amurray88

Madeira was fine...it rained so maybe that spoiled it a wee bit. Found a lovely wee cafe which was ridiculously cheap (£4 for 2 coffees and 2 cakes). Thought the Christiano Ronaldo museum/hotel/restaurant a bit tacky? We went off the boat after dinner for a quick wander into the gardens. In fairness to the ports they were lovely but I'm normally up at 5am for a 5:30am train to Rome and not back on the boat til 5-6 type of guy. We found ourselves going off the boat for a quick wander (couple of hours) and that was it. I knew that when I booked it, the ports definitely weren't the attraction so happy to not worry too much about it.

Not the end of the world...and might not even be possible. But seems odd as it seems much closer to the port.

Hello all, Just back from Azura and a few brief opinions below on my thoughts as well as how it compares to my previous cruises (RCL, NCL & MSC). Pre-cruise - this unfortunately nearly made us cancel the cruise. It really was horrific - the P&O shore side customer service have a huge amount of work to do to be close to acceptable. 1/10 - bottom of the pile compared to the rest. Check in - due to our awful pre-cruise experience I was desperate for this cruise to go well so turned up to the airport hoping for the best. Jet2 staff were excellent, it was quick and easy. The bus to the port is a faff, potentially a necessary evil but could P&O handle the luggage (the same way they do on the return) and could they even use the north airport? Not sure if this is possible. When we arrived at the port terminal again it was quick and easy. Staff were helpful. 10/10 can't compare as have never done fly cruise before but check in was on par with other cruise lines in my experience. Ship - I was surprised - I heard alot of people saying the ship was showing her age, she was dated etc. we didn't find it this way. It's not sparkly but there's a charm in the wood interior. We had a big issue (as you'll read later) with the layout and design of the ship but I don't see that as being dated. The ship is newer (I believe?) than admittedly my favourite, Oasis class ships (we'll Oasis OTS). So the design isn't dated, it was just poorly designed in the first instance. On embarking the lifts took forever however, during the cruise I felt the lifts were quick. Theatre is adequate although could definitely do with more accessible seating at the back. The buffet wasn't good, what a poor layout and service 👎. And by that I don't mean the staff, but to only have small parts of the buffet open at any given time is strange. The main restaurants (we ate breakfast/lunch&dinner in MDR) most days - was great and they were very understanding of us having a baby with us. Shop prices are high - they were selling a Radley purse for £96 that was £36 on sale on the Radley website. The bars weren't great and the flow of people was strange. Main theatre shows at 8:30, coming out at 9:15, show at Manhattan starts at 9:30. Literally hundreds of people moving from one side of ship to the other to find the venue already full. Bit odd. Ship - 6/10. Nicer than NCL Epic, not as nice as RCL or MSC ships IMHO. Food - MDR food was very good. Menus on the whole were very good but felt that one night the menu was a little strange - that's all down to opinions. The buffet food we didn't really touch but on the whole looked fine. Someone told us they put hot chocolate out at 11pm and although not normally for us, it was very good. Our biggest let down was Sindhu. I had heard amazing things about this but the service really was awful. We were 1hr 40mins between arriving and receiving our mains. On arriving we asked for a pot of boiling water for our babies bottle. We then reminded them 30mins later when the poppadoms came. And reminded them 30mins later when our starters came. We were told the chef was making it (seriously?). By this point we were a bit anxious as babies don't cope well with being hungry 😂. The water came with our main course (1hr 40mins after requesting)...as did the screaming. We tried to eat the main course but baby was screaming so much we had to leave. No apology for time taken and full bill was charged). Beach house was excellent...I think it gets a bad name on here but I was really pleasantly surprised. Food - 7/10 better than RCL, slightly worse than NCL (MDR is equivalent, although NCL's speciality is better) and worse than MSC. Staff - they were excellent. Couldn't find a fault. When we sailed MSC last year we found that the ground staff were great but restaurant managers, bar managers etc were very poor to customers and colleagues. With P&O we found the staff from top to bottom were great (apart from the pre-cruise experience mentioned above). Staff - 10/10 better than MSC and RCL (RCL waiters must have been under alot of pressure as they kept saying on surveys we must give 5/5 as RCL see 4/5 as being unacceptable) and probably better than NCL although it felt like they had alot more staff on NCL. Cabin - cabin was great. Biggest complaint might be that there are no bedside plugs. Could have done with a bigger TV but this doesn't bother us at all. But please...please sort the toilet paper. Surely there's no need for the sand paper they currently use 😂 Cabin - 6/10 bit worse than others due to plugs and TV... And go get a deal with Andrex! Entertainment - surprisingly good. The general theatre company put on a few decent shows that were entertaining and the 2 bands on board were excellent. The Vinylettes were good and the Privateers really stole the show - very very good. Entertainment - 7/10 - worse than RCL (can anything really compete with Oasis class entertainment?) and NCL - Better than MSC. Ports - our favourite port was La Palma although the cruise was more for a break with sunshine rather than ports. The other ports were blah. I found the overnight in Tenerife frustrating - I enjoy cruising and unless in a major city I'm not into overnights. Ports - 3/10. Can't compete with major Med cities. Accessibility - maybe it's because it's our first cruise with a baby but this was really disappointing - as was the layout of the ship. On embarking we were faced with steps and no other option (even though 7 days later there was a ramp). In Madeira there was "ramp" but with steps fitted on to the ramp. There were 2 options for baby pools - the Coral pool (1.8m deep at it's shallowest which was too deep for us to enjoy with a baby in our arms) or the perfect baby pool...which was on deck 16 and only way to access it was to lift the pram up a set of steep stairs. On the promenade deck there's a set of stairs to enter/exit...it really wouldn't take alot of money to change one of these into a ramp. Several events were advertised in Horizon with the strap line "this event is not suitable for passengers in wheelchairs" - surely this is crazy in this day and age? The layout of the ship - don't get me started. There were 2 decks on the whole ship out with cabin decks, that you could walk from one side of the ship to the other. Far far far too many "go up a deck, go along, go down a deck" or "this lift only goes to this deck, you'll need to go to that lift to get to that deck". We found the layout of the Glasshouse very odd. Beach house is in the buffet but done very well. Sindhu was fine for layout. But the corridors that run through Glasshouse with people walking through tables of diners just odd. Wouldn't go to the Glasshouse because of this. Accessibility - 2/10 - far worse than competitors. Other passengers - 99% were great. Given that we had our baby with us, most were very friendly. The ones that stick in your head though are the ones that commented about babies shouldn't be allowed on ships, or shook their heads, or pushed their way in front of you. An older gent in a wheelchair was struggling to get into his cabin one day. I tried to help him as he said he couldn't get his card to work. I tried his card and a woman came out the room, extremely rudely, told us to get away from her door, this isn't our room and to stop bothering her. The older guy was clearly disabled and a bit confused - no need to talk to others like that. Passengers 8/10 - better than MSC passengers but that's not saying much 😂 Amenities - it was a wee treat to have a sauna included at no additional cost. This then broke on day 3 and wasn't fixed for the duration. I could moan that it wasn't fixed...or praise that it was free. Either way, it was good while it lasted. Lastly - Value It was very good value for money. To get all that we did for ~£1000 is excellent. Would I go back? If I knew I wouldn't have the pre cruise hassle I probably would go back if the price is right. Lets face it - the ship is uninspiring. The destinations are bland. So I wouldn't go back for those reasons...but for a week in the sun, it is significantly cheaper than any full board, 3-4 star hotel, with flights, transfers etc.

