scifimonkey

Not sure if this helps or is relevant but there WERE ipad docks in our alcove on reflection. It was the "old style" apple connector, the wide one, not the current lightning connector.

We used their ipad to play music as ours was the lightning connector.

Suite docks are also the old style connector. Given all the suite class stuff that is going on it would be a small but useful benefit to get them replaced with up to date kit. Oh and while you are at it X what chance an Apple TV device for the TV so that we could make use of Air play.

Looking at the Epicurean menu it looks virtually identical to the XVll menu and the same price as well,

Not sure why it would be a different price as it holds the same relative position in the dining hierarchy. Slightly disappointing if the menu has not been independently thought out though.

We are on the second cruise in March. Hope she is well oiled by then. They charge more for maiden season cruises so there should be no compromises.

 

 

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If the ships not well oiled then it seems to me the best option would be for you to get so. You won' t notice the glitches so much then!:)

Oops sorry before someone corrects me the Britannia maiden is of course in March not April so hopefully the decoration and second fix electrics will be complete before April!!!.

Thanks John

 

Do you know which cabins have sofa bed, as we dont fancy the beds that fold out of the ceiling?

Can't speak for Britannia but both Ventura and Azura have fold out sofa beds in the deluxe balcony cabins.

We are already booked on Britannia for the summer and are slightly surprised that there is not more real photography to be seen rather than CGI's but there is a separate P&O web site that is reasonably enlightening about what the facilities are. Also the ship is similar to royal princess so some of us have researched that for guidance on layout.

Be prepared for narrow balconies and no central staircase which is exercising the bile of one or two people.:eek:

I guess like any form of construction they will still be touching up the paintwork and fixing the light switches right up to the day before the first sailing in April so I doubt if we will get any decent images or feedback until it's maiden voyage.

Even then knowing these boards it will be a hail of doom and gloom over some minor teething problem. In the end we left it until August to hopefully allow the ship and the crew to settle in and I am sure that we will have a great time.:):)

Think it probably depends on what you enjoy most about your cruise and what your girls like. If it's a frenetic action filled day with water slides and climbing walls it may not float your boat but apart from those speciality entertainments that RCI specialise in I suspect that most of the other elements of a cruise you will find are all in place. You may find that P&O and the folk on board treat formal nights more seriously and that may suit you or not. You will find that you are not 'nickel and dimed' as the Americans call it so much on P&O. Drink is slightly cheaper too. Entertainment of the song and dance variety is on a par IMHO and if you choose a larger ship, Ventura, Azura or Britannia, enjoy chilling in the sun and having good food and wine then you might even prefer it. The children's clubs are good and in the school holidays there are loads of children on board so plenty of opportunities to make friends for your daughters. After 10 cruises on the same line I would say that a change of scene might be quite refreshing. We worried when we tried Celebrity after a number of P&O cruises but now would be happy to sail with RCC, P&O or X depending on the itinerary and the calendar. We don't consider any of them as being much ahead of the others overall but they each do some things a bit better and we adapt to suit.

Nb (we are an early 50's couple with a 13 year old son (who actually prefers Celebrity so go figure))

I think your point is quite valid.

When we were on Reflection last October, many of those who were in the Ensemble Lounge for Happy Hour would sit in the chairs right outside Michael's Club and stare at those who were inside. There were regulars in MC who would come in each evening and sit in the area where no one could see them.

I thought I read some where that X was going to glaze the doors and windows so that those in MC wouldn't feel as if they were in a fishbowl.

Never felt like I was in a fish bowl wherever I sat. Frankly I never paid any attention to who was outside the door, I was too busy enjoying my drinks and the conversation of whoever I was with. Having a more limited number of people regularly using the same bar did have the advantage that you got to know most of the others at least to pass the time of day with. Other than that, like most other people on board of what ever cabin persuasion, most of us were just getting on with our vacation without questioning it much.

As for how full it was, it varied. There was seldom no one there when we used it but on occasions it was a quiet haven and on others it was packed. On all occasions it was like being in your local bar where you almost always see someone you know and the barman instantly greets you by name and knows not only your favourite drink for that particular time of day but just how you like it.

Only problem was I occasionally had to get in quick to let him know I was going to have something different or my 'usual' would have been in front of me before I sat down.

Bit rich to compare them to Michelin starred establishments on land however we thought the food in the White Room and Seventeen as well as Sindhu was of a pretty high standard and certainly worth the additional fee compared to the MDR. I always makes me laugh when I see people complaining about the cost of P&O extras as compared to Celebrity which is our other cruise line of choice P&One always seems like tremendous value for food and drink.

