majortom10

Never had a problem with toast(mixed) in QG but I don't have a problem with cold toast and butter. Very hard to keep toast warm or cook fresh when you are cooking so many slices and dealing with so many cruiser's. Think some expect the toast to be cooked fresh personally for them.

1 hour ago, maz48 said:

Oh wow, sorry you had that experience, we were very lucky then. Trotting down to the nearest public toilet one, twice or three times a night, as my husband(and others) would need to do would not be my idea of fun. 

I must add here that we had an amazing cruise, and as we only went to the dining room about 5 or 6 times the noise/vibrations was not a huge issue overall and did not affect our enjoyment.  Off topic and a first world issue though, I was,  shall I say, amused and slightly concerned, by the size and quality of the muffins every day at breakfast time in the Lido buffet. What have they done  to them? The double chocolate ones were about 1 and half inches deep and looked very strange, tiny all round. They removed the whole tray of them and replaced them with a different kind early on during breakfast. The blueberry ones were not much better,  small, with hardly a blueberry in sight and didn't seem fluffy like a muffin should. Either they changed the recipe or bought a less quality muffin mix. However, they were perfect in the Chart Room for morning coffee, just like before, so good. They must make them elsewhere for there. I guess Cunard must be looking after our weight and health😂

Wouldn't really know because we didn't use either the Lido or Britannia for meals and was not interested in muffins for breakfast 

4 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

My observation is the vast vast majority of people keep to the scheduled disembarkation so to place the blame for any problems that occur on the trivial number that do not is rather a stretch. 
 

In fact I would actually suggest that those few actually reduce the issue by getting out of the way before the problems occur. 
 

I would also suggest that the main issues for any problems are that people seem to leave their brains behind when getting on a cruise ship - how long do you need to be onboard before you realise that you need your cruise card at the port gate AND at the bottom of the gangplank AND at the top of the gangplank? And that up arrows mean the lift is going up? And that the even cabins are all on the same side? Etc. Etc.

So how do you explain a large number of people disembarking with suitcases well after 8-30 am. The whole idea of self disembarkation is to leave the ship before the main disembarkation begins and not at any time to suit oneself.

18 hours ago, FangedRose said:

I agree. Have often overheard conversations via walkie talkies regarding whether or not it was OK to send another cohort of passengers to the baggage hall. Presumably the increasing number of self disembarkers who disregard the instructions to leave before 7.30am and saunter off whenever, can disrupt the system, as the staff cannot judge the numbers as efficiently. 

Yes I agree the idea of self disembarkation was for those that one to leave the ship before 7-30am and before normal disembarkation. Unfortunately many think that self disembarkation means that they can leave whatever time they want which creates problems.

37 minutes ago, maz48 said:

Yes, I agree about the toilet flush problem, and some smell issues around the ship We had a couple of times we couldn't flush the toilet, once for over an hour. We were on deck 6 and quite a few passengers were out reporting it to the stewards who said it was being worked on. So grateful to those members of crew! It was our first experience of that problem on our many Cunard cruises but we have had it happen on other cruise lines. So it can be an issue. 

We didn't really have our toilet working at all for most of the first five days even to the conclusion of having an engineer out at 1130pm on one evening and was told by concierge to use public toilets.

18 hours ago, Victoria2 said:

Vibrations were felt aft higher up but our sleep wasn't really disturbed. Didn't notice any problem during the day.

TBH we are very rarely in our cabin/suite whatever ship we are on.

We were in Q5 aft on deck 4 on 24th Nov-6th Dec and the noise and vibration was that bad we were moved from the suite. We have cruised before aft on QE and other ships and never encountered noise and vibration like that. We also had issues where we couldn't use the toilet and with the smells around the ship there was obviously a problem throughout the ship. The entrance to the theatre on deck 3 was awful every evening.

58 minutes ago, Thejuggler said:

New cruisers go for shiny new things as they have more to offer.

 

15 or so years ago when Ventura was launched as the the largest P&O ship that would have been the fun ship (outdoor circus school and trampolines anyone?) with the older now long retired ships offering something completely different,

Yes and when Ventura was announced and launched there were many moaners about the ship, funny how things change.

They were selling 5 bottles of Dead Mans Fingers Rum on Arvia in September. I challenge anyone to get anywhere that price in UK. In my local supermarket it was over £20 a bottle.

The problem is with disembarkation from a P&O cruise is that initially there are no checks by P&O that the correct time are disembarking. But many, including a lot of here, have openly said that they ignore their disembarkation time and get off at a time to suit them and encourage others to do the same. For that reason there is queues on stairs and around disembarkation muster which causes chaos which then carries on into baggage hall.

1 hour ago, Glitterati said:

The list goes on. Although all these are small, they all add up. 

- Nice table settings and garlic butter on formal nights 

- boiled sweets in cabin 

- variety of drinks lined up on the bar on formal night 

- Salmon from the daily menu

- Turndown service 

- Grab and go fridge from Britannia

- Sailaway flags 

 

Still one of the only cruise lines that doesn’t have free ice cream round the pool! Which is crazy. 

 

Price point now reflects what you get. 

