Christmas on P&O

[Tira04]

It's just over 30 days until I embark on my first cruise with P&O and my first ever Christmas cruise! I'm getting very excited. ☺

 

What are your favourite things about cruising at Christmas? What can I look forward to? What is your favourite festive food,  drink, decorations,  entertainment on board?? 

[molecrochip]

Kids nativity

Carol Concert

Santa "arriving" on ship

[Jennizor]

I will be very happy to hear how the cruise goes. We have been on several P&O Caribbean cruises starting on Boxing Day but not done Christmas Day. We are booked on Azura for Christmas 2023 in the Canaries so look forward to your reports. I hope you have a great time this year.

[Presto2]

1 hour ago, Jennizor said:

I will be very happy to hear how the cruise goes. We have been on several P&O Caribbean cruises starting on Boxing Day but not done Christmas Day. We are booked on Azura for Christmas 2023 in the Canaries so look forward to your reports. I hope you have a great time this year.

We are booked on Azura for Christmas 2023 too -- not sure if we will do it and may move it to a Caribbean one early February instead. I will be looking at this thread with interest 🙂

[LondonLad60]

My wife and I were on Aurora for her Christmas 2019/New Year 2020 Canaries cruise - we thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm sure you will enjoy your forthcoming Christmas cruise. My Christmas Day lunch was a little unusual - a hot dog and fries washed down with a couple of glasses of Rioja sitting out on the Lido deck in lovely sunny weather. Dinner was a much more grand affair - it was a black tie event with seven courses - starter, soup, sorbet, main, dessert and cheese. The seventh course (for those who weren't already fit to burst!) consisted of waiters going around the tables with trays on which were mini mince pies, dried and candied fruits, nuts, pieces of Christmas cake, etc. After dinner we went to the Crows Nest - we sat up at the bar and the bar staff passed open boxes of chocolates along the bar, telling people to help themselves, although I can't imagine that happening nowadays, thanks to Covid...

[silkworms]

Bob, your experience of Xmas on Aurora sounds great. Exact opposite 

of our Xmas on Azura last year. It was pretty dreadful. Never want to

be on a ship again on Xmas day. We should have realised how chaotic it

would be because it was changeover day.  Learnt our lesson.

 

Terri

[Tira04]

13 hours ago, silkworms said:

Bob, your experience of Xmas on Aurora sounds great. Exact opposite 

of our Xmas on Azura last year. It was pretty dreadful. Never want to

be on a ship again on Xmas day. We should have realised how chaotic it

would be because it was changeover day.  Learnt our lesson.

 

Terri

What didn't you enjoy? Did you embark on Xmas day? 🤔

[Tira04]

16 hours ago, molecrochip said:

Kids nativity

Carol Concert

Santa "arriving" on ship

I'll be on the Arcadia, which is adults only, but I hope Santa still makes an appearance!! Especially for the big kids in us! 😅

[Miks]

2 hours ago, Tira04 said:

I'll be on the Arcadia, which is adults only, but I hope Santa still makes an appearance!! Especially for the big kids in us! 😅

We’re on this cruise as well so following with interest, not been on a Christmas cruise before but from what I’ve read it sounds lovely, fingers crossed for an appearance from Santa 😄

[Camberley]

Xmas was amazing last year on Iona. Our first Xmas cruise and it more than lived up to expectations with the decorative touches and the atmosphere. Ok, the cramming into MDR on Xmas Day was not fun, but that aside it was wonderful. And we loved the Xmas cake we got in our room: not normally a fan of Xmas cake but this was a triumph.

[DamianG]

It was 10 years ago so maybe outdated but we have happy memories of sailing away from Southampton out on deck with a mince pie in one hand and a glass of mulled wine in the other.

 

We had very good weather on the whole with it being warm enough to sit out on deck whilst sailing in the Mediterranean and we had a particularly memorable Christmas Eve in Cartagena enjoying drinks in the sunshine at the port before embarkation followed by watching Santa climb down the funnel during the sail away.

 

The build up to Christmas was fantastic though the day itself was a little quiet around the ship though we didn’t begrudge the crew some downtime on such a day. 

Christmas Day evening was lovely with a special dinner then ball in the evening. 

It was quieter onboard the next few days until New Year’s Eve which was another memorable experience.

I hope that you have a great cruise.

Edited November 13, 2022 by DamianG

[Amelia Noylam]

13 hours ago, Miks said:

We’re on this cruise as well so following with interest, not been on a Christmas cruise before but from what I’ve read it sounds lovely, fingers crossed for an appearance from Santa 😄

🎅Hope you get to see him

[davecttr]

Santa no longer comes down the funnel, this is because of 'elf and safety'

[davecttr]

I went to Hempstead Valley today for shopping, they were playing xmas music and it reminded me of the xmas music on P&O Oceana, there wasn't any. They had lost the CD and did not find it until Boxing Day 🙄

[pennib]

Hi Tira

we have been with P&O every Christmas in the Caribbean for years and we are on the Britannia again this year. You can’t beat it!! We were on Azura last Christmas for 4 weeks and loved it so feel sorry for Silkworms. Only got 2 weeks this year though. Santa will visit your cabin with gifts. We take a little false tree with a fairy on top for the cabin. Hey ho. We are currently on Marella Explorer in the Canaries and the weather and ship are both great. It all beats working!!

