find out when the ship is sinking that they were not telling the truth, and afterwards everyone would say 'didn't you check they could'? It is just the same as the test to see if people can actually step over the gap to get into the tenders - that was introduced because people said they could when they couldn't and either they or the the crew trying to save them drowned as a result.

When booking via the P&O website there is a pop-up page that clearly states that you need to pre-register for assistance. When I book through my travel agent they read a script that includes specific questions to determine if pre-registering for assistance is required. Now if some people are not reading these screens or listening to what their travel agent says then who is to blame? And what more could P&O do? Keep emailing everyone and asking "are you sure" multiple times? Now there is a slight possibility that someone booked through a travel agent that didn't follow the script and ask the questions, but that is an issue with the travel agent and not P&O. Damned if they do, and damned if they don't. P&O let them on without any questions or checks and it transpires that they cannot manage the stairs when the ship is sinking and they will get the blame. P&O check that they can manage the stairs in an emergency and they are cruel and heartless.

And there is the issue - do people actually read and follow instructions. "He said: “P&O said they had sent me emails twice – but I’ve checked it online 30 times. I said I have done everything right."" and the counter from P&O “The on board needs questionnaire is on My P&O Cruises (our online portal) to be completed – it is not sent out by email. It is also very clear on the front page of My P&O Cruises that this is to be completed if needed. “If Mr Ashton was booked in an accessible cabin, he or his agent will have been sent emails prompting him to login to My P&O Cruises to complete the questionnaire. “We do advise on our website that wheelchairs/mobility scooters must be declared or they will be denied boarding. It is also within clause 21 of the booking conditions.” However if P&O actually said this - He said: "They were willing to let me on board but without the wheelchair." Then P&O are complete idiots, as someone not having a wheelchair that they normally use doesn't mean that they are suddenly able to climb stairs and not need assistance during evacuation!

Most emergencies are not that sudden and people are sent to their cabins to wait instructions. If it is an emergency along the lines of the MS Estonia then even able bodied will need the luck of the gods to survive.

I am not sure about that. Do you really think that indicates someone who could get to a muster station unaided when there is an actual need to get to the muster station? Depending where they are on the ship when they need to go there it could mean climbing or descending many flights of stairs, and in circumstances when the muster station is actually needed and everyone is abandoning ship then climbing or descending those flights of stairs is likely to be in rather sub-optimal conditions. And that is why it indicates something seriously wrong, or certainly a serious disconnect between the teams, because if the P&O policy is that if you need a wheelchair for whatever reason even if that reason is just for comfort but that means you need an evacuation chair because P&O don't believe you will be up to evacuating independently, then the response from P&O to someone wanting to rent a chair when the evacuation spaces are full should not be "sorry we won't rent you a chair because the evacuation spaces are full" it should have been "sorry we won't rent you a chair because you won't need one as we will not let you board because the evacuation spaces are full".