Back from the Baltics - Britannia

[windra06]

Britannia Baltics Sep 2023

We are just back from our Baltics cruise on Britannia, it wasn’t quite what we expected but great value for Monday and an itinerary we both enjoyed.

We are mid 30’s and this was our 3^rd cruise, first post-covid and first with P&O. I’d planned and spent time reading reviews, but we were still a little surprised overall compared to expectations.

Summary:

Overall we came away feeling that P&O are fantastic value for money he Itinerary fantastic, and if you bear in mind that you get what you pay for then you will not be disappointed. The British quirks of the ship are fantastic, and with OBC and reasonable drinks prices we finished the cruise with only 54p to pay on the bill which set this cruise apart of any other cruise we have done before.

The public areas are well presented and there are plenty of choices of bars, however despite being the same size as ships we have sailed before, Britannia feels smaller. This could be because of the lack of promenade and the way that each floor is sectioned off into venues rather than open, leaving the atrium area feeling very small.

We felt we have been spoilt by Celebrity and Royal Caribbean and the Britannia felt a little lacklustre in comparison.

 

Embarkation:
Much smoother than we expected, I was disappointed with a 3:15 check in time but after stopping to charge the car and traffic around oxford we had a 6-hour journey and arrived around 2:30pm to drop the car with CPS.

As we arrived we saw the coaches disembarking and made a beeline for check in, just making it ahead of the coach passengers and as a result we sailed through check in with very little wait.

We embarked into the atrium and were pointed to the muster station after which we spent a puzzled 5 minutes trying to work out why we were not given cruise cards during check in and whether rooms were available. We were close to brodies and so grabbed a drink while I posted to Facebook to sheepishly ask what the process was.

Compared to past cruises I was flabbergasted that cruise cards are just left outside rooms for anyone to take, given they are a credit line to our account! We were given absolutely no information at check in or pre-cruise about what time rooms would be available or where to find the cruise cards, neither was there any announcement.

We pre-booked shows and speciality restaurant before boarding but we needn’t have worried as there was still availability upon boarding on the myholiday ‘App’ – I would advise however to book on the first day as slots later on were limited.
 

Room

I chose G408 after looking at reviews and loved the room – technically obstructed as it looks out over the glass house deck, we had a lovely unobstructed view of the sea and never had any noise from the deck below. British plug sockets, fantastic luggage area, fridge and kettle really set this ahead of competitors for us. Brittania however is showing her age and rusty chrome, and dirty/mouldy grout gave the bathroom the feel of a travel lodge. The water was hot and shower great pressure, so given the price point it was acceptable.

I brought my own soya milk and Brita jug which fit in the fridge, and Yorkshire tea bags as we dislike the Tetley provided. Herbal teas can be picked up in the buffet to bring back to the cabin and there was a fair selection.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a good selection of movies available for free via the TV, including some fairly recent releases and my partner was happy to be able to watch sport 24 extra channel for the F1.

My only gripes with the room were that the air conditioning is always on, I’m a light sleeper and the noise of the fan meant I didn’t get much sleep. Lack of USB sockets, or bedside sockets and that the shaver socket doesn’t fit the standard UK electric toothbrush charger as you might expect.

Note on stairs: I chose a mid ship room feeling happy we would be close to the stairs but the insane layout of the ship caused us frustration for the entire trip.

Whoever designed the ship really needs a good talking to! Not only are the central stairs crew only above deck 7, but the layout of decks 5 & 6 mean that there is no access to deck  5 from the aft stairs, nor access to the peninsular restaurant either.

This meant that to get from our mid ship room on deck 8, to the peninsular restaurant we had to walk all the way to the forward stairs, down to deck 6 and then walk all the way to the back of the ship, OR go down the back stairs to deck 7, walk to the mid stairs which are accessible from 7 downwards. We only used the lifts twice and by the end of the cruise were thoroughly annoyed.
 

Dining

Working in the tech sector, I was looking forward to using the myholiday ‘App’ but quickly realised that it isn’t fit for purpose. We chose freedom dining, expecting that we could perhaps book a timeslot for dinner but in fact freedom dining handcuffs you to a queuing system which you can only join as dinner opens and needs one to guess ahead how long the wait will be and join the queue at the appropriate time.

On the first night, we joined the queue at 5:50pm, there were 58 in the queue, and we were called at 6:40pm for dinner. Thereafter it was a mad dash to join the queue as it opened at 5:45 each day, as within 5 minutes the queue was always up to around 50 or 60.

