Britannia now (9th October cruise) ask me anything

[brian1]

2 hours ago, Yorkshirewanderers said:

Was a reason given for not docking in Livorno given that other ships are going into Italy from France, Spain and others?

An educated guess is that these are all EU Schengen countries and act together as one.Italy does require a PLF and double jab cert but I have never been asked for anything at the Swiss/Italian land border and Lamezia airport 3 days ago.All a bit farcical.

[crusingdan]

3 hours ago, Shipsareus said:

Hi there

others have reported that there is now a £2-50 charge for breakfast delivered by room service, although I can’t see that change on the website. Is that the case now?

Does the buffet flow well now that it is all served by crew?

Hope you are having a great time.

So from how I read the menu through the MyHoliday website onboard it does appear that there is a £2.50 on all room service. So both free breakfast items and anything else throughout the day and evening. I might be wrong but it does read that way. I’ve attached screenshots.

 

In terms of the buffet, it is back to serve yourself which was different as we did MSC Virtuosa on 20th May and Regal Princess on 28th August which were crew serving you. But it works well and when we’ve been there’s plenty of seats available and not many queues. Although we’ve stuck to the main dining room for lunch and dinner.

 

Went to Limelight last night, Gareth Gates is on in there until Thursday and Toyah Willcox for the remainder of the cruise.

 

Gareth said he was on for the next two weeks so I guess he may be on in the Limelight again for the first week of the next cruise on 22nd October.

 

[davecttr]

3 hours ago, GOQ said:

A weird thing happened with my onboard "return to home LFT" on my cruise last month. We were required to logon to the Chronomics website to register our test where it recorded the time of the test, then do the test, wait 15 minutes and upload a photo of the test cassette to the website. It then confirmed the result and issued a certificate.

 

All went well, the result was negative and I threw the used cassette in my luggage. However on arriving home, after I had received the same negative test result from my day 2 PCR test, I was about to throw the used “onboard return to home LFT” cassette away when I noticed a faint line against the positive marker.

 

Now the faint positive line wasn’t on the cassette 30 minutes after doing the test and my PCR tests at home were also negative. How reliable are these LF tests for false positives?

 

The same happened to me more than once. I checked online and don't worry about it, the test is only valid if the result is checked at the stated delay.

[Shipsareus]

15 hours ago, crusingdan said:

We’re on Britannia now for the second international cruise.

 

Ask me anything you want to know.

Thanks for response re dining and room service.

 

Do you have to book all entertainment on the app? Theatre, Limelight club etc? 

[crusingdan]

4 hours ago, Shipsareus said:

Thanks for response re dining and room service.

 

Do you have to book all entertainment on the app? Theatre, Limelight club etc? 

Entertainment can be booked 28 days before the cruise through My Planner on the P&O website.

 

Speciality dining is through the MyHoliday website onboard. Also for main dining room you join a virtual queue through MyHoliday or you can go to the restaurant and get a buzzer. The only times you can book a table are between 6-6:15pm.
 

There’s a traffic light system where they say 6-7pm they’ll aim to seat you within 30 minutes, 7-8pm is within 60 minutes and 8-9:30pm within 90 minutes.

 

The longest we’ve waited was about 45 minutes for a table of 2 and we joined the virtual queue around 6:45/7pm ish.

 

They operate virtual queue for the Glass House at all times but I’ve never seen more than ‘2 guests waiting’ on the website and also it’s in place for the Peninsular dining room at lunch.

[Malcolm142]

Entertainment can only pre booked less than 15 days from departure date not 28

[Shipsareus]

10 minutes ago, crusingdan said:

Entertainment can be booked 28 days before the cruise through My Planner on the P&O website.

 

Speciality dining is through the MyHoliday website onboard. Also for main dining room you join a virtual queue through MyHoliday or you can go to the restaurant and get a buzzer. The only times you can book a table are between 6-6:15pm.
 

There’s a traffic light system where they say 6-7pm they’ll aim to seat you within 30 minutes, 7-8pm is within 60 minutes and 8-9:30pm within 90 minutes.

 

The longest we’ve waited was about 45 minutes for a table of 2 and we joined the virtual queue around 6:45/7pm ish.

 

They operate virtual queue for the Glass House at all times but I’ve never seen more than ‘2 guests waiting’ on the website and also it’s in place for the Peninsular dining room at lunch.

Just checked and we can book entertainment on 22 October ( for 6 November departure) . Wondering how easy it is to fit dining in around the pre chosen times for entertainment. I’ve got visions of carrying my dessert into the theatre 😱 if we haven’t managed to get a table. 

So grateful for all this first hand information.

[crusingdan]

10 minutes ago, Malcolm142 said:

Entertainment can only pre booked less than 15 days from departure date not 28

Sorry that is right, my mistake

[Mrk2868]

Change of subject.  Are the laundrettes open on Britannia?  Is washing powder provided?

[Baggy178]

2 hours ago, Mrk2868 said:

Change of subject.  Are the laundrettes open on Britannia?  Is washing powder provided?

The missus is keen to know this too.

But my query is altogether more important - do you know what beers are on draught in Brodie's Bar ?🤪

[crusingdan]

2 hours ago, Mrk2868 said:

Change of subject.  Are the laundrettes open on Britannia?  Is washing powder provided?

We went on a search today, however it appears the laundrettes are in the isolation corridors on the decks, so I don’t think they are.

 

We do need to do some laundry at some point so when we find out for certain I’ll report back.

