Pacific Jewel -review 2 March 2010

[jancy]

Hi All,

 

Here is the latest review you are going to read. 8 nights going around Tassie.

 

Before you read this please bear in mind that this our summary of the cruise compared to 5 other cruise lines we have sailed with. It is our experience only. It is not meant to put people off but just some honest observations.

 

Our stateroom. Deck 9 with a big window. Excellent room with the most storage room we have ever had for 3 of us and an excellent shower. Very quiet and our stateroom attendant Yudi is up there with the best.

 

Bar The worst we have ever experienced. Hard to get service at a table and the staff were generally unhelpful. Did not know their drinks, ran out of the wine we enjoyed on Day 5. You do not get a receipt for your drinks.No haapy hour anywhere. No peanuts or snacks of any kind. We asked for a cocktail one night- the barman did not know it and when we asked for the cocktail menu he said he did not have one! Prices are good with no 15% markup. Twice I had to ask for replacement glasses as they were so dirty and the staff agreed with me.

 

Lifts You will wait fovever!

 

Shops best general shop I have seen. They sell novels, medications, lollies etc very good. The dutyfree shops are ok too.

 

Entertainment Crew You only hear the entertainment director at the big show nights. The pommie guy who hosts Bingo and Celebrity faces is SO rude and condescending. Never encountered anyone like him- Get rid of him P&0!!! I do not want to be called sweetie or luvvie!

The Plantation Buffett What can I say ?????? On dear P&0 how this lets you down.... from the same breakfast menu EVERY morning with no omlette station and today you ran out of mugs. Water dripping from the ceiling into buckets with NO signs on 3 days. Dirty plates. You have to have superman arms to reach the butter and margarine. Sign says raisin bread but it is not toasted. Everything is cold and the toast is half cooked.

Lunch and dinner is slop with the same food with different names each night. It is a bumfight to get a table, then a tray and then the food. What a disgrace. I could go on and on.

Other food Pizza was great - shame you had to pay for it.

 

The Waterfront Restaurant. Oh dear here we go again. We booked each day and were lucky to get a table. We had good company but the staff were so ordinary. We dined for lunch and dinner. First day we ordered a vegetable tortilla and the waiter brought a chicken tortilla. I tried to explain this was the wrong dish and he decided to argue with us to such an extent that the manager came by and apologised to us. I said that was ok and that mistakes happen but please tell them not to argue. The waiter sulked for the rest of the meal he dumped our meals down. I orderd a tortilla and got the omlette instead and just could not be bothered.

 

The next night the waiter dropped all my culterly onto my lap without a word of apology and we orderd a botttle of wine which after the first glass my husband had to get up to pour as they just forgot about us. I asked the waiters about the food- they were sullen, uninformed, stressed and looked like they would rather be anywhere else. Worse dining we have ever experienced. Cocktail night was a sham - forget the whole special night experience and few people dress up let alone the staff and do not expect to see the captain or staff or a bombe alaska....

 

Salt Grill Save up and go every night Truely amazing food and service. cannot speak highly enough. We went on 2 nights.

General comments This will be our first and last exoerience with P&0. Two nights in a row there was a repeat of the comedy show due to insufficent room. Days at sea were so boring except for trivia and Bingo. Went to view Wineglass Bay on deck but they decided on thay day to wash all the lifeboats!!!! Worst tendering experiencing ever at Port Arthur- 1 hour delay from both sides just disgusting. Two nights in a row the highlight was movies in th show room. We quickly ran out of things to do and went to bed by 10.00pm. We have never been so bored on sea days.

 

Will we recoomend P&0 to friends- NO Will we sail P&0 again? NO!

 

Jancy

[Skyrules]

Hi Jancy,

 

We were on this criuse as well - even on Deck 9. Interesting reading your review - in some cases I agree, but in others I think we were on a different cruise :D It goes to show that everyone's cruise experience is different.

 

I've done 9 P&O Crusies to date and I have to say this this cruise was the most different of all of them... I'm not sure whether it was the itinerary or the demographics of the cruise - but it just didn't have the feel of a usual P&O Cruise. Don't get me wrong, we still had a wonderful time, but there was just something a little bit "odd" about it. I'd recommend you try another cruise - maybe on Pacific Dawn, and do one that goes to the Islands or the Queensland Coast and attracts a broader demographic.

 

 

Our stateroom. Deck 9 with a big window. Excellent room with the most storage room we have ever had for 3 of us and an excellent shower. Very quiet and our stateroom attendant Yudi is up there with the best.

 

Yep, wonderful cabin & great cabin service.

 

Bar The worst we have ever experienced. Hard to get service at a table and the staff were generally unhelpful. Did not know their drinks, ran out of the wine we enjoyed on Day 5. You do not get a receipt for your drinks.No haapy hour anywhere. No peanuts or snacks of any kind. We asked for a cocktail one night- the barman did not know it and when we asked for the cocktail menu he said he did not have one! Prices are good with no 15% markup. Twice I had to ask for replacement glasses as they were so dirty and the staff agreed with me.

 

The only bar we had a problem with was Charlie's in the Atrium - they were very slow there, even when it was quiet, it was hard to get their attention, but then again they were often been drowned out by the singers or acrobats or Art Auctions.

 

The other bars were fine. We asked for a drink in Casbah that wasn't available there, and the waitress happily went off to Connexions and got it for us. The girls in the Chocolate Cafe got to the point that they knew when we'd be in for our coffee - and were asking after any of our group that didn't come in.

 

I noticed that they very rarely gave receipts - anywhere on the ship, not just in the bars.

 

Lifts You will wait fovever!

 

We didn't use the lifts much (have to work off the food somehow!) but there were a bit tempremental - at least once the lift went down when I pushed the button to go up. And if I don't hear the phrase "Mind the Door" again I won't be disappointed :D

 

Entertainment Crew You only hear the entertainment director at the big show nights. The pommie guy who hosts Bingo and Celebrity faces is SO rude and condescending. Never encountered anyone like him- Get rid of him P&0!!! I do not want to be called sweetie or luvvie!

Yes, the cruise director was conspicuous by his absence on the cruise wasn't he?? No announcements throughout the day telling us what was happening. He didn't introduce the Circus Show or the Pirates of the Pacific Show.

 

I'm gussing the "pommie guy" you refer to was Alun... He was a bit of an aquired taste. A little bit too much like Julian Clary I think! Ok in small doses but a bit grating after awhile. If the comment he made at the Pop Star final was true - he's come over from Princess, which is somewhat appropriate.

 

The Waterfront Restaurant. Oh dear here we go again. We booked each day and were lucky to get a table. We had good company but the staff were so ordinary. We dined for lunch and dinner. First day we ordered a vegetable tortilla and the waiter brought a chicken tortilla. I tried to explain this was the wrong dish and he decided to argue with us to such an extent that the manager came by and apologised to us. I said that was ok and that mistakes happen but please tell them not to argue. The waiter sulked for the rest of the meal he dumped our meals down. I orderd a tortilla and got the omlette instead and just could not be bothered.

 

The next night the waiter dropped all my culterly onto my lap without a word of apology and we orderd a botttle of wine which after the first glass my husband had to get up to pour as they just forgot about us. I asked the waiters about the food- they were sullen, uninformed, stressed and looked like they would rather be anywhere else. Worse dining we have ever experienced. Cocktail night was a sham - forget the whole special night experience and few people dress up let alone the staff and do not expect to see the captain or staff or a bombe alaska...

 

Your experience in the Waterfront Restaurant seems to be the complete opposite to ours. We booked the same table every night at the same time (except for the nights we went to La Luna and Salt Grill) and had some of the best service that we've ever experieced. If I had to guess - I would say that the staff you encountered might have been former Ocean Village 2 staff. Our waiters had come over from Pacific Dawn and so are used to the full service dining whereas the former Ocean Village staff had only been used to Buffet style dining.

 

One of the unfortunate results of anytime dining is the loss of the tradtional Baked Alaska parade. When P&O did fixed dining it was a regular feature of the second formal night. And on formal/cocktail night - I was suprised on this criuse at the distinct lack of "formality" amongst the passengers on the two cocktail nights. Normally the cruises out of Sydney are much more formal than this.

 

Salt Grill Save up and go every night Truely amazing food and service. cannot speak highly enough. We went on 2 nights.

