First P&O Sailing - Is it usually like this?

[BouncingWheel]

32 minutes ago, Cathygh said:

That is reassuring to know that things are better on board.

 

I'm glad to reassure. We too were so apprehensive about it because of all the problems pre-boarding we had that we were worried about all possible IT issues screwing up the holiday and spending so long at the reception fixing things.

However, we were presently surprised and I am sure you will find others thinking the same if you search the princess boards from last summer.

Maybe it is an expectation setting thing. Set the bar low with the onboard IT process to make it easier to impress with the onboard medallion technology though I guess I may have ruined that now😁.

 

 

[terrierjohn]

8 hours ago, bbtablet said:

In the staffroom at College we always used to say teaching would be a great job if it wasn't for the students.

You can always think that, but you should never let the students feel it, and certainly not the passengers if you are in customer service.

[Host Sharon]

On 4/17/2022 at 9:14 PM, jeanlyon said:

Moley, I haven't sailed since 2019 and even then on Aurora, I noticed a change in service.  Not much, but it was there.  Things had changed and not for the better.  Sign of the times I think.

Having just come back from Aurora I can confirm that the level of crew service was excellent and no different from what it has been in the past.

[paulatsea]

Never tick the upgrade box unless you don’t mind where you are located.

It’s important to be away from noise above or below venues etc so we always  book select and carefully choose our cabin and never tick upgrade.

I always book direct and never through an agent as p&o won’t normally deal with you prior to the cruise if you use an agent.

(However there are some who have excellent agents who they know well)

 

the last cruise we had with p&o was on Iona last year - check in etc was ok and fairly fast.

 

we couldn’t choose a cabin as it was saver fares only but you could specify a preference - we asked for forward and we’re given one at the back ! So totally useless in that respect and obviously no one bothered to check our preferences. When I phoned they gave me the usual “it’s an upgrade” rubbish.

 

service was ok but I did feel that our cabin steward was rushed and didn’t have enough time.

 No turn down service which we missed.

service in the bars and restaurants was good - but the seating in the mdr was really cramped and way to close to other people.

 

we prefer smaller ships and didn’t like the layout of Iona at all - but we had a nice holiday anyway and it was good to see what the new ship was like.

 

We went on Marella adults only Explorer 2 after the Iona cruise later last year and the service was fantastic and lots of room between tables etc.

Standard of food in the MDR was not as good as p&o but overall the experience and service was better and it was all inclusive.

 

I wouldn’t let one bad experience put you off completely - we had a terrible first p&o cruise years ago - but tried again a few years later and it was much better.

 

I would complain formally though if I had your experience.

 

sorry it was a disappointing holiday - better luck next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[paulatsea]

Just to add - I would have complained  immediately to the MD if the service in the restaurant was bad and asked to be moved to a different table / waiters . Same for the bars.

 

 

[Bazrat]

We was on the TA last October and the service we had was good, if you discount Brodie’s which had loads of staff but very few taking orders so wait times was rather long, but later on in the cruise it settled down.

[J110]

Replying to host Sharon

Hi Sharon thank you for post.

we are on Aurora first time soon for med. cruise so really good to know 😀

[Bazrat]

Just out of interest what happened to the original poster seams to have disappeared 

[Selbourne]

@skip121  Is it always like this? I would say no, but I should stress that our last cruise was just before Covid. There are a few on here who are dismissive of the views of those of us who haven’t cruised recently, which I can only assume means that the current experience bears no resemblance whatsoever to what was on offer pre Covid? Whether it’s significantly better or significantly worse I have no idea!
 

Given that I very much doubt that is the case, I will specifically address your point about service on the ships. Before I do, I should say that we never opt for upgrades (as they often aren’t and can be beset with problems) and haven’t used your TA, so we have always had our allocated cabin. Also, I can’t comment on the App as we’ve never experienced it.

