What an amazing ship

[vicky2015]

We went on the Britannia and I can't fault it at all I loved the shows, food, theatre, pool, loads of sun bed, friendly staff all amazing will be hopefully booking Britannia again for next year

[CCFC]

Where did you go?

[vicky2015]

Went to the med for 2 weeks

[BarnhamDave]

Went to the med for 2 weeks

 

Wow a postive review gosh some people do enjoy cruising.

[vicky2015]

Wow a postive review gosh some people do enjoy cruising.

 

 

Yes I do like cruising so have you been on the Britannia then? Not everyone has complaints about it

[BarnhamDave]

Yes I do like cruising so have you been on the Britannia then? Not everyone has complaints about it

 

No booked for next March.auroa next month.Have done over 20 cruises on most lines stil come back to po.My point is cruiseing is afantastic way to see the world and holiday,always enjoy and find little to moan about why spoil your holiday have another drink.

[vicky2015]

Exactly there were a fair amount complaining what get me they knew it was a big ship they knew its was an out door pool things like that like you say have another drink and enjoy visiting all the different places

[P&O SUE]

Good to hear a positive review. How did the ship handle choppy waters? (If you had any!) And how did you find the dreaded lift situation I keep reading about?

[BarnhamDave]

Good to hear a positive review. How did the ship handle choppy waters? (If you had any!) And how did you find the dreaded lift situation I keep reading about?

 

As my wife always tells me, whilst we are fit enough to use the stairs we should do so (good exercise to try and work off some of those extra calories consumed!) and leave the lifts to those who need them. I understand the layout is the same as the Royal Princess so presumably this has been an issue on there too??

[pete14]

Good to hear a positive review. How did the ship handle choppy waters? (If you had any!) And how did you find the dreaded lift situation I keep reading about?

 

I agree with the positivity on this thread with the exception of the lifts. It is easy to use stairs fore and aft where there are some, but not mid ships as there are none in use.

 

On the maiden we did not have rough seas but through B of B movement would probably have been more noticeable on a smaller ship and the swell that affected tendering in Monte Carlo had no affect on the ship.

[Esprit]

Only 77 days until we board Britannia and sail with P&O after a long absence.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback.

 

I did some research beforehand and as result booked an aft cabin near the stairs and three floors below the Buffet restaurant. It amases me why people happily spend thousands on a cruise with little or no knowledge of the ship they are boarding. A 10 minute look on Cruise Critics at the Royal & Regal Princess reviews would have been enough to highlight the supposed niggles on their younger sibling!

[adeck]

My wife and I were on this cruise as well and we think the lifts were a problem especially for the disabled with wheel chairs. It was quite common for them to wait for up to half an hour to get a lift. The lifts when they came were smaller than on other P & O ships and at busy times were very often full when they arrived. I think there should have been a separate lift for wheel chair users.

Apart from the lifts the ship was wonderful and we will be going on her again.

[adeck]

My wife and I booked this tour before we set sail and we were very disappointed as we expected a panoramic tour as the heading suggests. We spent the first 2½ hours of the 3½ hour tour visiting city museums and a visit to a beach bar, which was just around the corner from the ship. After this we spent the rest of the time touring the outskirts of Alicante and a neighbouring town and returning to the ship. However we did spend about 5 minutes on the coast road between the two towns. We thought we were on the wrong coach because this was definitely not a panoramic tour. The tour should have been called ‘Tour of City Museums’. As a panoramic tour this was a waste of time and money.

However we would add that all the other P & O tours we went on were excellent.

[shallwe]

My wife and I booked this tour before we set sail and we were very disappointed as we expected a panoramic tour as the heading suggests. We spent the first 2½ hours of the 3½ hour tour visiting city museums and a visit to a beach bar, which was just around the corner from the ship. After this we spent the rest of the time touring the outskirts of Alicante and a neighbouring town and returning to the ship. However we did spend about 5 minutes on the coast road between the two towns. We thought we were on the wrong coach because this was definitely not a panoramic tour. The tour should have been called ‘Tour of City Museums’. As a panoramic tour this was a waste of time and money.

However we would add that all the other P & O tours we went on were excellent.

 

Wrong thread!

[Presto2]

Only 77 days until we board Britannia and sail with P&O after a long absence.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback.

 

I did some research beforehand and as result booked an aft cabin near the stairs and three floors below the Buffet restaurant. It amases me why people happily spend thousands on a cruise with little or no knowledge of the ship they are boarding. A 10 minute look on Cruise Critics at the Royal & Regal Princess reviews would have been enough to highlight the supposed niggles on their younger sibling!

 

Totally agree - great to read something positive. Thanks Vicky!

 

We too do our homework and went on to the Princess forum before we booked to ask CC members over there their advice. Have to say, am only now aware about the lifts, but thankfully we are more than capable of taking the stairs so will leave the lifts to those that need them.

[kevinyork]

My wife and I were on this cruise as well and we think the lifts were a problem especially for the disabled with wheel chairs. It was quite common for them to wait for up to half an hour to get a lift. The lifts when they came were smaller than on other P & O ships and at busy times were very often full when they arrived. I think there should have been a separate lift for wheel chair users.

 

Apart from the lifts the ship was wonderful and we will be going on her again.

 

 

I agree. We would book another Britannia cruise but the wait for lifts (with two wheelchair bound Mums) was awful. They knew that Royal Princess had received bad feedback due to the lift issue yet did nothing during the build to change it. The lifts will become the main issue in ALL reviews of Britannia.