 

Totally agree - the food was wonderful. If the cruise had been a bit longer we would definetly have gone back for a second dinner there.

 

General comments This will be our first and last exoerience with P&0. Two nights in a row there was a repeat of the comedy show due to insufficent room. Days at sea were so boring except for trivia and Bingo. Went to view Wineglass Bay on deck but they decided on thay day to wash all the lifeboats!!!! Worst tendering experiencing ever at Port Arthur- 1 hour delay from both sides just disgusting. Two nights in a row the highlight was movies in th show room. We quickly ran out of things to do and went to bed by 10.00pm. We have never been so bored on sea days.

 

We didn't have any problems tendeing at Port Arthur - we got our tender ticket to go over and waited only about 1/2 hour - which gave us time to have a coffee while we were waiiting - and we only waited on shore for about 15 mins, and that was late in the day when everyone was coming back to the ship by last tender at 4pm.

 

At Wineglass Bay we were up on the front deck (Deck 10 forward, under the bridge) and had a wonderful view of Bay and surrounds.

 

I couldn't work out why they needed to do 2 performances for each of the Sit Down Comedy Club shows. I laughed when they advertised the second show for the first guy as being "Back By Poplular Demand" before anyone had even seen his first show. Demo did the same show 2 nights in a row "By Popular Demand".

 

The guest entertainers on this cruise were OK, but I've seen better and the Entertainment crew had a very easy cruise; they did one set in Welcome Aboard Show, the Circus show on the second night, Pirates of the Pacific on the 2nd last night and Girt By Sea on the last night. They basically had 5 nights off in the middle of the cruise. Unless I competely missed it they didn't even do the Village People on this cruise.

 

They didn't have much to do for the Island Night, it was very cold up on deck so not many people ventured out. The Country & Western Hoedown was even quieter. We were having dinner at La Luna that night, and the Hoedown as held on the Lido Pool Deck. In the time it took me to walk from La Luna to the toilets near the Pool Bar and back again they'd explained the game, played it and found a winner - all of 5 minutes. There was hardly any one there. Again I think this had a lot to do with the demographic on the cruise.

[Sandielle]

Jancy and Skyrules,

 

I enjoyed reading both your reviews. It just shows how different people's experiences can be. We were very lucky on the Pacific Dawn. All the staff we came across in the dining room were wonderful. They dressed in formal uniforms for cocktail nights - all in black. They looked and acted very smart. Also, most passengers dressed well, and a lot of women dressed up a bit on ordinary nights - so much for laid-back Brisbane, eh? :rolleyes: The exception was a guy on the next table who WORE HIS COWBOY HAT to dinner every night. Couldn't believe it! He also drank beer out of the can and one night drank out of his noodle bowl and dribbled- twice. Sheesh! The six of us at our table were stunned into silence for a while there.:D The waiters refused to let in men in shorts - Perhaps they don't have rules about hats. The man's partner did make him take his hat off about half way during the meal, sometimes.

[yatchet]

jancy and skyrules,

 

i enjoyed reading both your reviews. It just shows how different people's experiences can be. We were very lucky on the pacific dawn. All the staff we came across in the dining room were wonderful. They dressed in formal uniforms for cocktail nights - all in black. They looked and acted very smart. Also, most passengers dressed well, and a lot of women dressed up a bit on ordinary nights - so much for laid-back brisbane, eh? :rolleyes: The exception was a guy on the next table who wore his cowboy hat to dinner every night. Couldn't believe it! He also drank beer out of the can and one night drank out of his noodle bowl and dribbled- twice. Sheesh! The six of us at our table were stunned into silence for a while there.:d the waiters refused to let in men in shorts - perhaps they don't have rules about hats. The man's partner did make him take his hat off about half way during the meal, sometimes.

lol, lol.

[karmac]

I'm gussing the "pommie guy" you refer to was Alun... He was a bit of an aquired taste..

 

Alun was on our Oct cruise and I really liked him and he appeared to be popular with most passengers.

[Australian family]

Hi Jancy

 

That is a shame about your cruise. I remember that you were all so excited about doing that cruise. Obviously they didn't have a vegetarian menu, as you had discovered on the Volendam. The service doesn't seem to be the same as the Volendam.

