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OP here. That’ll be us. Now we’ve been home for a couple of weeks, and had time to reflect, I can safely say that we won’t be going on a cruise again for at least a couple of years. And certainly never with P&O until their passenger to space ratio dramatically improves. On a side note, we probably wouldn’t go from Southampton again. We’d prefer a more mixed crowd when we go on holiday rather than 95% British. For us it’s part of the fun (and break from the norm) to be with different people and different cultures.

If that’s the case then Arvia was either designed very poorly, or very thoughtlessly.

To be fair, between decks 8, 17 and 18 there are a lot of sun beds, and you’ll always find a pair somewhere. Just not always on the sunny side, and rarely by a pool on a sea day. P&O definitely need some system of (say) two hour maximum within x radius of a pool. Personally I’d also rip out the swim up bar and extend the pool there. And double the rear pool on deck 17 too.

Thanks. So, according to reception we currently have 5804 pax, into 185k tonnage…giving a 32 ratio. Even at the ‘official’ max capacity of 5200 that’s still only 35. That certainly does seem considerably lower than most other ships. I wonder if those ratio lists that people publish are based on the ‘official’ capacity of ships or the true (plus kids) capacity. Because if it’s the latter then in reality the ratios will all be a bit lower. Either way, that will definitely inform any future decisions about who to cruise with.

Interesting. Where does one find those figures?

Addendum to my original post as I don’t seem to be able edit it… Wifi: we paid for one top package, with “faster speeds”. It just about does the job, although frustratingly slow at times. They state that it’s good for steaming, but I tried watching a couple of Netflix shows on my iPad, and it played at the lowest resolution. My Holiday ‘app’: despite the fact that I build websites, and am quite a tech-head, I’ve been unable to connect to My Holiday on multiple occasions on my iPhone 12. When it works, it works well, but considering the essential nature of the ‘app’ it should be a much smoother process. I also found that, bizarrely, I can never connect to My Holiday whilst also connected to the internet package on the same device. In the end I was able to figure it all out, but how on earth are older and/or less tech savvy people supposed to deal with it? They could also do with an on-board messaging system. When members of your party are spread around the ship there’s no way to get hold of each other on sea days. I believe other cruise lines have that. Restaurant bookings; between booking half a dozen early dinners pre-departure, using Horizon buffet and the Quays, and a few virtual queues, we’ve never had any issues getting a table. Food: as mentioned above, we are impressed with the variety and standard of the food. Table service is generally quite efficient, although the MDRs and Olive Grove take quite a while, and the kids got very antsy. Staff: a large proportion of the staff seem to be Indian or Asian, and they are unfailingly polite and efficient. Our cabin steward, a lovely man from Mumbai who’s been with P&O for 18 years, is incredibly friendly and helpful. We have found that in the MDRs the waiting staff are not particularly warm or chatty, but that could be down to the fact they always looked rushed off their feet.

You have my sympathies. There are a number of wheelchair users here too, and I can see how challenging it must be. On the one hand they built ships that seem wheelchair friendly with lots of lifts and ramps, but they failed to consider the impact of actually navigating through a mass of people in small spaces.