[Son of Anarchy]

3 hours ago, davecttr said:

I went to Hempstead Valley today for shopping, they were playing xmas music and it reminded me of the xmas music on P&O Oceana, there wasn't any. They had lost the CD and did not find it until Boxing Day 🙄

I mislaid the Christmas CD as well.  Every Christmas oddly enough.

 

Bah Humbug....

[Red Ray]

Just be thankful you aren't going on Marella. Had the misfortune to be on one of their Christmas cruises and it was a nightmare from start to finish.

[davecttr]

1 minute ago, Red Ray said:

Just be thankful you aren't going on Marella. Had the misfortune to be on one of their Christmas cruises and it was a nightmare from start to finish.

Interesting, I have been on P&O and Marella xmas cruises, plural on both. IMO on balance the Marella ones are better than the P&O. My next xmas cruise is with Marella.

[LondonLad60]

1 hour ago, Red Ray said:

Just be thankful you aren't going on Marella. Had the misfortune to be on one of their Christmas cruises and it was a nightmare from start to finish.

Care to tell us more Ray?

[mike x ftc]

I bet it was 20 years ago on one of their old old ships!   The newer Marella ships are really good, I think their overall product is now better than P&O.    Although saying that I'm on Arcadia for Christmas this year following the cancellation of Aurora's last year.  Christmas on a ship is lovely.

[Red Ray]

It wasn't 20 years ago - it was the 2018 'Cuban Fusion' cruise. The first night saw a drunken brawl on deck, groups of what I am now apparently euphemistically supposed to call 'travellers' were intimidating & noisy throughout, we never actually got into Cuba because of weather conditions, Christmas lunch was served, eaten & finished in 45 minutes with not even a mince pie proferred, the captain spent half a day picking up a boatful of refugees which entailed armed guards disembarking & escorting them back and there was no Christmas service other than members of the entertainment staff who were apparently unable to string a sentence together 'performing' a ridiculous irrelevant piece of poetry.

 

Apart from that, we enjoyed it.....

[davecttr]

We had the 'travellers' problem on Ventura as well

Xmas dinner on Oceana was so bad the entire table gave up and left the restaurant, the food was c**p as well. 

Rendering assistance at sea is a requirement, not a choice.

They had no xmas music on Oceana as they has lost the CD.

 

My 65th birthday cruise on Aurora had us missing Shanghai and Taiwan because of the weather. A drunken loud mouthed passenger spoiled the casino for the whole cruise and security had to be called twice. They refused to ban him because he was losing lots of money. Japan was just scruffy. Our 2 days in Sidney was 1 and an evening because having arrived at 7am we could not board until noon and then could not get off until the evening. I caught Norovirus and had an 'interesting' experience in Singapore, ending up with being paid lots of compensation.

We had 2 days in Hong Kong. It rained all the first day so hard you could not see the scenery.

Hong Kong only had 2 old buildings, nothing like you imagine.

 

MY worst cruise ever and I won't be cruising P&O ever again 

[Britboys]

2 hours ago, Red Ray said:

It wasn't 20 years ago - it was the 2018 'Cuban Fusion' cruise. The first night saw a drunken brawl on deck, groups of what I am now apparently euphemistically supposed to call 'travellers' were intimidating & noisy throughout, we never actually got into Cuba because of weather conditions, Christmas lunch was served, eaten & finished in 45 minutes with not even a mince pie proferred, the captain spent half a day picking up a boatful of refugees which entailed armed guards disembarking & escorting them back and there was no Christmas service other than members of the entertainment staff who were apparently unable to string a sentence together 'performing' a ridiculous irrelevant piece of poetry.

 

Apart from that, we enjoyed it.....

Maybe the 2018 Cuba cruises were poor. I went in January that year and it was the poorest quality cruise I've been on. I thought the food was very poor, service in some of the bars really lacking, announcements from the Cruise Director & Deputy totally puerile and my cabin steward pretty useless. I'm open to trying Marella again but seeing their prices for newly released itineraries in 2024, it would have to be a late, much-reduced fare deal..

[Host Sharon]

21 hours ago, davecttr said:

We had the 'travellers' problem on Ventura as well

Xmas dinner on Oceana was so bad the entire table gave up and left the restaurant, the food was c**p as well. 

Rendering assistance at sea is a requirement, not a choice.

They had no xmas music on Oceana as they has lost the CD.

 

My 65th birthday cruise on Aurora had us missing Shanghai and Taiwan because of the weather. A drunken loud mouthed passenger spoiled the casino for the whole cruise and security had to be called twice. They refused to ban him because he was losing lots of money. Japan was just scruffy. Our 2 days in Sidney was 1 and an evening because having arrived at 7am we could not board until noon and then could not get off until the evening. I caught Norovirus and had an 'interesting' experience in Singapore, ending up with being paid lots of compensation.

We had 2 days in Hong Kong. It rained all the first day so hard you could not see the scenery.

Hong Kong only had 2 old buildings, nothing like you imagine.

 

MY worst cruise ever and I won't be cruising P&O ever again 

I accept some points but you can hardly blame P&O for the weather and for the appearance of Japan and Hong Kong!