I felt it was clear who the waiters and restaurant managers were. He was certainly "above" them and I could be wrong but I'm sure he was introduced during the captain's speech. Thanks!

Hello, After all the hassle of pre-cruise, we're on the plane back after a good holiday 👌. One guy in particular was great with us and DS. Is there any way of finding out names of officers? I reckon he was perhaps food/drinks manager as he was in all the restaurants, bars, buffet and generally around the ship all the time. Would love to know his name. Thanks!

It was only closed for that one day 👌. We were in Fuerteventura today and boarded with a bottle of beer (found a craft beer I like in a Hyperdino for 74¢ (normally about £2.50 at home) so thought I'd risk it... No hassle. I heard someone at the pool today saying someone at their dinner table brought on a suitcase full of drink. Seems a bit over the top? But hey ho

I've enjoyed that side... Compared to other cruise lines it certainly doesn't seem like there's alot of up selling ... Or general pushiness to purchase things. The tea/coffee in dining room and buffet is of a good standard (other lines can have horrible coffee and so you feel compelled to buy better), the food in the restaurant is pretty good (admittedly not as good as cruising used to be but that's across the board now). I'm surprised they're owned by Carnival given the laid back approach to people spending money.😂

The spar was closed unfortunately so was just a wee tourist trap place with sweeties, postcards, drinks etc. No issues at all and felt as though we could have taken on 4 kegs of beer and no-one would have cared. This is only in Tenerife though - the other ports, security has been carried out by P&O and I would say they would have been stricter.