We felt that unless we joined the queue the moment it opened, we would always be in for a long wait and therefore for the rest of the cruise didn’t really have any ‘freedom’. Next time we will opt for the 6:30 fixed seating to avoid the stress of queuing.
Halfway through the cruise, the ‘App’ completely stopped working (despite clearing my cache, history etc) and only started working again a few days before the end of the cruise.
 

The food

As a vegetarian I was pleased to see there were always 3 options available at dinner, and while most of the food tasted great, they were not well planned. For the first week there wasn’t any protein with the main course, and the portions were tiny. I felt sorry for my partner one day when his main was a tiny pile of quinoa with 3-4 mushrooms. My partner took to ordering many veggie sausages at breakfast to ensure he ate enough.

Breakfast in the main dining room was good, with great vegetarian options but the buffet had none of the vegetarian sausages or bacon that were available in the MDR and resulted in a breakfast of toast, baked beans and potato curry.

Lunch was hit and miss, often there were no ‘Large Plate’ options for vegetarians and limited lighter options, similarly to dinner the food we had tasted good but was very small.

We feel that compared to Celebrity and Royal Caribbean, the dinner buffet was miserable in comparison with very little choice and lacking healthy options or vegetables. When we cruised Celebrity, I came home 8lb heavier, with P&O we didn’t put on any weight which is a sure way to tell that the food was lacking!

 

Speciality - Sindhu

The vegetarian options were minimal for the speciality restaurants, so we only tried Sindhu.

I chose the only vegetarian option, and my partner who rarely eats meat went for the signature dish of 3 different mains. We were both looking forward to the meal as the star of the cruise but we both agreed the food was bland. My partner baulked that he had never in his life eaten a Rogan Josh with absolutely no spice, he joked that it tasted like tomato soup.
In hindsight, given the demographic of the guests perhaps P&O are trying to cater to a larger audience but it’s at the expense of any flavour and it seems they don’t use any chilies either. The Dal in particular was tasteless, it really needed to be salted but alas there was no saltshaker on the table.

Funnily, a few days later the MDR served a dal and it tasted wonderful, a little spicy and flavourful.

Drinks
We felt that the selection and pricing of drinks was fantastic, priced similarly to costa or pubs on land and on par with our local, I brought on board 2 bottles of wine and we struggled to spend our OBC.

Staff:

Being the off season and early diners, we felt the staffing levels were sufficient and only had slow service on a couple of days.

Our steward Jerry was polite and dealt with a couple of minor requests efficiently, we received biscuits every day which caused some debate on our cruise as I hear this isn’t always the case.

Being freedom dining we moved around and saw many of the staff at dinner. Dining early usually ensured quick service but at least in the first week felt the servers were a little brusque.

Talking to one of the waiters it’s evident that all of the staff work incredibly hard for months on end.

We overheard a fair number of complaints during busy periods in the market café, this was due to inefficiencies with service leading to long waits to be served. I witnessed 3 waiters standing at the bar waiting for coffee to be made, whilst 2 ladies a few feet away were complaining at the long wait.  Rather than taking each order to the till, then returning the card and then waiting for the drink, if the servers were able to take several orders and queue them in the till it would avoid a lot of grumbling. In busy periods the waiters spent most of their time standing at the bar, however in slow periods they would literally pounce as you sat down.

 

Entertainment
On land we enjoy cirque du soleil, ballet, orchestras and rock concerts but are not big fans of musicals, so we only saw a few shows on the Britannia. I avoided what I thought were the musical shows and opted for shows like Astonishing, Mr Tickertons circus, Gravity and a comedian.  We were tickled to discover that the first three were musicals but had a good time anyway. The ladies of the headliners theatre have amazing voices and put on a great show.
Booking ahead is essential for the 8:30pm show and it was almost a full house each night that we went.
 

Cookery School – With ample OBC to spend we treated ourselves to a cookery class. These were on sea days with savoury classes at 10am and deserts at 3pm and cost £45pp.

Being vegetarian we were constrained to deserts and chose the chocolate course which was great fun and resulted in a cabin full of chocolate brownies for days! We were given a demonstration on making honeycomb and then a lesson on chocolate brownies and truffles to follow along. I’m not sure we would have spent our own money on the course, but it was a fun way to spend time on a sea day.

Spa – We pre-booked the thermal spa and it was a wonderful way to ease muscles after 4 days of solid walking ashore. We had the spa to ourselves at 8am and really enjoyed the heated pool, Sauna and heated loungers. A few things were out of order such as one of the water beds, rainfall shower and we assumed the light sauna after we investigated and found it smelt heavily of mould.
One bug bear was that all of the robe hooks were either located above bins, or over the emergency phone – they really need to move them to more appropriate locations.