 

We have been on all the P&O ships, with the sole exception of Iona (which we rectify next year). I would say that service on the ships is, in total, a strongpoint of P&O and is primarily what has kept us loyal to them. We have interacted with literally hundreds of P&O staff over the years and I would say that 90% of them are excellent, especially the Indian and Philippine crew members. It’s a tough job for them both physically (hard work and long hours) and emotionally (away from family for 6-9 months at a time) and yet we almost always find them to be extremely friendly and helpful. Of the 10% that I wouldn’t describe as excellent, the vast majority are OK, doing a satisfactory job but just without the personality of the majority. A tiny number can be a bit surly but we all have bad days. Thinking about it, I have only ever had to complain about one staff member in 25 years. Ironically it was a butler! Some of the senior British staff can be a a bit aloof. We once had a Customer Service Manager who hid behind reception staff, wouldn’t lower herself to talk to customers and didn’t understand the meaning of service!  But two really bad staff that stick in my mind out of the hundreds we have interacted with is far better going than you’d get in any other service environment IMHO. 
 

As for maintenance, again that’s another strong point from our experience (leaving aside the fact that some of the ships are quite dated now). I know that others have had bad experiences but I must speak as I find and whenever we have had a maintenance issue in our cabin it has always been treated seriously, maintenance staff have attended promptly and in the vast majority of cases problems have been resolved. 
 

My final thought is that we are still not in normal times when it comes to cruising and it must be very uncertain times for the staff. Staff shortages (both planned - due to lower passenger numbers and unplanned - due to Covid) must be taking its toll on the crew and until cruising returns to full (pre Covid) normality it remains an uncertain time for anyone in the cruise industry. When we get to that stage (as I’m sure we will have to if the industry is to survive long term) then I have no doubt that the great service levels that we have experienced will become the norm again. 

[GOQ]

 If you have friends who rate it very highly and you had a bad experience it might be you were just unfortunate and had bad luck.

 

Just 2 examples:

 

1. On a Ventura cruise I went to reception in the early hours to inquire why I had lost the water supply to my cabin. The receptionist was rather abrupt telling me this had been announced in the previous days Horizon, sort of “go away you stupid passenger” response. My thoughts being “You nasty piglet”.

 

On the other side of the coin on an Iona cruise I had problems connecting my mobile phone to the local network, so I went to reception to ask for a paper clip to poke out the SIM card. The receptionist lady was most helpful even accompanying me to the atrium to get a better signal to make sure the “poke” had worked.

 

2. On Ventura I ‘absentmindedly’ asked for a drink which was not on the dining room drinks menu. No problem, the waiter got someone to walk the ship to a bar which served that drink and brought it to my table with a receipt.

 

On Iona, even though I was in Brodies bar every afternoon (I like the Punk IPA) I could be ignored and had to walk over a grab a waiter, who were sometimes busying themselves having a chat in a group.

 

I got mightily upset having had to queue for over an hour to disembark Iona after a delayed docking, but that's life.

 

It varies.

 

[skip121]

Hi All,

 

Thank you for your really helpful responses, it seems as if we just had a bad experience with this one, which was a shame but hopefully any future experiences will be better!

 

The consensus seems to be that booking with a travel agent isn't the way to go, this was our first time using a travel agent so will likely avoid that in the future!

 

It's been really interesting to read the comments on customer service as it seems most have had good experiences but a few have had similar to us, I wonder if it's just a current Iona issue...

I was just so surprised at the service we experienced as it was unlike any experience we'd ever had before on holiday let alone a cruise where we're used to such amazing service. While there were a few really bad examples like I outlined, it just seemed there was a general atmosphere of complete disinterest amongst the crew we encountered. For example, almost every waiter we had barely spoke to us from being seated to us leaving (when they weren't arguing with us) and this was the opposite of my previous experiences of servers who couldn't do enough for you.

 

We really aren't the kind of people to complain but I'm still considering sending something to P&O as it was so poor, I'm still shocked by some of the interactions.

I think I was worried that we'd just been lucky with our experiences on other lines and that this kind of service might be the norm!!

 

In terms of the 'app' it just felt so buggy to me and less functional than what we'd had before. I know we could phone other cabins, but as we spent so much time out of the cabins with family, it felt as if a messenger function would've been so useful for those times when we wanted to meet or if we were held up etc. But all in all, it wasn't a major issue in comparison to others.

 

I'm curious whether those with more P&O expertise would recommend smaller ships in the future? We've generally only sailed on larger ships, aside from the Disney Magic, and I wonder if the sheer number of passengers on Iona was a factor in our experience?

[skip121]

On 4/18/2022 at 10:11 AM, Harryjacobs said:

May I ask, did you report the faulty balcony door to your steward?  We had a problem with our cabin and told the steward.  Within 30 mins maintenance arrived to correct the problem.