We’re now 10 days into our Arvia Mediterranean cruise, and I thought I’d post my review of the experience so far, whilst everything is still fresh in my mind. A brief background… We’re a family of four from London, on our first ever cruise. Loads of people told us how great cruises were, and we loved the idea of an all inclusive holiday, lots of entertainment, kids clubs, and various stops. I’ve been in/around the hospitality industry all my life, so have a keen eye for what’s working, and what’s not. Onto the nitty gritty… First and foremost, we are seriously impressed with the ship itself, and the running of the ship. Arvia is a lovely ship, very modern, and on a par with a good four star hotel. Everything is well organised, staffing levels seem high and the staff are polite and helpful, the food is a high standard everywhere, shows are very professional, and everything is spotlessly clean. Overall a very slick operation. The only downside to our cruise, and it is a big downside, is the sheer volume of passengers. I don’t know exact numbers, but being August I’m presuming the ship is at, or near to capacity. It certainly feels that way. Unfortunately Arvia’s main facilities simply can’t cope with this number of people. Horizon buffet often feels like a rugby scrum, the pools are ridiculously small (good luck trying to physically get in, let alone swim on a sea day, or get a deck chair within 100ft of a pool), and the lifts are often full and stop at most floors. We simply didn’t intend to spend many thousands of pounds of our very hard earned money to fight through crowds every single day. It’s also ironic how thoughtful they are about hygiene with auto toilets, hand gel everywhere etc, yet they’ve crammed so many people into such tight spaces, as though they forgot that viruses spread easily in highly crowded environments. Other observations: Kids clubs; our 9 year old loves Scubas, and spends most of his time there. Our 4 year old couldn’t settle into Splashers despite being a friendly outgoing boy. Splashers staff did try to settle him on a few occasions, but we felt (as did others we’ve spoken to) that there’s something missing from that club, and that they’re also a bit quick to page parents and get rid of the kids. There’s definitely not enough there (IMO) to entertain an active 4 year old. Shows: Headliners theatre is a superb venue, large, comfortable and great staging. Some shows we pre-booked, others we just turned up and always got a seat. Always very high quality entertainment. Skydome: hmm, didn’t really take to it. I hear it’s better than Iona but still the acoustics are not great for singers and shows. Smaller bars and clubs: all lovely, comfy, smart venues with good music and entertainment. Cabin: four of us coped pretty well in our regular balcony cabin. But if you’re larger people and/or have older kids it would be pretty tight. Nice smart cabin on the 11th deck, very quiet. Doors occasionally slamming and toilet flushes are the only thing you can hear. By the way they should put signs in the corridors asking people to close cabin doors quietly. They slam very loudly, enough to wake you up. I also think the Captain should make the occasional announcement about ‘consideration for your fellow guests’. Pools: I know I mentioned this above, but it’s worth reiterating - the pools are comically small. One of the draws was the fact that Arvia is marketed as having multiple pools. As it turns out there are only three available for kids to use, all of them smaller than the average private pool in a Spanish villa, and this is supposed to be okay for 6000 people (a significant proportion of whom are also, how shall I put this delicately, rather large)?! Personally, I’m extremely angry about this. Our kids love to swim, and apart from one shore day when we stayed on board (and the water was freezing btw) we’ve never been able to swim because the pools are too crowded. I was thinking of posting a couple of photos of the pools and whirlpools but I couldn’t be bothered with the blurring of people’s faces. Suffice to say they are rather amusing to look at. Toilets: There are loads of public toilets all over the ship, and all of them are well maintained and regularly cleaned. The automatic doors (along with hands free taps and soap) are very smart, although I did wonder why you’d go to the expense of all of the above and then have manual toilet flushes - and put them behind the toilet seats? Bizarre. Atrium: lovely place to sit and relax on any of the three floors, and never busy during the daytime. Kids facilities: despite the size of the ship - and some might disagree with us here - we felt there wasn’t that much for our 4 year old to do. At first glance of Horizon there are lots of activities, but when you drill down they don’t last long, or don’t actually offer much. One case in point, the “circus workshop” was just a load of hoops and toys dumped on the stage for kids to play with. Most kids were pretty bored of it after 10 mins. There are also very few shows aimed at kids. Even the “Kids Party” show was basically just dancers. Yes, there is a splash area, mini golf, and deck games, but for a two week cruise it’s simply not enough to occupy younger kids who won’t stay in the kids club and who can’t get near a pool. Our 4 year old, despite being a VERY active kid and not being addicted to screens, ended up spending way too much time on big bro’s Switch. He actually got excited for the more adult orientated evening shows, just because it was something different to do. P&O, some advice for you, take a visit to Disney, or even Butlins, and find out how to really entertain kids. Packing list: We’d read up on essential cruise packing lists, and despite wondering if they were overkill we bought most of it. Magnetic hooks were very useful, as were towel clips. One thing I found myself was 5 litre Hydramate foldable water containers. These were brilliant for filling up at the filtered water stations and keeping in the cabin. Water: That leads me to the filtered water stations. A great idea, but a bit of a half hearted effort. We only found four on the entire ship - Atrium 6\7 floor, and two in Skydome. On a ship this size they should have one on every floor, at the very least. Shore days: we never did official excursions, but the buses were usually well organised. Marseilles was the only poorly organised stop, where passengers had to queue in the rain for over 20 mins to board a bus back to the ship. Captain’s daily: we rather liked his daily spiel, and even found the corny jokes quite amusing! SO…that’s my summary of Arvia. It’s certainly been a baptism of fire for our first ever cruise, and overall there have been plenty more positives than negatives. Unfortunately the biggest negative - the sheer volume of passengers in some of the spaces - is a major sticking point for us when it comes to future cruises. I don’t know if it’s just this ship (and by extension Iona), or if every ship is this over-crowded in school holidays. If the latter is true then this will probably be our first and last peak time cruise. And considering we have 14 years left of having to go away in school holiday time, that would be a great shame.