 

Did you end up booking another cruise with HAL? With haven't booked any future cruises, waiting to see what the Radiance of the Seas is like. Do you remember Ian & Diane and John & Barbara from England, they have not long been on the Brilliance of the Seas and were so impressed with it.

 

Leanne

[cazz0069]

Thanks for the review Jancy...really enjoyable read. It was interesting to see the comparison with the other person on the same cruise. Each had its merits and i suppose some things just effect people differently...thanks again!:)

[karmac]

.... Obviously they didn't have a vegetarian menu, as you had discovered on the Volendam.

 

That's odd:confused:. They've always had a vegatarian menu on the cruises I've been on.

[Australian family]

That's odd:confused:. They've always had a vegatarian menu on the cruises I've been on.

 

Sorry they did have a vegetarian menu on the Volendam.

[sandysu]

Hi Jancy - I'm so sorry I didn't get to meet up with you - I spent that whole day in bed with the worst case of seasickness I've ever had :(. I kept thinking 'I won't go and buy drugs, this usually passes in an hour or so' but it wasn't really until we got into Port Arthur the next day that I felt like a human being again...

 

 

Our stateroom. Deck 9 with a big window. Excellent room with the most storage room we have ever had for 3 of us and an excellent shower. Very quiet and our stateroom attendant Yudi is up there with the best.

 

Agreed - we had a balcony cabin on deck 11. I was seriously impressed with the amount of storage space - even with everything unpacked there were unused drawers. The storage space in the bathroom cabinets was amazingly good, better than on either of the Princess ships we've been on. And, the shower seemed to have been designed so there could have been a bath there - I'm sure the shower cubicle was bigger than the rest of the bathroom!

 

 

Lifts You will wait fovever!

Oh yes, and wasn't the 'Mind the Doors!' even more of a reason to walk!

 

 

 

Entertainment Crew You only hear the entertainment director at the big show nights. The pommie guy who hosts Bingo and Celebrity faces is SO rude and condescending. Never encountered anyone like him- Get rid of him P&0!!! I do not want to be called sweetie or luvvie!

 

General comments This will be our first and last exoerience with P&0. Two nights in a row there was a repeat of the comedy show due to insufficent room. Days at sea were so boring except for trivia and Bingo. Went to view Wineglass Bay on deck but they decided on thay day to wash all the lifeboats!!!! Worst tendering experiencing ever at Port Arthur- 1 hour delay from both sides just disgusting. Two nights in a row the highlight was movies in th show room. We quickly ran out of things to do and went to bed by 10.00pm. We have never been so bored on sea days.

 

 

Hubby and I usually treat a cruise as a time to get away from everything, *including* planned entertainment. We did look at the Pacific Daily every morning to see if there was anything of interest coming up that day, but nothing really appealed. Not a huge surprise though, as I said, we don't usually expect to get involved much in the ship's entertainment.

We got onto a tender quite quickly for the trip to Port Arthur - possibly because we were with a shore tour though. For the trip back we did have to wait about 45 minutes - it would have been a little shorter but the Jewel's tenders had to wait for a local cruise boat to disembark the morning cruise group and load up the next lot.

 

 

 

The Plantation Buffett What can I say ?????? On dear P&0 how this lets you down.... from the same breakfast menu EVERY morning with no omlette station and today you ran out of mugs. Water dripping from the ceiling into buckets with NO signs on 3 days. Dirty plates. You have to have superman arms to reach the butter and margarine. Sign says raisin bread but it is not toasted. Everything is cold and the toast is half cooked.

Lunch and dinner is slop with the same food with different names each night. It is a bumfight to get a table, then a tray and then the food. What a disgrace. I could go on and on.

 

Other food Pizza was great - shame you had to pay for it.

 

The Waterfront Restaurant. Oh dear here we go again. We booked each day and were lucky to get a table. We had good company but the staff were so ordinary. We dined for lunch and dinner. First day we ordered a vegetable tortilla and the waiter brought a chicken tortilla. I tried to explain this was the wrong dish and he decided to argue with us to such an extent that the manager came by and apologised to us. I said that was ok and that mistakes happen but please tell them not to argue. The waiter sulked for the rest of the meal he dumped our meals down. I orderd a tortilla and got the omlette instead and just could not be bothered.