 

Other things of note:
Power failure – Mid cruise during a sea day we suffered from a brief power failure caused by generator 2 failing abruptly. We had debated using the lifts but chosen to take the stairs just as the power went out and the engines came to a halt causing the lifts to lose power – a close call! The emergency power kicked in but we were without main power for around 30minutes while the problem was investigated. Co-incidentally or not, for the remainder of the cruise we never went over 16 knots – so it is unclear whether that second generated was working or not.

Ongoing work due to Britannias little ‘bump’ in Palma de Mallorca

Work went on throughout the cruise to fix the damage and by the end of the cruise the dents had been patched up and painted over and emergency rafts were back in place. The damaged lifeboat was dropped off at kiel and we didn’t appear to get a replacement that I know of.

Some passengers had complained at noise and disruption from welding on the starboard side of the ship and as far as I know most were moved to new cabins.

Passengers – being off peak there were very few children on board, a few babies and young adults travelling with family, only one or two school age children.

As expected, the demographic was of retirement age, which suits us just fine as we like a quiet cruise and are usually early to bed! Almost everyone we spoke to, or sat with at dinner were lovely although after the first day we leaned towards dining alone to minimise the risk of picking up covid-19.

The Itinerary

Kiel – Helsinki (Overnight) – Tallinn – Visby – Copenhagen (Overnight)

A great Itinerary, one we chose as something a little different to the standard med cruise, and one where you can do the ports on your own. It’s worth noting that cash was unnecessary in all ports.

Kiel – We booked the Castles and boat cruise expecting this port to be ‘filler’ but were surprised to find Schleswig-Holstein to be an absolutely beautiful part of the world and would recommend getting out into the countryside. The vegetarian lunch provided on the trip was far superior to the meat version, every expectation was smashed, and we would definitely do the trip again.

 

Helsinki – Shuttles were provided and dropped us off right next to the harbour where we used the HSL app to buy a ticket on the public ferry and spent a pleasant morning exploring Soumelina (fortress island).  The café on the island provided hot drinks and some lovely cakes for lunch.

After lunch we jumped on the skywheel, there was no queue and it was great to get a view of the city from above.  The Hop on Hop off bus was included with the Helsinki card, it’s great for getting around and stops at the cruise terminal but I would recommend taking headphones to get the most of it. A live map is available online to track the buses and route, we made the mistake of joining at stop 1 to visit Sibelius rather than stop 13 and wasted almost an hour going back to the cruise ship and around in a circle to get there.
For the remainder of the day and next we visited the botanical garden, museums and the stockman department store which are all walkable.

 

Tallinn – A beautiful city but we chose to disembark early and were caught out by most places only opening at 11am. We chose to walk from the terminal which took longer than expected due to roadworks, in hindsight we should have taken the shuttle bus.

The highlight of the day was visiting the Kiek in de Kok museum which is enormous and not only encompasses towers and walls but also has interesting basement tunnels.

Hellemann tower was also worth a visit, and is the only venue that required cash (€4).

We stumbled on the the Pierre Chocolaterie café, which served the most amazing hot chocolate, cake and chocolates all at very reasonable prices in a cosy interior.

 

Visby – A beautiful place to visit, a shuttle was provided only for those who registered as having accessibility needs. We chose to disembark early morning again and enjoyed a lovely quiet walk through the small botanical garden and around the walls, followed by a walk around the town center and lunch at creperie & logi which was very good.
One unexpected gem was stumbling upon a small glass shop Visby Glasblåseri where glass is made on site from recycles bottles collected from local restaurants. We purchased two lovely handmade oil burners as gifts which were around €25 a piece.

 

Copenhagen – We docked at Oceankaj which depending on traffic can be a 20-30min shuttle from the port, the only transport available seemed to be a convoy of party buses which made for quite the experience. The lack of seats also led to reports of 2 hour waits later in the day for wheelchair users and there was a queue of around  80 people to return to the ship later in the day by which time they had managed to get a proper coach.

The Copenhagen card is a must if visiting attractions as it includes an enormous amount of attractions, and depending on which you choose either the hop-on bus or public transport and canal boat tours.

We spent our two days visiting many of the museums of which the Carlsberg glyptotek and Rosenborg castle were must sees. For the latter it’s worth booking a timed ticket online for entry to avoid having to queue up for tickets, as even at 10am it was fairly busy. Also worth noting that we visited on a Monday which is a common day for museums and attractions to close.

Other highlights were the Round towerm Ripley’s believe it or not and the Hans Christian Anderson experience and Tivoli. We purchased a ride pass online and had great fun on the rides, there were no queues when we visited in the early afternoon. Entry is free with the Copenhagen card but the ride pass was additional.

