Lots of questions about Arvia

[cruiseruth49]

Hi, I have cruised 4 times before but not for 20 years and not on the big ships, the biggest was the Grand Princess and to me she was huge but now that are so much bigger. I have only cruised the Caribbean and Mexico never Europe so it will be a bit different. I have some random questions about Arvia, I hope it's okay to ask them all in a one post. I also know that it's early days with the ship so perhaps those that have sailed on Iona maybe able to advise.

 

So I'm thinking of booking in August for just me and my daughter who will be 15 by then, sailing the Med, I've only taken my other daughter on cruises and she was about 5 and 6, she's now 26  she went into the kids club but for my teenager it's obviously different, she will go to the teenagers club and hopefully make a friend or two but I don't know if she will go there that often I think she is hoping to make a friend and then hang out at the pool or around the ship but I'm not sure there is enough for her to do on the ship. The pools don't look big enough for kids to have fun in without getting on the other passengers nerves and once the golf and the high ropes are done I'm wondering what then (apart from the cinema) can anyone give their experience of travelling with a similar age girl on this kind of ship? 

 

I'm wondering what kind of shows will there be for her to enjoy, are there West End type shows, if so how often are they and do they change the show the next week or are there just singers, musicians all the time?

 

Can someone please explain how the virtual queueing works. I know I have to download and use an app but then what? Say I want to book to eat do I book a time or do I book to join a queue, if this is the case do I wait until we are ready to leave our cabin and then book and make our way there and just hang around to go in? If we want to eat from the buffet we don't have to book do we? I won't be booking any restaurants that charge an extra fee.

 

Any tips or advice about travelling with a teenager is most welcome or just about cruising on this ship is also welcome.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Advanced Diver]

1 hour ago, cruiseruth49 said:

I know I have to download and use an app but then what?

This causes so much confusion by calling it an "app". It's not an app and you don't have to download anything. On your smartphone, once on board, connect to POCruises_Guest_WiFi WiFi point, then go to your favourite web browser and just go to "myholiday.pocruises.com", there will be an information leaflet in your cabin. If you go to reception they will put a shortcut on your home page, which is maybe why everyone calls it an app. You need to login in with your details (name, last 6 digits off your cruise card).

 

Anyway If you want to join a virtual queue, just look (on the webpage) at the restaurants and click on them and ask to queue. Keep the webpage open and it will clock down as the queue goes down. Sounds way more complicated than it is.

[cruiseruth49]

Thank you that sounds easy enough.

 

[Interestedcruisefan]

We've taken similar age daughter on P and O big ships.

 

They join the teenage clubs make friends and you barely see them all cruise!!

 

Loads for them to do. And Arvia has more for them to do than any cruise ship past or present.

 

And the shows cater for them as well. As well as cinema and escape room

[Advanced Diver]

4 hours ago, cruiseruth49 said:

I'm wondering what kind of shows will there be for her to enjoy, are there West End type shows, if so how often are they and do they change the show the next week or are there just singers, musicians all the time?

The Headliners theatre company will do several shows through the two weeks. Depending how good the particular set of headliners are they can be really good. They are interspersed with singers and perhaps musicians. There are comedians and magicians on board too, with adults only sessions not starting till midnight (may well be in Club House rather than main theatre). If your daughter likes shows then I'm sure there will be some evening shows that she will enjoy.

The Scene (assume it's the same on Arvia as Iona) is for older teenagers but is usually only open during school holidays when there are loads of kids (and extra staff), due to the difficulty staffing it as it's down on the lower decks where the Reef is on deck 16. They are still catered for when it's not open, but in the Reef. Having said that despite the lack of kids on the current Iona cruise, and even though all the extra staff they had on for the last cruise in school holidays have got off, the Scene is open.

[Ardennais]

2 hours ago, cruiseruth49 said:

Thank you that sounds easy enough.

 

As long as it works! It was down for two days on Iona last week! 

[cruiseruth49]

I have two more random questions.

 

1.If only one of us has the paid for internet can we still phone and text each other using the ships free internet?

 

2. We only drink water, is this readily available from free machines around the ship? What about in restaurants, can we ask for a glass of water without being charged or would we have to buy bottled water? Does anyone know if the water from machines taste okay, I remember years ago on cruises it didn't taste nice.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2023 by cruiseruth49

[Host Sharon]

14 minutes ago, cruiseruth49 said:

I have two more random questions.

 

1.If only one of us has the paid for internet can we still phone and text each other using the ships free internet?

 

2. We only drink water, is this readily available from free machines around the ship? What about in restaurants, can we ask for a glass of water without being charged or would we have to buy bottled water? Does anyone know if the water from machines taste okay, I remember years ago on cruises it didn't taste nice.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

There is no free ship's internet so no, you cannot phone each other but you can share internet so could use Messenger, but it will cost.

 

All still water is free. Fill up a water bottle in your cabin, or around the ship. Ship's water tastes better chilled, so I fill a bottle in the evening and leave it in the cabin fridge overnight.

[Interestedcruisefan]

Water is readily available everywhere. Tastes great

 

They have clever dispensers to fill water bottles that also tell you how many plastic bottles have been saved by using them

 

Most of the dispensers and dispensing chilled water

 

The ones in the buffet restaurants dispense ice  as well as water

Edited February 22, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[davecttr]

If they allowed texting and calls via the onboard WIFI it would be saturated with thousands of people texting and phoning each other constantly. The 'app' is bad enough as it is.