Our sailing was back in September and the staff were just outstanding.  If you want to see truly dreadful staff then have a weekend break at Butlins like we did earlier this year.

We only actually saw him once, where we didn't catch his name as he barely spent 2 minutes with us when we embarked. I think because we'd been told there were no other cabins prior to boarding we just decided to deal with it for the duration of the cruise. In retrospect, I probably would've raised it.

 

Aha I'll make a mental note to avoid Butlins in future then!

[skip121]

On 4/17/2022 at 9:28 PM, miaandmum said:

We are onboard now and this is by far the worst  cruise we’ve ever been on. We’ve sailed with P&O snd royal caribbean before and none have been like this. Staff are miserable, don’t want to engage and like you, I stood at ripples this morning and the person serving walked away from me mid sentence!  Everyone on the cruise seems miserable, rude staff and passengers and no one looks happy. Frankly, can’t wait to get home. There’s something very off about this cruise and can’t put my finger on why. 

Sorry to hear you're having a similar experience to us! This is exactly the kind of atmosphere we felt onboard. Hope it improves for you!

[skip121]

On 4/18/2022 at 12:11 PM, davecttr said:

As far as interaction between waiters in bars etc and customers my several years experience led me to wonder if they were trained in how to NOT make eye to eye contact with passengers. I must say there have been lots of wonderful staff though.

 

edit - the Glass House food has become more disappointing over the years and IMO was best in the original Ramblas on Ventura. Are they still trying to sell the revolting octopus? 🤢

Yes! I don't think a single bartender actually looked at me once, either looking around or at their tablet.

 

I don't recall octopus but I have to say during our cruise Glass House was one of the nicer dining experiences onboard!

[grapau27]

On 4/17/2022 at 6:57 PM, skip121 said:

Hi All,

 

This is my first post on here, so I hope I've popped this in the right place. Apologies if I've missed something!

 

My family and I finished our Norweigian Cruise onboard Iona yesterday and we got off with a pretty poor impression of P&O, which is a huge shame as we have friends who rate it very highly and we were very excited prior to our cruise. I wanted to bring this up here in case we simply had some bad luck and P&O is usually a better experience than the one we had. The 3 major issues we had were:

 

1) Our difficulties started when we booked through a travel agent, we paid to select a standard balcony cabin and selected one Mid-Forward on deck 16, up until a few days before departure P&O's portal was still telling us our cabin had not been allocated. Repeated calls to their customer service team were met with the same response of "try again tomorrow".
We finally received our cabin allocation 2 days before departure only to find we'd been given a cabin on deck 5 forward, distinctly not what we had chosen, we specifically selected our cabin at booking. P&O simply told us to speak with our travel agent and when we finally got through they claimed P&O had given us a 'substantial upgrade' to this new cabin as we had left the 'consider me for upgrades' box ticked. A quick glance at the standard balcony cabins on deck 5 will tell you they are in no way an upgrade from the standard balconies higher up. This was particularly frustrating as our son can get slightly motion sick and we'd chosen to be closer to the middle for that reason. After speaking to P&O again they insisted there was nothing they could do and no other cabins available. We decided to make the most of it and hope for the best.
Once onboard we found our balcony door did not seal fully and every gust of wind could be heard all night, on top of the thumping from the limelight lounge directly above us. 

 

2) We found the customer service onboard Iona was utterly awful from beginning to end. We are all pretty relaxed and mild people in our family but the rudeness from some of the staff seriously pushed me to the limits of my patience, which is a pretty hard thing to do.
Whether it was the staff at our muster station barely stopping their conversation to acknowledge us, our cabin attendant looking like he'd rather be anywhere else than giving us the world's quickest explanation of how the in/out magnet for the door works, more waiters/bar staff than I can count barely raising more than a grunt during their entire interactions with us (this was more often the case than not), the keel and cow waiters who brought the meals for all but 2 members of our party and insisted point-blank the others hadn't ordered anything or finally the waiter at the gelato stand who walked off to talk to a colleague in the middle of us giving our order (literally mid-sentence).
The worst part was the daily battles to order any sort of drink with our non-alcoholic drinks package. Every single bartender or waiter had a completely different approach to taking our drinks orders and seemed to invent new rules/complications each time. Some only needed one of our cards to order, some needed all of them, some telling us they couldn't bring drinks to a particular seating space while their colleagues had done so just before.

