Megabear2

Were they still allowing reservations between 5.30 and 6.30 at the restaurant which you could book for the entire cruise or is it all app based now on Britannia?

I already have copies of the logs as after day 1 I told them I did not trust them and wanted to see their written notes which I photographed on my phone. I also insisted they informed the medical centre of my issues regarding anxiety and stress. This too I have a note of. Every meeting that was booked I took the name of the person who made the meeting, the time I spoke with them and response given. I photographed the list I was shown showing I was number 34 in the queue of complainants. If the person didn't keep the appointment they'd made I insisted a colleague tell me exactly why and recorded it. As you know I worked in the law and with politicians all my working life and as a result I record absolutely everything either manually in a contemporaneous note during a meeting (people really don't like that and get flustered) or asking to have copies of anything I have discussed if they are taking meeting notes within an agreed time frame. I took multiple photographs of the babies in swimming pools and swim up bars, the queues and screenshots of the app being down as well. A large amount of this documentation and photographs were sent, some in support of my email sent while I was onboard. By then I was pretty desperate and genuinely contemplating getting off in Palma. My only regret is I didn't get to photograph the naked man! Obviously minor irritations and small things are something that are soon forgotten. However this time they really did press all the wrong buttons with their attitude and as a result I'm afraid I went into full build an evidence mode. I've never actually made a formal complaint to a cruise line before so it will be interesting to see how they react. On the plus side I did tell them I thought the food and entertainment were excellent!

Wot still no prawns????

There's a whole thread about this already in the general cruise section. Wowzz found out it was happening on Princess and wondered why.

Where did I say it was a weakness, I'm sorry but I can't see anything suggesting that I consider you having a good holiday and not worrying is a weakness. People complaining about card rooms, libraries, ballroom dancing etc have clearly not done their homework and have nothing to complain about either. However I'd beg to differ that for some of these reports I'm reading (not me I wasn't affected) the app being in use across the entire P&O fleet appears to be causing the stress and apart from crowd management on Iona and Arvia it seems a little irrelevant.

Just had my reply from Mr Ludlow's office that my complaint is being investigated and they are sorry I have had need to contact them on the issues both whilst onboard and now from home. Still has Sture on the footer, has he not gone yet?

Everyone has different levels of what they are prepared to accept or tolerate and some just will go along happily as they just want a nice time. Whichever camp you fall into it's going to mean different people having totally different experiences even in the cabin next door. It's unfair to say a person is completely wrong just because a level of service was not in their opinion acceptable. For instance if the app works well for you, you may think it's a lot of fuss about nothing. To the person who can't get a dining reservation it will be totally different.

No raspberry creme brulee anymore sadly. Used to enjoy in the Crow's Nest but cocktails on Britannia and Arvia in there now seem very limited and overwhelmingly gin based.

I doubt they'll get any money back. Even after the shuttle fiasco all we were told was you won't be charged, rather an insult to those on the much vaunted select fare, pay more and see those paying less rewarded for P&O's mess. No doubt you are including me in your repeat complainers comment. Just to be clear this is the first official complaint I've ever made in 50 odd cruises on many lines. I am always honest on my surveys and Feefo forms and generally it's P&O that have contacted me when I've done so. Any compensation etc has never been asked for or expected. Of course you could say my battle over insurance was a "complaint" but personally I call that a discussion on unfair contract terms.

I don't doubt they did. A large number however didn't so probably split fairly evenly. I've no intention of arguing numbers we all have different opinions. When I added my Feefo review many reviews were 1,2 and 3 stars with a scattering of 4+. It's all a question of what an individual experienced. I did notice a fair scattering of complaints about noise and suprisingly the same sort of comments for Iona. Certainly I'm not suggesting everyone had a bad time and I never said that would be the case.