[Interestedcruisefan]

Heres one of the bottle water dispensers on Arvia that tell you how many plastic bottles they have saved

[Bill Y]

4 hours ago, Host Sharon said:

There is no free ship's internet so no, you cannot phone each other but you can share internet so could use Messenger, but it will cost.

 

All still water is free. Fill up a water bottle in your cabin, or around the ship. Ship's water tastes better chilled, so I fill a bottle in the evening and leave it in the cabin fridge overnight.

If sitting in the crows nest or an outside bar area you can ask a waiter for a glass of iced water. He gets the water from a tap behind the bar.

[cruiseruth49]

Thanks for your replies!

 

With regards to the internet, this means I have to pay expensive prices for us both to have wifi just so I can communicate with my 15 year old daughter on the ship to find out where she is and if she is okay. We used to use walkie talkies back in the day. I very very expensive way to communicate.

[Advanced Diver]

It would be nice of course, but there's no way P&O are going to provide an instant messaging server on the ships intranet, or an email servern for that matter. There is the standard ships telephone system for cabin to cabin calls, but that's not likely much help. Even buying the internet, it's for one device (at a time), do would be really clunky to keep disconnecting and reconnecting to check for messages, and the "cheats" for sharing the connection would require you to be in the same vicinity as each other so not a solution.

Not sure how well walkie talkies would work (you have used them do maybe they do), but the ship fits a good job of blocking mobile signals due to ask the metal, being a partial Faraday shield.

Guess your are such to arranging to meet at certain times at certain places?

 

[Interestedcruisefan]

4 hours ago, cruiseruth49 said:

Thanks for your replies!

 

With regards to the internet, this means I have to pay expensive prices for us both to have wifi just so I can communicate with my 15 year old daughter on the ship to find out where she is and if she is okay. We used to use walkie talkies back in the day. I very very expensive way to communicate.

Agreed Wi-Fi is overpriced on cruises. I would see what the current deals on walkie talkies are

[sandancer]

3 hours ago, cruiseruth49 said:

Thanks for your replies!

 

With regards to the internet, this means I have to pay expensive prices for us both to have wifi just so I can communicate with my 15 year old daughter on the ship to find out where she is and if she is okay. We used to use walkie talkies back in the day. I very very expensive way to communicate.

It’s a shame they don’t use the same system as Princess. Lots of negativity around the Princess medallion but it did allow you to communicate with friends around the ship. 

[Advanced Diver]

P&O cruises Australia do do an actual app that provides this. Interesting that P&O Cruises UK don't even provide an actual app, only a web site on the intranet.

[davecttr]

5 hours ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Agreed Wi-Fi is overpriced on cruises. I would see what the current deals on walkie talkies are

They discussed walkie talkies on the general cruise questions forum, overwhelmingly USA participants. To sum up the answer was don't bother. they don't work well because of all the metal in the superstructure.

[terrierjohn]

15 hours ago, Advanced Diver said:

It would be nice of course, but there's no way P&O are going to provide an instant messaging server on the ships intranet, or an email servern for that matter. There is the standard ships telephone system for cabin to cabin calls, but that's not likely much help. Even buying the internet, it's for one device (at a time), do would be really clunky to keep disconnecting and reconnecting to check for messages, and the "cheats" for sharing the connection would require you to be in the same vicinity as each other so not a solution.

Not sure how well walkie talkies would work (you have used them do maybe they do), but the ship fits a good job of blocking mobile signals due to ask the metal, being a partial Faraday shield.

Guess your are such to arranging to meet at certain times at certain places?

 

The Princess medallion system does enable you to communicate with other passengers, not sure how, but I can't see it being too difficult to do something similar on My Holiday,, but it would need an IT expert, something sadly lacking with P&O.

[Advanced Diver]

57 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

The Princess medallion system does enable you to communicate with other passengers, not sure how, but I can't see it being too difficult to do something similar on My Holiday,, but it would need an IT expert, something sadly lacking with P&O.

So I see, as does P&O Australia. It would need a "simple" implementation of an instant messaging system - think P&O implementing or buying in a cut down version of WhatsApp. Heck there might even be Open Source software that they can use for free. They could implement it on the web page if they tasked their developers with implementing it. Seeing other cruise lines have done it, I changed my mind in that they could feasibly do it if they had the will. Don't know the size of the team, or if it's outsourced, but they may be busy implementing other things or require P&O to come up with requirements and agree pricing etc (if outsourced).

[snaefell]

On 2/21/2023 at 6:52 PM, Advanced Diver said:

This causes so much confusion by calling it an "app". It's not an app and you don't have to download anything. On your smartphone, once on board, connect to POCruises_Guest_WiFi WiFi point, then go to your favourite web browser and just go to "myholiday.pocruises.com", there will be an information leaflet in your cabin. If you go to reception they will put a shortcut on your home page, which is maybe why everyone calls it an app. You need to login in with your details (name, last 6 digits off your cruise card).

 

Anyway If you want to join a virtual queue, just look (on the webpage) at the restaurants and click on them and ask to queue. Keep the webpage open and it will clock down as the queue goes down. Sounds way more complicated than it is.

With my 'kiss of death' record with any sort of new technology I expect I may get the hang of it by the last night of our 19 night cruise!😆

[Wiseyowl]

Depending on what time you wish to eat, you can also book some speciality restaurants (not all are additional costs) before embarkation. This tends to be pre 6:45pm ish when the virtual queuing begins. 

We have just returned and the app is very simple, outside the main restaurants there is also a line to just queue for those not wanting to use the app. We also noted some restaurants  (glass house / olive grove) using pagers for those that had just dropped in. As you would expect peak times are busier.

there is also just the horizon buffet which doesn’t need booking.