GnT-Cruisers

Hi TigerB, Thanks so much for your detailed review, it was a great read 🙂 My wife and I (both in our 50's) were on the same cruise, so it was fun to read, even if we did have some different experiences. It was a good cruise, certainly relaxing and exactly what we needed. It was however, for us, the most disappointing cruise we have been on from a service level and food perspective. We only have 5 cruises under our belts so we are not exactly seasoned cruisers, but we are definitely very keen cruisers and it is by far our preferred method of holidaying. Let me start off by saying that the onboard entertainment was excellent, and we thoroughly enjoyed everything we went to. Hats off to the dancers, artists, singers, high flyers and comedians 🙂 Where we were let down, was by the food. As foodies, were very excited by the idea of having multiple restaurants to go to that were all included in the cruise package, we just had no idea that all of them were going to serve exactly the same menu no matter where you booked. Service was often slow and we honestly were very let down by the overall quality of what we received. The very worst was the chicken, which, no matter what version was on the menu, was way too overcooked, dry and very nearly inedible. The 5oz sirloin steaks had no marbling at all and even though my wife ordered hers blue and mine was ordered as rare, always arrived well done. I do not know how they did it, but even though the steak was reddish pink in the middle, it was definitely 'well done' and tasteless. The veggies were however nice .... lol The food in Horizon was equally disappointing. Although it offered a wide variety, there seemed to be very little coherence to what was being offered and was just haphazard. There were some exceptions, but for the most part, the food again was generally overcooked. Not once during our entire cruise was the roast pork edible. What we really really missed, was the ability to take brag photos of the 'SPREAD' to share with friends and family and make them jealous. In fact, for the very first time in many many years, we did not take a single photo of the food! The reason I am harping on the food and it's quality is simply because every other cruise we have been on, the impressive selection, variety and quality of the food has been so exceptional, that we really really missed it on this cruise. The couple of times that we did eat at The Beach House and Olive Grove, the food was excellent, so it really seemed as though P&O were trying to FORCE us to spend more money ... Another issue we had was with the drinks. My wife and I are keen 'holiday cocktail drinkers' 🙂 As this was a 14 night cruise, the drinks packages were going to work out too expensive for us to get value out of, so we decided that, on this cruise, we would pay for what we wanted, when we wanted it, and I am sooo very glad that we made that decision. The commonly available cocktails were extremely limited in variety and quite honestly, not to our taste at all. A simple 'sex on the beach' for instance, was nowhere to be had and as much as the barman said he could have made it, he told us that he was not allowed to and had to ONLY make what was on the menu. The drinks were also overpriced, so we had a pretty dry cruise. The last thing which surprised us was the shuttles. I am sure we just missed this fact in the paperwork leading up to the cruise, but having to pay £4 per person per bus ride at every port, came as a big surprise to us. I am absolutely sure that we could have skipped the long queues and gotten private taxis for the same or less than the £8 we were charged to get from the ship into town and then £8 back again. I am pretty sure that we have not had to pay that with other cruise lines, or maybe they just sneaked the costs in where we would not notice it. Not a moan from us, just an observation, was that the photographers were almost completely absent on this cruise. On other cruises, the photographers were ready to snap pics as people boarded and then again right through the cruise and ports and definitely getting good snaps of people in all their finery on the black tie and ballgown nights. This time, if you wanted a pic, you would have to go find them ... Anyway, thats my 2c Looking forward to our next cruise ... just almost certainly not with P&O 🙂