vitrocmax

I've not been watching the forums for a while so just saw this - the Tapas is good. I left my wife to do the cooking and went back at the end to sample the result - very good. I don't recall all the dishes but I think there were 4 of them, and they were all simple and effective. The prep was already done by the team, all the cleaning and washing up was done by them, the class did the cooking (instruction was excellent) and all I did was eat the food!

Later in the week my wife did another class with James Martin, and I again joined in at the end to help eat the fish course. That one was expensive, though worth it.

Thanks for the response, Selbourne. I hoped by not giving the thread a 'tips' title I would limit the replies but obviously not. It's a real bone of contention for many, but I'm happy to leave it to the auto-gratuity system (sorry, service charge)

@ davecttr; as you say the P&O official policy is unclear, they refer to days without qualifying the statement.

@ everyone else, I think your points are adequately covered on many similar threads so no further replies are warranted, but thanks for your input.

Enjoy your cruising, everyone.

I've just been looking for a definitive answer regarding the recently renamed auto-gratuity, now 'service charge' and despite their being hundreds (maybe thousands!) of posts on the topic, I haven't found an answer to my question; does disembarkation day count?

I ask because the P&O site doesn't make it clear (to me, anyway) if 7 nights on board would be counted as 8 days. I can't remember what happened on our last Ventura cruise 2 years ago.

I also noticed a paragraph on their news page - http://www.pocruises.com/explore/articles/news/introducing-our-new-service-reward-programme/ - 'All tips are distributed fairly among the cabin stewards, butlers, and restaurant and buffet staff' with no mention of all the other equally hard working staff behind the scenes. What does 'fairly' mean? I would say it's unfair to use my tip towards paying a butler as I'm not in a suite, but not to offer anything to bar staff. Are bar staff paid a higher salary instead?

Some previous posts suggest that almost everyone below management level gets a share but it appears that's not the case.

If you can wait until the end of May I can give you an answer; that's the cabin we are in!

I did a search for the cabin number before booking last September and nothing came up.

We chose it because there shouldn't be much passing traffic on the corridor and isn't far from the aft stairwell.

My wife does worry about all sorts of things so I'm not going to mention this concern to her.

I didn't notice anyone wearing them around the ship, but since we were in a suite we didn't go around much (apart from to the restaurants and bar!) as we had everything we needed to hand. Lounging around the pools wasn't top of our list of things to do.

As for size, I never checked the size label but it might be a bit on the small size for you, although my wife thinks it should be OK, it was big on her (size 14).

More from the same cruise - blue sky and sunshine!

Sunshine on our balcony, a couple of pics of the ship in Vigo, Lisbon and the terminal in Oporto, and a picture of the area just opposite our balcony in Lisbon.

I took some pictures of Azura and Ventura together in Lisbon, but couldn't get Adonia in the same shot as there were a couple of boats in the way.

I only took one picture of Guernsey, big disappointment.

We had bathrobes and they were very lightweight man made fibre, not a hint of cotton anywhere. They were fluffy though, with a P&O logo embroidered on them in blue.

I wouldn't pay £30 for two, but if they had been a bit more heavyweight with some cotton in them then I might have.

We saw the new paint job when we met you in Lisbon. We were on Ventura, I didn't know the Adonia was so small!

I don't know when the Ventura is due to be done.