[Son of Anarchy]

Never seen washing powder provided in the on board launderettes.  There is usually some for sale in the onboard shop, at an inflated price!  We always take our own.

[crusingdan]

29 minutes ago, Baggy178 said:

The missus is keen to know this too.

But my query is altogether more important - do you know what beers are on draught in Brodie's Bar ?🤪

So after a trip to Brodie’s for research purposes of course they have Stella, Peroni, John Smith’s and Fosters. Also Adnam’s Ghost Ship and Batemans.

[brian1]

17 minutes ago, crusingdan said:

So after a trip to Brodie’s for research purposes of course they have Stella, Peroni, John Smith’s and Fosters. Also Adnam’s Ghost Ship and Batemans.

Stella for me,draught Peroni too gassy for my liking.Bottled Peroni I do like.

[terrierjohn]

55 minutes ago, crusingdan said:

We went on a search today, however it appears the laundrettes are in the isolation corridors on the decks, so I don’t think they are.

 

We do need to do some laundry at some point so when we find out for certain I’ll report back.

Surely not all the launderettes are in quarantine zones?

[silkworms]

We are also on board, enjoyed the Limelight last night and have booked again for next week Toyah Wilcox.

 

The Buffet is now self serve again. The Epicurian is as good as ever.

Just back from the Baltic lunch, no officers on tables, Captain made

a welcome back speech.  Food OK.

 

Worst thing for me (thank goodness I made a note from Bestguessed)

the wifi system will not recognise iCloud.  So no emails sent or received.

This is our first time on Britannia, has it always been like this.? Anyhow,

big disappointment and have actually written to IT manager on board to

complain.

 

Terri

[crusingdan]

10 minutes ago, silkworms said:

We are also on board, enjoyed the Limelight last night and have booked again for next week Toyah Wilcox.

 

The Buffet is now self serve again. The Epicurian is as good as ever.

Just back from the Baltic lunch, no officers on tables, Captain made

a welcome back speech.  Food OK.

 

Worst thing for me (thank goodness I made a note from Bestguessed)

the wifi system will not recognise iCloud.  So no emails sent or received.

This is our first time on Britannia, has it always been like this.? Anyhow,

big disappointment and have actually written to IT manager on board to

complain.

 

Terri

Yeah my emails through iCloud are not working either until we’re on 4G in port.

 

My partner has Hotmail and that’s working fine.

[terrierjohn]

2 minutes ago, crusingdan said:

Yeah my emails through iCloud are not working either until we’re on 4G in port.

 

My partner has Hotmail and that’s working fine.

There is thread on here that gave aworkround to make iCloud emails work, maybe someone knows where it is?

[crusingdan]

17 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

There is thread on here that gave aworkround to make iCloud emails work, maybe someone knows where it is?

Thanks terrierjohn, just found it on page 3, it appears if you access the website - www.iCloud.com/mail then it works.

 

Just caught up on my 5 emails that were in there!

[Baggy178]

Did you try the Adnams or Batemans and was it in good nick ?

 

[crusingdan]

13 minutes ago, Baggy178 said:

Did you try the Adnams or Batemans and was it in good nick ?

 

Unfortunately not much of a beer drinker really, had a few coronas today but that’s as far as my beer experience goes to!

[crusingdan]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Surely not all the launderettes are in quarantine zones?

So I’ve checked every cabin deck and that corridor is closed on all of them. 

 

You can kind of see the doors that are closed on the deck plans, it’s all cabins in mid-aft up to the aft stairs that are closed off. Cabins 601-631 on all decks.

[Mrk2868]

39 minutes ago, crusingdan said:

So I’ve checked every cabin deck and that corridor is closed on all of them. 

 

You can kind of see the doors that are closed on the deck plans, it’s all cabins in mid-aft up to the aft stairs that are closed off. Cabins 601-631 on all decks.

That is really bad as it means the only stairs one can use will be right at the Bow of the ship and it will make the situation with the midships lifts being overcrowded even worse.  Never mind no laundrettes!  Plus no easy access to the Oriental MDR.

[crusingdan]

28 minutes ago, Mrk2868 said:

That is really bad as it means the only stairs one can use will be right at the Bow of the ship and it will make the situation with the midships lifts being overcrowded even worse.  Never mind no laundrettes!  Plus no easy access to the Oriental MDR.

Sorry if I’ve confused you, the aft stairwells and lifts are open and the cabins right at the aft are accessible, it’s just the corridors from cabins 601-631 that are closed on each deck, which is also where the laundrettes are.

 

The Oriental restaurant is currently not in use. I read on another thread that this is being used for crew as an additional restaurant for social distancing.

[terrierjohn]

4 hours ago, crusingdan said:

So I’ve checked every cabin deck and that corridor is closed on all of them. 

 

You can kind of see the doors that are closed on the deck plans, it’s all cabins in mid-aft up to the aft stairs that are closed off. Cabins 601-631 on all decks.

Now that is interesting, after having our last cruise on Britannia cancelled because our accessible cabin had been placed in a new quarantine area, I had asked  executive correspondence to confirm that our 4 future cruises would not suffer the same fate, and they confirmed this was the case.  Now I find that cabin 12623 on Iona, one of the four, is currently in a quarantine zone.

However the launderettes all seem to be situated just forward of the mid ship lift foyer, so should not be affected by the cabin closures, unless the deck plans are wrong.

Edited October 13, 2021 by terrierjohn