Well my official complaint has now gone off with all my app comments included. Not only did I mention crashes but non functionality. What's the point of linking a diary which only shows excursions, theatre shows and dining booked when they want you to book spa and other appointments which don't show in your diary? The spa in particular doesn't give written appointment slips like they used to and you have to rely on memory to keep a note elsewhere. You can't see them in your diary. The app should in my opinion show you other options available to you without you having to click through 9 or 10 dining/entertainment options to be told no availability - time consuming and fruitless. If I click on Zenith and it's full I'd like it to say Meridian is available or whatever. However as on many occasions nothing appears to be available perhaps they are attempting to hide it! I also think instead of telling me just how many are in the virtual queue it should indicate your wait time is estimated to be between x and y minutes. If the queue closes it should indicate if it is temporary or actually really full. As it stands you're left totally bemused as to what to do next. There are sections saying room service, you can see an example menu but not order. The same with drinks etc. If you want people to rely on this thing it has to offer you everything you may need. There's a message service. All it ever told me was my virtual queue time was up, come in in. I'd like it to remind me, Mrs Megabear you have a dining reservation at Sindhu this evening at x o'clock etc etc. If and when it can offer me this functionality I might be more impressed and happy to use it, especially if it was reliable.

To be truthful I have a lot of sympathy with the OP. It's okay being fairly computer literate but if the app is constantly going wrong as it did on Arvia it becomes messy and difficult. There's also the problem of not a level playing field as people can and do book absolutely everything in advance (including me as I learned from others on here)! This leaves everyone else in the lurch and depending on goodwill onboard which sadly the reception staff on Arvia weren't too keen or were unable to offer. As the OP indicates there were a very large number of disgruntled passengers. Truthfully it's not an age thing, I spoke to many young people often with children who were fed up to the back teeth with the app failing or showing no availability.

And there I was thinking it couldn't get any worse.

Can't speak for Iona but Arvia had four silent discos in the Atrium over two weeks. They started at 10.00pm. No ballroom dancing anywhere, actually the Atrium looked like the only place they could have run it. Interestingly P&O had a tie up with Strictly for a number of years and thesecruises were extremely popular. Before the pandemic scuppered everything a number of these were planned for Iona on seven night cruises. Where Anton and Co would have strutted their stuff is a matter of conjecture, perhaps someone with more knowledge of those plans might tell us. For my part I'd love to see them back but with ports curtailed to 5 or 6 on the larger ships the opportunity to swap in and out the celebrities would seem more difficult to achieve.

My friend in Dallas has a sister who works in the bakery department of a major US supermarket chain and believe it or not because her department has a coffee outlet she's paid by tips not a salary. On the other hand, I have a friend I made in December 1999 who is employed in WDW, he was the barman in the bar of our hotel. We met on his first night of employment and he was working at Disney's lowest grade hotel. Four years later we came across each other again in Disney's Grand Floridian where he was now a senior barman. In that period he'd climbed the ranks, got married, become a father and bought outright a house in Celebration (a WDW township). He was 25 at that date. WDW employed him as salaried with all the benefits accruing like health care but he was allowed to keep his tips and believe it or not those tips over four years had paid for his house. American tipping is complex for visitors from other countries as very few are aware of the position on non waged staff. British and Australian visitors are frequently called mean as neither country tips apart from special service. A lot of the problems visitors encounter are actually caused by travel gurus and holiday companies in the UK extolling the "cheap" costs in the US. Basically the visitor should look at a meal on the menu showing $20 as being $24 plus of course sales tax which doesn't show in an items price upfront eg 4% in New York, 6% in Florida, 7.25% in California, 6.25% Texas or 0% in Oregon or Montana to name a few. Alaska technically has no sales tax but municipalities have a right to levy one, Anchorage however remains free. Confused? https://taxfoundation.org/publications/state-and-local-sales-tax-rates/ https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/17/business/tips-coffee-ice-cream-touch-screens-ctrp/index.html

Sorry, The Ivy is an upmarket London West End restaurant. It's spawned a chain around the UK in recent years but the original tries to retain its exclusivity.

My mother! She always bought the photo package on a cruise, pictures wherever they were taken. At the time I thought she was insane but when she died I inherited them and now love looking at them to recall our happy times and the silly things we did for the photographer.

It's actually 20% in some of the major cities! My BIL was chased on to the street in NY last year as he left 15%. My US friend when in London tipped the guy at The Ivy £100 as he thought £25 each was standard. I nearly fainted at his generosity! Joking apart if you tell an American you don't tip they think you are a mean son of a gun and tell you so without mincing their words. Ironically salaries in a lot of occupations in the leisure industry in the US are now higher than in the UK in a lot of areas but tipping is still very much alive. The US Treasury assumes every worker in certain jobs gets 15-20% tips and they have to prove they didn't.

On my P&O disembarkation Sunday I was given 9.15 to 9.25 disembarkation time and advised to have breakfast at least an hour before 9.15. I had to leave my room by 8.00am so went at 7.45am. Normal service about three quarters of an hour so quicker than previous days. My meeting point was Headliners Theatre deck 7 at 9.05. We went in and were made to walk down to the lower level to sit in rows to wait. We were told there were delays so to wait until released. The okay was given at 9.30 and left the theatre to join a slowly moving queue. This took about 5 minutes and then the queue actually started once off the ship to get to collect luggage. It was very slow. On arrival in the shed I found my luggage very easily as my decks had been released much earlier - I had the later time due to my assistance for queuing etc. There were two exits from the ship which emerged as you entered the building, it worked fairly smoothly. Although I didn't use one trolleys and people helping seemed in good supply. Nowhere near as bad as I'd expected. I was outside at 10.15. However my husband did not turn up until 10.35 as he informed me there were huge queues to get into the terminal area. One thing I did notice was that people were arriving, parking and unloading for the next sailing, and this was at 10.15. One woman complained loudly to a staff member why weren't the recepticles for luggage open and he politely told her that they would still be disembarking people for a while - I had noted a lot of luggage in the areas for higher floors so I'm guessing at least another 45 minutes or so. Although not too bad i agree compared with Cunard far more difficult but then 5,400 or thereabouts compared with 2,400 is quite s difference in bodies to move through. One thing from a conversation while I waited for my husband, by accident I saw the man who'd helped me on boarding and he told me both of the big ships only need one hiccup for mayhem to occur. Hopefully not too often, it seemed slow but organised although those trying to unload for the next sailing were undoubtedly causing problems as there were problems for pick up drivers to find a space to stop on occasion.

Thank you. I've never had one. The first question was confirm you have booked Britannia so I assumed it was ship specific as it referred to areas on Britannia. Mind you I had a real survey about my Arvia cruise too and I haven't seen one of those in several years.

Welcome back. Hope your wife is fully recovered and you had a good cruise in May.

Absolutely none on Arvia. Replaced in Epicurean with broad beans. Plenty of snow peas though.

Bit worried they might want to "upgrade" Britannia, my favourite P&O ship by a mile very interesting questions on this latest one about what experience you'd like... Interesting it asks if you'd do a one to one chat after you return as well. I'm hoping the one on Arvia might elicit one of those.

It's a system blip. It counts your disembarkation day as a day of your holiday for the Limelight Club. Several were caught out on Arvia as they had La Voix coming onboard in Southampton and people thought it was the last night act.

Well I'm clearly of great interest to P&O at the moment! Yesterday I had a real, yes really, survey on how was my cruise, today I'm being asked to Feefo review and minutes ago I just received this. Anyone else been in so much demand recently, or am I just privileged again! I've never seen this latest survey before, is it commonly sent out if you book onboard or generally direct? Quote we're delighted that you have booked a cruise on Britannia and we look forward to welcoming you on board. Our guests are at the heart of every decision we make, and we greatly appreciate the thoughts and ideas that you share with us. In this survey, we are particularly interested in understanding why you decided to book this holiday and what you're looking forward to the most. Please click the link below to provide your feedback and answer our survey: START SURVEY HERE This survey takes 15 minutes to complete on average, and will be open for the next 7 days. Thank you in advance for your participation. Kind regards, http://emails.pocruises.com/files/amf_blueberry_wave/project_514/hh-images/paul-sig.png Paul Ludlow, President, P&O Cruises Unquote