Hi All We’re on the 3rd day of our Arvia cruise, sailing towards Valencia. As first time cruisers we’re pretty happy with everything on the ship except for one thing - Splashers kids club. We have an engaging and gregarious 4 year old who can be a little shy until he’s over that initial ‘hump’. We’ve tried putting him into Splashers club a few times, and stayed with him every time for the maximum allowed 20 mins, to try and settle him as he wouldn’t let us go. We’ve tried playing games with him, introducing him to other kids in there ourselves, tried playing with him/them etc. Despite the staff being nice and friendly they make zero effort during that time to come and engage with us and help us settle him . So when it comes time to,leave him, unsurprisingly he’s still attached to us. The other kids are generally just running around, also seemingly with very little engagement or interaction from the staff. Its marketed as a kids club, but from our observation seems more like a hands-off crèche. Unfortunately it’s putting a bit of a downer on our holiday - we were really hoping he’d enjoy it there, and make friends, and also allow us to have some much needed R&R too. Any advice would be appreciated on how to handle this. Do we have unrealistic expectations of the staff? Or should they be helping more, and if so how do we broach the subject, and with whom? Thanks all 🙏 P.s. please don’t bother with any “just leave him, he’ll be fine in the end” comments. We don’t think it’s fair to dump and run and leave a crying child - on him or the other kids/staff

Thanks so much JB, a great help 🙏👍

We have a 2.15pm boarding time this Sunday for Arvia. We’re driving down from London so thought it would be good to have lunch somewhere close by beforehand (was thinking of waiting till we get on the ship but by that time the kids will be ravenous). Could anyone recommend restaurants with easy parking that are on the way and relatively close to Ocean terminal? Thanks all, first time cruisers here, nervously excited!! P.s. what time would you recommend arriving for CPS parking?

Thanks guys 🙏

We have £300 on board spend for our upcoming Arvia cruise. I’m trying to book a hair appointment but it’s asking me to pay with a credit card. As far as I’m aware you can use on board spend in the hair salon - is that not correct, or is it not possible to use on board spend for advance bookings? Thanks all.

Currently trying to call P&O, on a Monday mid afternoon, been on hold for 55 minutes so far! We have an upcoming cruise on Arvia, and it's also our first ever cruise. Having paid many thousands of pounds I'm pretty angry that they don't even answer the phone - not a great way to start what i was hoping would be a fantastic holiday. If the on-board service is as bad as this it might be the first and last time we sail with P&O.

First time cruisers here, booked on Arvia in August, with the inclusive CPS parking at Southampton. I’ve read that you drop off the car at the terminal and someone parks it for you. But what happens with the luggage? Do we then have to shlep all of our cases/bags to the terminal for check in, and if so is it far? And how about arriving back at the end of the cruise? Particularly with the kids it could be a mare… Thanks all.