The biggest difficulty came when trying to order alcoholic drinks, particularly with dinner. Every single time was like a battle to explain we understood we'd have to pay, on one occasion the waiter told us because of our package we couldn't have any alcohol at all and no matter how we tried to tell him we'd done it multiple times already he wouldn't budge. Only when his senior colleague came over did he finally accept it (he promptly grunted at us for the rest of the meal).

 

We've sailed on Royal Caribbean and Disney cruises before and have always left so amazed at the customer service of the staff and how welcoming and attentive they are. Iona's crew felt the exact opposite, where the goal was to make you feel as unwelcome as possible and to be as irritated as possible at having to do anything for you. It felt like even the crew that were 'good' were only good in comparison to their peers. This pretty much ruined a lot of our time on Iona for us which is a huge shame as we're usually pretty difficult to upset and yet every single day was filled with these bad experiences. Quick shout out to the Oasis Spa team for being the exception to this!

 

3) Last one I promise! The 'My Holiday' browser/app thing. Aside from being barely usable, it often failed to let us book things, wouldn't load, left out bookings from our diaries and was just a general pest, both prior to boarding and onboard. 

One thing, in particular, was the lack of any messaging function, which meant that trying to meet up with family members we were travelling with was such a pain and our Son was restricted in how easily he could go off with friends he'd made onboard.

It feels like P&O need to do something with this, both Royal Caribbean and Disney have much better apps, and apparently so does Princess, so I don't understand why P&O's was this bad.  

 

I'm sorry for this huge rant, I hope it doesn't upset anyone, but it really shocked me how bad this cruise felt compared to others we'd experienced and how our friends talk about their experiences with P&O. I could have gotten over the cabin and the annoyance of the technology but the customer service was probably the worst I've ever experienced in any capacity, let alone whilst on a cruise.

 

So coming to the end of this monster post I just want to ask, should we avoid P&O in the future or was this just a bad experience? I'd love to hear if anyone has had a better experience!

@skip121.

I'm sorry and shocked to hear your recent experience on Iona.

We were on Iona March 5th--19th and fortunately our experience was totally different to yours.

I always book Select fares so I can pick our cabin and also get a good amount of on board credit too.

I tell my TA we do not want upgrades because I have carefully chosen the cabin I want and know their idea of an upgrade is not the same as mine.

Deck 5 balconies looked smaller than standard balconies when we looked up at the ship in Vigo so not an upgrade imo.

Personally if I were you I would email P&O customer services giving all the information you have posted here.

Best regards and good luck.

Graham.

 

[gsmt47471015]

Booking with a TA is a personal choice , however we have an excellent relationship with ours and they do everything for us ( as they should I know) but if we have any problems we don't have to wait hours for somebody at P and O to answer the phone, always got the cabin we wanted on every cruise , on the very popular ones they were up dealing with our requests from their own homes before starting work to make sure we got what we wanted ,and we always receive a generous discount above what P and O offer

[Bazrat]

15 minutes ago, skip121 said:

Hi All,

 

Thank you for your really helpful responses, it seems as if we just had a bad experience with this one, which was a shame but hopefully any future experiences will be better!

 

The consensus seems to be that booking with a travel agent isn't the way to go, this was our first time using a travel agent so will likely avoid that in the future!

 

It's been really interesting to read the comments on customer service as it seems most have had good experiences but a few have had similar to us, I wonder if it's just a current Iona issue...

I was just so surprised at the service we experienced as it was unlike any experience we'd ever had before on holiday let alone a cruise where we're used to such amazing service. While there were a few really bad examples like I outlined, it just seemed there was a general atmosphere of complete disinterest amongst the crew we encountered. For example, almost every waiter we had barely spoke to us from being seated to us leaving (when they weren't arguing with us) and this was the opposite of my previous experiences of servers who couldn't do enough for you.

 

We really aren't the kind of people to complain but I'm still considering sending something to P&O as it was so poor, I'm still shocked by some of the interactions.

I think I was worried that we'd just been lucky with our experiences on other lines and that this kind of service might be the norm!!

 

In terms of the 'app' it just felt so buggy to me and less functional than what we'd had before. I know we could phone other cabins, but as we spent so much time out of the cabins with family, it felt as if a messenger function would've been so useful for those times when we wanted to meet or if we were held up etc. But all in all, it wasn't a major issue in comparison to others.