I think that the MC concierge has some latitude as we were advised that we could do it on one occasion. It may have been because we had asked the MC concierge to expand a specialist restaurant booking to include another( non suite) couple. She suggested that we might like to invite them to Micheals Club for pre dinner drinks which we thought was a nice touch and the sort of unexpected plus that you would hope that they would come up with from time to time to make your trip that much better. I don't think they would or should make it a regular option however.

Interestingly our dining companions were in a sky suite so it may be that she was using her initiative to show off the benefit to potential CS purchasers in the hope they might upgrade on their next cruise.

If you are on a 7 day cruise then I would say that the MDR is good enough not to require a 4x package in specialities although Silhouette has some good speciality offers. If you are on a 14 day then I would say a 4 day package is a reasonable deal but you might be able to do even better by picking up discounts on board. Have not managed it myself but there are many reports on these boards of getting 50% discounts on both the lawn club grille and on Qsine. You are less likely to get big discounts on Murano which is probably the best traditional restaurant experience on board. Tuscan is also quite traditional and is also quite good but not really to the same standard as Murano IMHO.

Strangely( given that they are the ones which most often attract the discounts) I would recommend the Lawn club Grille and Qsine if you want something a little different and unique to Celebrity. The former has simple but high quality food in a very relaxed environment and the latter has a concept which I have not come across anywhere else and if you are up for a whole new way of presenting food is great fun but may not appeal if you are very traditional about what you want from a restaurant.

In the end it depends on your preferences for restaurant style, food tastes and what you are used to. You will not find the best quality restaurants on any large cruise ship but Silhouette offers pretty good ones and a nice range of quite different options. If I had to have 7 days in the Silhouette MDR however I could happily live with it.

Reservations are not essential but probably sensible if you want to be sure to avoid any kind of wait on select dining. We are generally a bit chaotic on vacation and tend not to decide until quite late in the day what time we are going to eat. Except on the first night we have seldom had much of a wait even if we did not make a reservation.

Have a great cruise iMHO you have picked Celebrity's best ship.

I realise that people like to get everything arranged before they board but when I compare the OP's experience with the 2 minutes at guest relations when I boarded, that it took to upgrade our drinks packages from classic to premium, I would suggest doing it on board. It's counter intuitive but it seems like it's actually less stress than trying to arrange it up front.

Our favourite speciality too. Much more relaxed vibe than any other speciality but the quality of the food is just as good if not ( in the case of steaks) better.

You can have a go yourself if you feel the urge under the expert tuition of a great team of fun staff. Just try to avoid sticking the flat bread dough to the rafters when you toss it.

On Silhouette in October last year the team were one of the best on the ship so much so that we returned on three occasions

My understanding ( and the source was the captain back in October) was that there was no failure as such, just an advice by the manufacturers to run one of the pods at a proportion of full power as they had detected a potential issue in a component in testing. Rather than force the issue and have it potentially fail mid cruise they took the manufacturers advice and made slight adjustments to itineraries when the plan required them to sail at more than 19 knots. The component could not be replaced at sea and so they had to wait for a dry dock. One assumes that the time allocated in dry dock was appropriate to the replacement of the part so unless it did not turn up I cannot see why there should be any worry over whether it has been fixed.

On silhouette last year we were getting speciality restaurant bookings sorted out for within 30 mins of our desired time on the day, let alone a week before and a couple of times they got bookings enlarged for us to accommodate new friends at the table. I will be really surprised if the concierge cannot work something out for you once you are on board, in fact you may find them getting quite put out if you arrange it yourself! I sorted out my drinks package when they had omitted to print it on my seapass by myself and received an anguished response from Anka the Micheals club concierge because I might have wasted a couple of minutes standing in a queue to do it. We also had an almost ongoing battle between the butler and the MC concierge to arrange things for us which was at times quite comical. They are VERY helpful and if it is literally not impossible you will get what you want!

Selbourne, i re-post below my first impressions of the differences between P&O and Celebrity posted a Year or so back before many of the current suite perks came in. Hopefully this will give you some idea if it would suit you. Micheals club is now the suites only bar/ lounge.We have met some wonderful Americans and some obnoxious ones but the same can be said for Brits so I would not worry that it would be too great a culture shock.

2nd time around we were more prepared for some of the negatives and hardly noticed them as I guess we just worked around them. We also had a drinks package so we're less conscious of the ubiquitous service charge and the additional suite perks were another big plus. Currently we have cruises booked with both P&O and Celebrity booked so we do not hold a major preference for either.

We have travelled on Ventura, Azura and Silhouette and had a great time on all of them. IMHO X is not better than P&O but it is different in feel and in what it does well. Whether you like one or other will depend on exactly what you want from your cruise and how easily you can adapt to the differences.

ship/finish/design - slight win for X mostly down to the atrium and associated spaces and a bit on cabin finish. Only negative on X cabins is a lack of tea and coffee making facilities but maybe that's just us being typically 'British'.

Service - another slight win for X maybe this is due to the compulsory 15%service charge on everything or maybe it is training? That is not to say the service on P&O is in any way poor it is just exceptional on X.

MDR - big win for P&O, better atmosphere, less compressed tables and more effort made on formal and theme nights. Cheese board available every night. The food quality we have found more or less the same.

specialist restaurants - slight win for X but only because the choice is wider.

Entertainment - big win for P&O both in the main theatre and around the ship. For us the specialist club type venues on Ventura and Azura are far better than musicians haphazardly stuck in odd corners of bars however good the actual musicians actually are. Silhouettes club lounge was almost always half empty on our cruise relegated to karaoke. It seems that for US cruisers the draw of the casino and the martini bar is much greater than a secondary show and the ship is set up to cater for that taste.

Bars - win for X in terms of quality and variety the martini bar the molecular bar and Michaels Club are all excellent. We loved Metropolis and Planet but they cannot compete other than for entertainment.

Formal nights on P&O seemed better to us with greater participation and more of a special evening feel. (Though this will not attract if you would rather travel casual, this seems much easier to do without feeling like you are compromised for choice on formal evenings.)

Ports - P&O score for free port transfers but X seem to consistently have longer in port and most cruises have less sea days (though that is based on the number of UK departures which enforce a couple of days lead in and sail out to virtually anywhere.) so a draw for us here. P&O excursions also seemed to be significantly cheaper. Probably why the main topic of conversation on X roll calls is private excursions.

On board spend - for us at least it has been much lower on P&O as the drinks prices are cheaper even before you factor in X's compulsory 15% gratuity on everything. It shows up big time on bottles of wine where a huge number of good quality wines can be obtained for under £25 on P&O whereas you would do well to find anything under £25 on X and then there is 15% on top of that. 14 bottles of wine and it adds up. On top of this P&O allow bring your own. X will confiscate and there are no exceptions.

Generally we felt that X exploited every opportunity to fleece the flock whereas if P&O were doing the same it was slightly less obvious.

Fellow travellers - this is really subjective however being in a minority on X led to a more interesting range of conversations and views and a fair degree of cross cultural amusement compared to P&O where Welsh and Scottish were about as cosmopolitan as it got and Irish was positively exotic. I for one wish that P&O marketing were a bit more international. On the other hand P&O's policy of always offering a shared table on select dining led to some really interesting dinners compared to X's policy of seating you as a family only. Ideally being offered the choice would be best so you could choose according to your mood.

We have future cruises booked with both X and P&O based primarily on itinerary and am sure we will enjoy both equally but for different reasons. In so far as both have their irritations you just adjust to suit! I would hate to think that anyone passed up a chance to try either on the back of this post as unless you are intent on building elite status in one or the other I would urge people to try both.

Last edited by scifimonkey; March 30th, 2014 at 01:39 PM.

Apologies if this is a bit off post but I thought it might be helpful to the OP..

We've purchased 3 pieces from the auctions at the end of 3 of our cruises.

They are all beautiful, large, contemporary pieces that were wrapped carefully so we could transport them home. (Once was from Australia with 2 connecting flights.)

Below are 2 of them. The picture is deceiving - they're about 18 inches tall each.

Thanks for the pictures Karen, not a flute or animal in sight, fabulous, am much more enthusiastic now despite the loss of my steak!:)

We have sailed on the Silouhette and the Equinox and prefer the Equinox because of the Hot Glass Show. I go early to talk to the artists and stay late to look at their art. Since I do most of the cooking at home, I have no interest in The Lawn Club Grill. I'm on vacation.

You do not have to cook your own, you are invited to if you wish!!!

I would not dream of it as I am quite capable of burning a boiled egg, but my son made our flat bread starter under the helpful and watchful tuition of the staff and thoroughly enjoyed himself. (it actually turned out pretty well).