 

 

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[vicky2015]

my mum has a stick so needed a lift and we didn't find it that much of an issue but some people could walk and don't, that would leave space for wheel chairs and people don't move up for a wheel chair.

if they had a lift for wheel chairs only it will just single them out and I think it could cause an issue and your not gonna get it being used properly and 3 less lifts for the ship.

[terrierjohn]

my mum has a stick so needed a lift and we didn't find it that much of an issue but some people could walk and don't, that would leave space for wheel chairs and people don't move up for a wheel chair.

if they had a lift for wheel chairs only it will just single them out and I think it could cause an issue and your not gonna get it being used properly and 3 less lifts for the ship.

We noticed this quite a lot more on this Britannia cruise than usual, I suspect it is because Britannia's lifts are smaller than Azura/Ventura's, its funny to watch people flatten themselves against the back of the lift in a row but they never seem to think about moving to the sides.

Walking instead is an option fore & aft but with no midship stairs lifts are the only option there.

However I do believe there are kinks in the software programming which are contributing to the waiting times and P&O/Carnival need to address this problem.

[David Owl]

I have to admit that I checked out the deck plan but assumed that where there were lifts there would also be stairs.

 

However, I would have expected that any able bodied passenger waiting for a lift should have the decency to give up their place for someone in a wheelchair.

[P&O SUE]

I agree with the positivity on this thread with the exception of the lifts. It is easy to use stairs fore and aft where there are some, but not mid ships as there are none in use.

 

On the maiden we did not have rough seas but through B of B movement would probably have been more noticeable on a smaller ship and the swell that affected tendering in Monte Carlo had no affect on the ship.

 

Thanks for that Pete :)

[Josy1953]

my mum has a stick so needed a lift and we didn't find it that much of an issue but some people could walk and don't, that would leave space for wheel chairs and people don't move up for a wheel chair.

if they had a lift for wheel chairs only it will just single them out and I think it could cause an issue and your not gonna get it being used properly and 3 less lifts for the ship.

 

I agree that some people can and should walk up the stairs, but how do you decide who these people are ? When we were on Britannia we invariably walked down but because of a serious heart condition that my (fit and healthy looking) husband has we had to take the lift if we were going up more than 2 or 3 decks. His heart condition is so serious that he is not allowed to fly because the cabin pressure affects him badly so we are stuck (lol) with cruising.

 

There are too many people on this forum who jump to the conclusion that if you don't have a wheelchair or stick then you are fit enough take the stairs all of the time. We need to accept that we don't know everyone's health status and trust that the only people uing the lifts are doing so because they have no choice.

 

Just because someone looks fit and healthy does not mean that they are able to walk up the stairs.

[kevinyork]

I agree with the positivity on this thread with the exception of the lifts. It is easy to use stairs fore and aft where there are some, but not mid ships as there are none in use.

 

 

 

I dont agree. Britannia is a very big ship. We were on deck 8 midships. If we wanted to go to dinner on deck 5 midships we couldnt walk to the fore lifts/stairs, come down 3 levels then walk back to the area directly below our cabins to the restaurant, every night. That would be if it was just us two but on our cruise we had two wheelchair bound Mums too. In any case whilst anthing is a possibility, should we have to go out of our way just to travel around the ship? If they had designed it better we wouldnt be talking about it as an issue. Weve been on Eclipse several times and never had to let a lift go as it was full.

 

There are four issues which together combine to make a bigger problem:

 

No midships stairs above deck 7

 

Lifts too small

 

Lifts not working

 

Lifts not coordinated ( you had to press three buttons to call all lifts midships). All sections were on their own programming working independantly.

 

Ive just looked over on another cruise review site and from a quick look through the reviews since launch I would say 2 out of every 3 reviews criticises the lifts. They are not being negative, just realistic about the impracticalities of the lifts.

 

 

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[scifimonkey]

The problem they will have is that installing new or larger lifts at this stage is a huge deal. The best they are likely to be able to do outside of a major refit which is highly unlikely for at least 10years is find a way of opening up the centre stairs which as far as I know has not been done on the princess ships which received similar criticism so it is likely there is a crew circulation, security or fire reason preventing it.

Improving the the maintenance regime on the lifts that they have may help but if one or more of the lifts that has been installed is a 'lemon' it is unlikely to be sorted until the first dry dock which again is unlikely to be for some time.

Only other option might be changing the software to destination control with a single call button which is usually more efficient at managing the lifts but for those unused to big London office buildings, having no call buttons in the lifts might cause panic and confusion amongst the guests. It is also no small deal and I doubt if it could be done outside of dry dock.

Hope the maintenance issues are just teething problems and can be resolved during the early cruises, as it seems like this is about all that can be sorted in the short term.

We have always preferred a central cabin location and had assumed that in acknowledging the previous issues raised with the princess ships the one thing that they would have done would have been to get the lifting right to compensate, clearly unless it is down to lifts being out of action they have not learned the lessons of the earlier ships. Am bracing myself for some long walks.

[sapphire4]

Yes I agree I loved the ship. Its modern boutique style appealed to us. Being able bodied we were able to use the stairs alike there were a huge amount of people on board and there was a lot of walking involved. We had an aft cabin and were thrilled with what we got. We did think people were struggling with the lifts and the odd occasion we used them they did shoot off in the opposite direction taking ages to get to the required deck. This does need addressing. However, we liked the flow of the ship.The stairs/lifts either end allowed a walk way through the centre of the ship.It never felt overcrowded.

[davecttr]

Hopefully the lifts will be no problem for me as my cabin is on Lido deck and basically i will travelling between there and decks 7/6/5. If the lifts are working, no way i could walk 8 decks :eek: