snaefell

My Wife had the Lobster twice,enjoyed it but the jury was/is out on whether or not it was worth it,the Lamb Cutlets were amazing though!

We sailed on Britannia the first year she was in service,at the time these forums were full of people complaining about her size & how they wouldn't go on anything that big,here we are years on & Britannia seems to have many fans & when you see her next to Iona or Arvia she looks small. For us we liked her eventually,found her a bit dark & gloomy inside with some questionable,IMO,artwork,not the easiest to navigate but the Crows Nest is wonderful & Brodies is a wonderful room spoilt by the fact that there nearly always seemed to be Bingo,Pub Quizzes or Kareoke going on,all of which we hate! We had a 19 night cruise on Arcadia earlier this year & loved her,I had read so many bad reviews on here making reference to her age mostly & wondered what the hell we would find but we loved the ship,we have travelled on many ferries at least as old if not older & didn't really notice anything age related,loved our balcony cabin,thought the Pub was a wonderful place to be,something about the Crows Nest that really didn't hit the spot for some reason & yes there is a shortage of places to eat but it wasn't a problem for us,made more so maybe by the fact that the food & service we received in the Ocean Grill was so good,probably the best we have ever had at sea,Sindhu wasn't far behind,perhaps the biggest problem with a small ship is that it isn't that easy to get away from people wining about nothing apart from the fact that it seemed to keep them happy! I have seen pictures of the Atrium area on Arvia & Iona & think it looks awful,a bit like an airport/shopping mall food court,not something that attracts me to either of them. Just to show that I am not entirely against big ships IMO the best ship we have travelled on by some way was RCI's Quantum Of The Seas,a beautiful ship,quirky artwork,always seemed light & airy wherever you went & despite being full never seemed crowded. . We are booked on her sister ship Anthem OTS in April next year & Arcadia the following April just to mix it up a bit!

Thanks again guys,the cruise I am looking at is for May 2025 & I see there are limited 'C' deck cabins available already,obviously popular,cheers guys!

Many thanks for your replies guys,looks like C deck is definately the place to head for,now my Wife just has to make up her mind!

Thinking of booking a cruise on Azura,grateful of any suggestions,hints or tips for choosing a balcony cabin(standard or deluxe),hoping they aren't as small as the one we had on Britannia some years ago,cheers guys!

It takes a lot of flights to fill a cruise ship!

Smokeybandit,thanks for being very helpful,much appreciated,to all the others thanks for giving people a few laughs guys!😁

I can imagine this has been asked before but I can't see it anywhere,can you take alcohol on board at the start of the cruise please guys?

The destinations we went to made it more than worth it!😎

Travel City Direct now that is a blast from the past,quite forgotten about them. There were so many old aircraft being used on charter flights back then,really didn't care as long as we got there,seems like people these days aren't such a hardy bunch!😁

It was quite the norm,New airlines seemed to spring up each year to serve the summer package deals,some better than others! One of the best I remember was from Manchester to Orlando one year where we got front row seats downstairs on a 747,because of the curve of the nose the view was amazing,especially at take off & landing,the Jumbo was plain white on the outside. The food was often so bad doing without was a blessing!

Good old package deals often didn't specify an airline or aircraft type,you typically didn't find out what the aircraft was until you reached the check in desk,you found out the airline when you saw the plane! It didn't really matter as long as we got there!!!

Only way to think IMO,we were in the Med on Arcadia in May,she had done the same cruise in April & seen record breaking 40+ temperatures,certainly wasn't that way for us! Enjoy!

The weather is so variable everywhere so that is so hard to say,a few years ago we went to Portugal in November,the first half of the holiday was t shirt & shorts weather but after a storm the second half of the stay might as well have been back in the UK!

IME, there are Dreamliners which aren't so comfy,I'm not just talking about legroom either,just before Covid we flew out East with Etihad which involved two flights in each direction,at six & a half feet I found the legroom 'snug' but the biggest problem was the seats,quite the most uncomfortable airline seats we have ever experienced,thin plastic with hardly any padding,the age of the plane really doesn't always mean a better journey!😎

Some years ago our first cruise was with Princess to Iceland & Norway in July,you just knew that the other passengers were not a hardy bunch when in The Irish Sea on the first day many were dressed for the Arctic,it was very lonely up on Deck by the time we reached Iceland!😁😁

Everybody's different,what may seem perfectly comfortable to some will no doubt have others reaching for the coat,scarf & gloves,a wrap sounds a great idea!

P&O are not the only cruise company to change things after booking,others do it too,IMO more annoyingly they change the itineraries,it matters so much more when they remove the place or places that you were most interested in, without any chance of cancelling & getting your money back. At least in this case with P&O you are still getting the cruise you wanted thanks to P&O sourcing extra aircraft.

Depends on what you call a very long time,for those of us who cut our long haul teeth back in the 1980's when the likes of Laker Skytrain,Monarch,Aertours & others crammed as many as they could onto flights getting extra legroom in one of the very few exit seats was pretty much a pipedream. At six & a half foot,17stone & with a dodgy knee it wasn't often comfy but if I wanted to see the world it was what we had to put up with...happy days!!!

The small print will surely get most,if not all of us sometime,all the benefits offered are all subject to operational requirements. I really do not understand the fuss,PE & IFE have only been on offer a relatively short time yet suddenly people can't do without them & object to flying on anything over a few years old,sounds like people have been spoilt! As has already been pointed out cruises are planned years ahead whilst airline schedules are usually on a much shorter time scale,if travel companies had seen Covid coming I wonder how differently they may have planned things.

Looking at this from a different perspective maybe we should be applauding P&O not slaughtering them. Reading this thread it seems in the past people have turned up at the airport & had bad experiences due to the aircraft they end up on is not what they expected if one turns up at all,maybe we should give P&O credit for trying to avoid that happening again by making sure enough aircraft are in place to carry all the extra passengers expected due to the larger vessels. Also maybe people are mistaken in expecting things to have returned to normal after Covid,that could take some time if it happens at all!

I can well imagine the airline details along with other things are covered by phrases like subject to change due to operational requirements! Travel history is full of similar incidents,for one I remember Lion Air,a charter company used by travel companies back in the 80/90's,always in the news seemingly because of problems with an ageing 747 which became known as the flying pig! I had to chuckle at the " full 8 hour flight without entertainment" complaints,that was pretty normal until fairly recently IME,we have done many flights to & from the States with no or little entertainment provided,we are used to taking a book,puzzler & or a Walkman to pass the time,including a direct flight from Manchester to Honolulu years ago which took 20 hours,mind you the drinks were free so that helped!😀

Must admit not to have looked,for one I tend to find packages not great value but we hadn't tried OG before so wasn't sure how good it would be,as for Sindhu we hadn't been impressed with our one past experience so basically were only certain of using a speciality restaurant the first night,we were pleasantly surprised!😀