 

The next night the waiter dropped all my culterly onto my lap without a word of apology and we orderd a botttle of wine which after the first glass my husband had to get up to pour as they just forgot about us. I asked the waiters about the food- they were sullen, uninformed, stressed and looked like they would rather be anywhere else. Worse dining we have ever experienced. Cocktail night was a sham - forget the whole special night experience and few people dress up let alone the staff and do not expect to see the captain or staff or a bombe alaska....

 

Salt Grill Save up and go every night Truely amazing food and service. cannot speak highly enough. We went on 2 nights.

 

 

We only went to the Waterfront once - on the first night. Food was nice enough, but it looked like it had been sitting around for a while. The service was ok, but some of the waiters didn't really seem to know what they were doing. There was a huge drama over some accidental charge that had been put onto my card - I thought by the way they were going on that they must have accidentally charged all the drinks in the restaurant to me, but it turned out they'd put someone's $2.50 ginger ale onto my card by mistake. It took three of them almost the whole meal to sort it out.

 

 

 

The rest of the time we ate at the Plantation Buffet - mostly because on holiday we want to eat when we feel like eating without having to plan it all out in advance :) Anyway, I'd have to agree that there were some issues with the buffet:

• The meat dishes in particular, and also the desserts, were nearly always around the standard of food I'd associate with a shopping centre food court - not bad, but not restaurant standard. The fish dishes were generally somewhat better. However, I mostly found the vegetables and salads to be pretty good - which was fine by me since I'd decided to try to stick with mostly veges and salad in a (successful :D) attempt not to gain too much weight on the cruise.
  
• And the plates - I only came across one obviously dirty one, but they were almost *always* wet.
  
• Coffee - we aren't that precious about coffee, but hubby tried the coffee from the vending machines and said it was undrinkable. The Aft cafe did reasonably good coffee though - we became regulars there!
  
• Overall, we were happy enough with the buffet food, as I said, the stuff I mostly wanted to eat was pretty good, and there's also the whole 'someone else cooked it and someone else is going to wash the dishes' thing!
  

We didn't get to the Salt Grill in the end, we just never got around to booking a table. Have heard nothing but good reports of it.

 

 

 

Some other generall impressions / comments:

• Embarkation - I've never had so much trouble finding something as big as a cruise ship :-) We left our car in a carpark near the airport and caught a train into the city. We visit Sydney a few times a year so we aren't complete strangers, but the P&O instructions on getting from the train station to the ship leave you a fair way away from Wharf8 - maybe not far in a car but not so close when you're on foot and dragging a suitcase! - and with no real indication of the best way to get to the ship. We knew which general direction it would be in, but it took a bit of wandering to find the way in even once we saw the ship!
  
• It felt really strange to be on a cruise but not to really leave Australia. :)
  
• I was a little surprised at the demographics of the people cruising. I expected a few non-Australians - maybe there were some, but I didn't come across anyone who wasn't an Aussie. Maybe because it's P&O I also expected a younger crowd, but my impression was that most people on the ship were 50's or older - not a bad thing (I'm 51!), just a bit of a surprise.
  
• Embarking and disembarking - after reading some of the reviews of early Pacific Jewel cruises, eg stories of hordes of people milling around waiting to leave or return to the ship, we were really concerned about this. However, we mostly found it to be really well organised - as long as you followed the instructions about where to meet, when to leave etc, no problems. We were astounded at how quickly and smoothly the final disembarkation went.
  
• We actually really enjoyed ourselves, but as I said, we don't usually get involved all that much in the ship's entertainment, the whole idea of this cruise for us was to laze around and do as little as possible, and we succeeded admirably!
  
• Will I cruise with P&O again - probably not. I've no real desire to cruise the South Pacific, and anywhere else that P&O goes, Princess probably goes too. Nothing about the Pacific Jewel experience made me prefer it over a Princess cruise.
  
• Would I recommend a P&O cruise to other people - maybe. I wouldn't recommend against P&O as a matter of course, but I'd certainly ask the person what they expected from a cruise before I recommended one way or the other.
  