We didn't take soft drinks... Water at meal times which is fine, and generally everyone is sitting by the pool without a drink and at dinner having water and tea/coffee. Having been with different lines previously they normally have a lot of waiters going round pools asking drinks - I've not been asked, or seen anyone being asked, if they want a drink by a waiter...indeed, I've not seen a single waiter apart from behind the bar in the pool areas. Again, we're fine with it but just surprising as they must be missing out on £££'s surely?

In fairness, we are in a slightly different "boat" as we got the OBC for the hassle we had with my son rather than with Select fare (we're saver fare) 👌 so it kind of is free money, but let me assure you, i had to work for it...and i certainly would have had rathered no issues and no credit

Will give fuller report when we're back but the general feel around the ship I would say is 90% of people are drinking water at dinner, very few people drinking during the day. We are now at £130 left after Sindhu. We've visited Costa once, and bought 2 glasses of wine and 2 beers. Don't plan to buy much more to be fair... We're not big drinkers but it also just doesn't seem to be the thing to do in comparison to our RCCL cruises or the likes of MSC/NCL where alot more people have packages.

Wow that is a huge amount of OBC for your cruise!

Great shout! We have £200 OBC and half way through the cruise we've spent £20 😱 Sindhu and Beach house booked though so that'll help

Not bad CarlaMarie! Will give fuller report on return 👌. Think with MSC you loaded it all into the casino and then you could withdraw it all as cash from the casino. Was so handy when you didn't intend spending it all

Hi all, On MSC there were a few workarounds that allowed you to withdraw OBC through the casino. Do P&O have any ways to withdraw it? Thanks!

It's not all been bad on Azura...but if Azura was £500pp and Symphony OTS was £900pp I think I'd do the Symphony OTS and I guess that's where I took that from. I'm normally a budget cruiser btw, the cheaper the better. And several points on Azura have been better than MSC Seaview although I still think MSC would still come slightly higher on my list than P&O at the moment (not to say that if we sone Fantasia or a smaller MSC boat we'd think the same)

Only my opinion but on Azura just now .. was on Symphony OTS last year and I genuinely can't find anything that P&O are doing better other than price. That's not to say it's all bad (will report once we're home) but would take 1 week on Symphony over 2 weeks on Azura 👌.

We were there on 3 kings day (Tenerifes equivalent to Christmas day I understand) so most places were closed. We stopped in at a corner shop...bottle of wine, 2 cans of beer £10)

DW drinks Zinfandel... £8.45 per 250ml or £25 for bottle...grand saving of 35p!

We boarded on Friday...was late on (flight delay, baggage delayed, last bus from airport etc) so just got on board. Went into Tenerife today and picked a few things up - security was done by the port and they didn't blink an eye. Once on ship there were no questions asked at all. Problem is, I've now had to request a bigger fridge for the 44 cans of beer and 7 bottles of wine we've brought on!

Got it...I thought when you said no-one has ever checked your bag you meant it wasn't x-rayed 🤦‍♂️...what I should have read was, it is x-rayed but they're not overly fussed about checking things like that.

We are not big drinkers at all btw - I don't want it to come across that we're planning on taking 40 bottles of wine onboard. My wife drinks wine and was planning on 1 or 2 bottles, I drink beer and was planning on taking a few bottles (6 maybe?) as well as maybe a couple of cans of coke. Just didn't know what the rules were. I'm more concerned that they didn't check your backpack...do they not normally go through an X-ray? 😱

I had to send the deck plans you sent before they admitted they weren't fixed beds 🤷‍♂️ however....here's to a great holiday!

Thank you!

2 days before we go and P&O have just confirmed they are NOT fixed beds, indeed you were all correct and despite being told multiple times otherwise, they WILL give us queen beds. What a way to make a mountain out of a molehill. Thank you all! Without promoting another cruise company, it has been a SAGA!