Otherwise its like any other restaurant but in this particular case the enjoyment comes from the quality of the food delivered in a very informal environment by what IMHO on our last cruise on Silhouette was the best team of people on the ship. I have also had better steaks in the Lawn Club grille than anywhere else on Silhouette.

I look forward to the Glass Show after all the positive reviews on this post but I will definitely miss the Lawn Club grille.

Well clearly on the balance of views expressed here it will be a worthwhile experience at least for this first time. I am sure that they are very talented folk just from the responses here but what is the nature of the art they create? is it contemporary in line with the Modern luxury branding or is it the traditional glass animals and fluted vases in line with much of the art work ( and all of the framing) sold on board.

I come from a visual arts background and therefore may well appreciate and even purchase contemporary peices, especially as we are out of Southampton this time so shipping is less of an issue, however if it is very trad I will appreciate the craftsmanship but happily donate any windfall to cruisestitch.

I am not expecting any super duper over the top meals here, I expect they will look pretty, will taste good (as I feel MDR meals already do), will be prepared to correct doneness (as opposed to MDR where it's luck of the draw on this part) will claim to be local fare (how does that work on a repo or TA?

I suppose that on a TA you will get a lot of fish..............!:)

We have had 2 cruises on Silhouette and have just booked one on Eclipse. Can someone explain the attraction of the glass blowing show to me as having loved the Lawn Club Grille I am already suffering withdrawal symptoms and I haven't even set foot on the Eclipse cruise yet.

I don't get why, whilst they are installing the suites only restaurants and other adjustments on all of the S Class ships, they do not convert those with the show to incorporate the additional specialist restaurant. Is the glass blowing show just a 1/2 hour of marginal interest entertainment and thereafter of little benefit or am I doing it a great injustice?

I am also on Britannia this summer in a suite so was interested to read the earlier part of this exchange. We have always enjoyed P&O in the past although not in suites and are looking forward to it greatly. Britannia looks like it will be an amazing ship.

I have to say that the range of perks associated with a suite do seem to pale compared to those offered on Celebrity who also sail from Southampton and with whom we have sailed in suites for the last two years. I'm sure that we will have a great time on Britannia however I wonder whether breakfast in Epicurian will compete with a separate suite restaurant, a separate bar with complementary drinks, snacks and entertainment, priority seating in the theatre and two fee free speciality restaurant bookings as well as the butler and priority boarding/ tendering that is common to both lines. Celebrity also offer a temporary upgrade to elite loyalty status for the extent of the cruise for suite guests with all the perks associated with that as well ( inc laundry, Internet, retail discounts etc).

I think comparing prices it is clearly a bit more expensive (Celebrity suite on an S class seems to be the equivalent size to Britannia's suites) but it is not as expensive and some of the other exclusive lines mentioned elsewhere in this post so it will be interesting to see if these extra perks seem worth the extra cost when we have had the P&O suites experience.

Maybe P&O might consider upping the suite offer a bit?

Someone needs to tackle the antique laws and regulations and start making a distinction between cruise passengers and coastal trade. It seems to me that there are many thousands of euros, pounds and yen that are being lost to west coast ports and U.S. cruise companies by not having a serious 14 day west coast option that does not include a heap of sea days to get to Hawaii. Thank god the EU does not have the same rules in the Med.

Cannot help but think myself very lucky to enjoy most forms of music given the pain and anguish apparently caused to some in this post. I have always thought that the set piece entertainment on Celebrity was not one of its strong points, others seem to do the big shows better;but where I have always found them to be very good is in the range and variety of small groups and individual musicians dotted around the bars of the ship. (Many of them deserved a bigger and better stage) from jazz groups to pop groups to classical guitar and a DJ.

X do not seem to cater to the extremes and as yet I have not experienced either individual opera performances or rap on board but would welcome either as part of a rich mix. They have set their stall out to attract a wide range of age groups and the music needs to reflect that same broad range. On the admittedly rare occasions that I didn't like what was on offer in any particular bar on any particular night then at least I can be comforted in the knowledge that there are another 5 or 6 great places to relocate to on board all with a great atmosphere, great staff and unless you are quite unlucky some really nice people to get to know.

I guess if you want your favourite drink, with your favourite music in a location tailored to your exact tastes then your best option is to stay at home!

Most are great...

Probably would avoid Turkey at this time. Not very pro-American government, although most people are nice.

But they love everyone with money to spend! Particularly dollars! I would not be concerned, the people are great whatever their government might say.