[Skyrules]

Sounds like you had an experience somewhere between Jancy's and ours!

 

We only ate Breakfast and an occasional lunch in the Plantation Buffet - we never went there for dinner. We prefer a bit of service in the evening so we headed off to the either Waterfront, Salt or La Luna for dinner. Personally, if found the Buffet a bit disorganised (not as bad as Pacific Sun's though!)

 

 

Embarkation - I've never had so much trouble finding something as big as a cruise ship :-) We left our car in a carpark near the airport and caught a train into the city. We visit Sydney a few times a year so we aren't complete strangers, but the P&O instructions on getting from the train station to the ship leave you a fair way away from Wharf8 - maybe not far in a car but not so close when you're on foot and dragging a suitcase! - and with no real indication of the best way to get to the ship. We knew which general direction it would be in, but it took a bit of wandering to find the way in even once we saw the ship!

 

We had a similar problem with the ship, and we knew where we were going! We came into Wynyard on the train from the Airport, but there wasn't much in the way of direction from the station to the terminal. I guess with the terminal eventually moving to White Bay - this will become a bigger issue, especially with not a lot of public transport over that way.

 

On embarkation - I do like the new checkin process for Pacific Jewel. Getting the photo embedded in the card at the checking counter makes it much easier gettting on board, and reduces the traffic jam that usually occurs at the top of the gangplank/inside the entry door.

 

It felt really strange to be on a cruise but not to really leave Australia. :)

 

This was our 3rd domestic cruise in a row (following a Qld Coastal in Jan 09 and the relocation of Pacific Sun to Perth in December) but it still felt strange.

 

I was a little surprised at the demographics of the people cruising. I expected a few non-Australians - maybe there were some, but I didn't come across anyone who wasn't an Aussie. Maybe because it's P&O I also expected a younger crowd, but my impression was that most people on the ship were 50's or older - not a bad thing (I'm 51!), just a bit of a surprise.

 

P&O Australia cruises don't normally attract a large number of non-Australian/New Zealand passengers (of course that doesn't include "new Australians"). There was a large group of (ex-pat?) Russians cruising celebrating somenoes 70th birthday and there was another large Italian origin family on board too. The figures the Captain gave for nationalities at the start of the cruise were a bit rubbery for this cruise - that would have been based on passports - but of course not everyone would have used passports for this cruise. I know at least 2 kiwi's on board that wouldn't have been counted in the kiwi total because they used Australian drivers licences as I'd.

 

As for the age demographic - this was probably the "oldest" P&O Australia cruise we've been on. Don't know if it was the itinerary or the timing. But to have on 75 kids onboard is nearly unheard of.

 

Embarking and disembarking - after reading some of the reviews of early Pacific Jewel cruises, eg stories of hordes of people milling around waiting to leave or return to the ship, we were really concerned about this. However, we mostly found it to be really well organised - as long as you followed the instructions about where to meet, when to leave etc, no problems. We were astounded at how quickly and smoothly the final disembarkation went.

 

Like you, we had no problems with embarkation/disembarkation. On the last day we were off the ship 1/2hr before we were supposed to meet in the Marquee (we were in the last disembarkation group) - and it took us 10 mins to get off the ship and out onto the street!. Of course having no customs/quarantine/immigration control helped this.

 

We had no problems with the tenedering in Port Arthur. We walked on and off the ship in Hobart without a problem, and in Burnie & Melbourne we were on shore tours, so of course we had priority disembarkation to ensure we got away on the tours quickly as we had long shore tours on both days.

 

Would I recommend a P&O cruise to other people - maybe. I wouldn't recommend against P&O as a matter of course, but I'd certainly ask the person what they expected from a cruise before I recommended one way or the other.

 

This should be the same for anyone and any cruiseline. The cruise experience isn't solely about the cruise line or the ship - it's also about all the other factors; crew, entertainment, itinerary, and yes - the other passengers too.

 

One thing doing 10 cruises has told me is that EVERY cruise is different - there will always be good and bad aspects.

[Aus Traveller]

Hi Kym,

I have enjoyed reading your very balanced comments. Thank you.

[Skyrules]

Hi Kym,

I have enjoyed reading your very balanced comments. Thank you.

 

Thanks!!