 

I'm curious whether those with more P&O expertise would recommend smaller ships in the future? We've generally only sailed on larger ships, aside from the Disney Magic, and I wonder if the sheer number of passengers on Iona was a factor in our experience?

Did you consider going to reception and telling them about the door not sealing properly.

[skip121]

49 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Did you consider going to reception and telling them about the door not sealing properly.

We did, but reception seemed to be especially busy during our sailing with queues often stretching into the atrium. I think we just got used to it and did our best to ignore it. Again in retrospect, I wish I'd made more of an effort to raise the issue while onboard.

[jeanlyon]

1 hour ago, gsmt47471015 said:

Booking with a TA is a personal choice , however we have an excellent relationship with ours and they do everything for us ( as they should I know) but if we have any problems we don't have to wait hours for somebody at P and O to answer the phone, always got the cabin we wanted on every cruise , on the very popular ones they were up dealing with our requests from their own homes before starting work to make sure we got what we wanted ,and we always receive a generous discount above what P and O offer

Agree.  Ours is wonderful and I would always use him rather than book direct.  This cruise sounds like a disaster in more ways than one.

[wowzz]

2 hours ago, skip121 said:

The consensus seems to be that booking with a travel agent isn't the way to go, this was our first time using a travel agent so will likely avoid that in the future!

Actually, I don't think that is the consensus view at all. Many of us here book through certain TAs, who provide excellent service, information,  and advice.  Unfortunately there are other TAs that have a terrible reputation. 

Due to CC rules, we cannot name either the good  or the bad,  but you should not write off using a TA in the future because of the experience you have had on this occasion.

[Bazrat]

56 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Agree.  Ours is wonderful and I would always use him rather than book direct.  This cruise sounds like a disaster in more ways than one.

The cruise for these people turned out to be very poor but the cruise it seams for others turned out well

[Bazrat]

Just now, wowzz said:

Actually, I don't think that is the consensus view at all. Many of us here book through certain TAs, who provide excellent service, information,  and advice.  Unfortunately there are other TAs that have a terrible reputation. 

Due to CC rules, we cannot name either the good  or the bad,  but you should not write off using a TA in the future because of the experience you have had on this occasion.

We had a brilliant TA who we used for our land based holidays, but over a short period 3 main travel companies opened up on the high street, they lost the package holiday trade so closed, we haven’t used a TA since.

[grapau27]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

Actually, I don't think that is the consensus view at all. Many of us here book through certain TAs, who provide excellent service, information,  and advice.  Unfortunately there are other TAs that have a terrible reputation. 

Due to CC rules, we cannot name either the good  or the bad,  but you should not write off using a TA in the future because of the experience you have had on this occasion.

+1

[Purdey16]

Skip121 I’m really sorry to hear your first P&O cruise on Iona was very disappointing and you had all those problems, we were on Iona for 3 weeks in February/ March up until graham (Grapau27) got on , we had a lovely cruise all crew were lovely and helpful and reception staff the mdrs waiters etc , we did have a noisy cabin on deck five window view but that was because we had rough weather and the lifeboat above us squeaking all the time . Please don’t be put of booking through a travel agent a good one will sort things out for you , mine knows I never have up grades and automatically ✔️ this to no .

Please send P&O a email to air your views and complaints, otherwise they don’t know this is going on , again sorry for your experience I have cruised for 23yrs and never had a  cruise that’s left a bad experience with me .

[Britboys]

9 minutes ago, Purdey16 said:

Skip121 I’m really sorry to hear your first P&O cruise on Iona was very disappointing and you had all those problems, we were on Iona for 3 weeks in February/ March up until graham (Grapau27) got on , we had a lovely cruise all crew were lovely and helpful and reception staff the mdrs waiters etc , we did have a noisy cabin on deck five window view but that was because we had rough weather and the lifeboat above us squeaking all the time . Please don’t be put of booking through a travel agent a good one will sort things out for you , mine knows I never have up grades and automatically ✔️ this to no .

Please send P&O a email to air your views and complaints, otherwise they don’t know this is going on , again sorry for your experience I have cruised for 23yrs and never had a  cruise that’s left a bad experience with me .

So, you only got off because Graham & Pauline got on eh? Bit extreme...😉😂