 

Grab and Go has disappeared off all ships not just Britannia. Unfortunate result of COVID and also to the misuse of people when in port. Seen people loading bags up with anything they can get their hands on to take with them off the ship. With regards to the rest there is no great loss if you now compare price of cruises especially on Arvia/Iona.

Or a can of peas 😂

2 hours ago, kalos said:

 

Not forgetting you get priority on MDR table size with select fare .

Doesn't make any difference on Iona you just request either on entering restaurant you preferential size and also same on virtual queue.

52 minutes ago, mklions said:

Suite guests previously had a nice box of White Company lotions to take home should they wish, these have now gone.

Also daily canopies from the butler, these have now gone to canopies only on formal nights.

Even suite guests are being squeezed!

Little things but noticeable.

Would be a bonus if all suite guests didn't get any canapes and those in balcony, review and inside were forced to have them every evening.

29 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

As before, your palate your choice, but most people will choose something that compliments their food. 

Nonsense they will choose something they like to drink.

53 minutes ago, FangedRose said:

So, if I don't like red wine (which I don't) I'm not allowed to have steak? I thought such silly rules went out with frock coats and corsets.

They have. I went to an Ollie Smith talk onboard a P&O cruise some years ago and he said there was a lot of snobbery with regards to wine. He said order what you like it's your money if you don't like white wine nothing wrong with drinking red wine with fish and the same vice versa with red meat. We only drink one white wine which is not usually stocked on P&O so we drink red wine whatever the meal.

7 minutes ago, Winifred 22 said:

I don’t have a problem with that . 

So when do you stop 3 times 4 times and main question why?

3 hours ago, laslomas said:

 

This is how I am thinking at the moment. I like a bit of spontaneity, especially on holiday. So many factors can change what you want to do each day.

 

I wonder after reading about the necessity to make bookings ahead of time, how many people book things to make sure they have something to do each evening, and then make a decision on the night? Would there be many no shows? Also if you are stuck in a virtual queue waiting to eat, can you then turn up late to your booked venue, or would you be denied? 

 

If you join virtual queue for a restaurant once you are informed your table is ready you then have 15 minutes or the table is released. Understandable as if they didn't do it that way there would be a lot of empty tables and many not being able to join virtual queue. We were on Iona in March joined virtual queue for MDR and by the time we had got the lift and made our way to restaurant we were informed table was ready and had no issues at all.

4 hours ago, Jazzytelly said:

We always tip the Cabin Steward and the waiter and assistant waiter. All the crew do such a great job and when you think if you visit a restaurant at home you would tip 10% for the meal , taking into account the number of meals you would have on a cruise tipping each person £20, £30 or £40 for the whole cruise is a good deal. 

But why when tipping is included in cruise fare already paid. So in effect tipping your waivers and cabin steward twice.

1 hour ago, mitooki said:

I tipped cabin steward on day 1 of our cruise last month. Worked out well, room was serviced quickly and always completed before we returned from breakfast. Plenty of smiles and efficient help when required too.

Makes no difference never tipped cabin steward extra on day one and we have always had our stateroom/suite serviced before return from breakfast. You are kidding yourself thinking you get better service it makes no difference whatsoever.

One thing I must say is we chatted to a lot of the staff in varying departments around the ship and many are moving to QA for her launch.

1 minute ago, exlondoner said:

How can you justify refusing earplugs??? Mind you they are one of the things I always bring with me, for obliterating the commentary if I am imprudent enough to be persuaded to go on a tour.

I didn't refuse them they refused to give me any said they didn't want go down that way. Don't ask me why but that is what they did say.

We really enjoyed the cruise even though we had a few issues but Cheryl the Concierge and Reception Manager solved problems superbly. Embarkation was a shambles even though we were slightly earlier than our QG boarding time. Obviously Cunard had started embarkation early and as we entered terminal were calling for Princess Grill and Platinum. Also there were many who totally ignored boarding times but Cunard still allowed them to board. We were successful in bidding for upgrade from PG to QG and ended up in Q5 deck 4 corner aft suite. The first night was awful with noise and vibration and next morning asked at reception for ear plugs which they refused. From then on we had issues with consistent blocked toilet. There were issues throughout the ship with awful smells on occasions. Eventually Cheryl (Concierge) told us to use public toilets which I said was unacceptable. After possibly thinking how bad that was we had a phone call from Reception Manager to be told we were being moved to Q2 on deck 7. Suite was first class on every way. With regards the food we never had a bad meal in any way as all food whether breakfast, lunch or dinner was first class and managed to work through all a la carte choices. The service was also excellent from our 2 waiters out head waiter and attentive service from maitre d. We also dined in the Verandah for our very first Diamond lunch and that was excellent.

We arrived in Southampton today on QV. We left Madeira on Saturday and had rough seas up the coast of Portugal but nothing serious. The BoB was very calm and a lot smoother with no great swell or movement.

1 hour ago, doog442 said:

 

My TA wouldn't accept blue light discount on top of their discount, I guess you're entitled to blue light?  I went to Chantmarle, Dorset. Sadly the beauty of the place was lost on us as our instructors thought they were training the military 😉

Find another TA. You don't get discount with P&O for BLC it is extra OBC and is nothing to do with TA discount. They are wrong I would book elsewhere. My TA cannot give extra OBC but gives me extra discount to cover BLC discount on top of discount they already give.