Having seen the skt. Peders Bageri on Travel Man, we queued at the bakery for some delightful Danish pastrys. Go early as they were selling like hot cakes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by windra06

[Selbourne]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a comprehensive and balanced review. We enjoyed our cruise on Britannia in July (our first since Covid) but can relate to some of the points that you made.
 

Freedom Dining did not work at all well for us as well. In fact it was far better on Iona, even though the ship was packed. I put this down to the fact that on Britannia most passengers were seasoned P&O cruisers who either couldn’t or wouldn’t use the app, so several systems were in operation, which seemed to cause chaos. On Iona, with most people being newbies, everyone used the app and, as a result, it worked much better. 

 

Neither of us are vegetarian, so we didn’t have those challenges, but we were also unimpressed with Sindhu. It was much better on Iona. 
 

It’s interesting how someone who is new to P&O spots all sorts of shortcomings that those of us who are ‘old hands’ just tolerate or now don’t even notice 😂 Thanks again for a very interesting review. 

[Waju]

That was an amazing review and really interesting to read.  Thank you

[daiB]

Interesting your comment abut the layout of the lower decks and going the the bottom deck at the stern and being stuck. Well if yo have traveled on other P&O ships like Oriana, Aurora Ventura and Azura you will find the same set up with two restaurants on one deck with the kitchen between. You will also find this on the Princess Grand class ships and the ones similar to Britannia. It’s not just Britannia.

[Dermotsgirl]

Thank you for such a detailed and well written review. I really enjoyed reading it 

[Ardennais]

What a great review. Makes me want to revisit Tallinn and Helsinki! 

[Aud761]

We are also just back from the same cruise. It was our second cruise on Britannia, we also sailed on her last summer. We had a great time and came home totally pleased with the experience.  There were positives and negatives but nothing that would prevent me from booking another cruise with P&O or on Britannia.

 

Positives

A smooth and hassle free embarkation, we were on within 10 minutes.

The itinerary - anyone who has not visited the Baltic's should definitely go. The area is beautiful and easily explored on your own.

Cabin- we picked an obstructed cabin on G deck beside the aft stairs and elevators. It was quiet and convenient for dining,shows etc

Entertainment- we enjoyed the dance classes, the quizzes, shows and talks

Staff- by and large we found the staff helpful and pleasant. Some went out of their way more than others but I cannot complain about them at all

Passengers- I have see a lot of complaints about passenger behaviour but I met some lovely people from around the country and saw very little in the way of bad behaviour. 

The epicurean afternoon tea.- A wonderful treat for a Sunday afternoon

 

Negatives

The only real negative I have is regarding the MDR. There were a lot of sharing tables set up, with not a great number of tables for two. As a result it was impossible to walk in and get a table as we did last year unless you were prepared to share. It meant I needed to use the app. This does away with the whole freedom aspect. 

The MDR menu was also a bit of a let down. On paper it looked good , but in reality the food was bland and under seasoned. Oven roasted vegetables were usually just boiled and I never want to see another

string bean again. I actually preferred the Horizon food. 

 

Of course these are my own opinions and I understand others will see things differently. I'm happy to hear others opinions.

 

 

[Ginb56]

A lovely review, thank you!

We were on the same cruise and overall throughly enjoyed ourselves and like Britannia - we did the Baltic on her in 2017. Super itinerary and ports of call. Headliners acts were generally excellent . Cabin was ok though could have done with a hoover more often during two weeks away. The app was rubbish and the My Bookings section didn’t show all of what we’d pre-booked or it missed off new bookings, so you couldn’t then amend anything without a trip to reception. The My Diary section was always up to date but of course you can’t amend things from it - crazy system. 
 

I’m a vegetarian and agree about the poor food offer for veggies - even more so if you’re a vegan. P&O also need to realise that meat or fish  eaters will sometimes choose a vegetarian option if it’s more interesting for a change. The MDR menu was good and had three veggie choices usually and I’d find something to enjoy - but agree that there was very little protein included in any dishes. Take heed please P&O! 

 

The speciality dining venues really need to take feedback on board and offer more diet options. A cheese soufflé in Epicurian was the only veggie main on offer, and was rather unexciting. Sindhu veggie option was something like a mushroom biryani served in a pot with a pastry top. It was weirdly far too hot in temperature to eat for ages and was quite dry - I left most of it in the end and just had a few of the sides of vegetables, dahl and naan. The manager kindly didn’t charge us when he realised the problem. Beach House ditto, unless you like halloumi, forget it. The buffet had no veggie breakfast cooked ‘meat’ items - I just had beans, a tomato and hash brown mostly (not an egg fan). Very little choice of cooked veggie options at other meals (always a runny lentil curry though 😩) and not much sign of protein again - salad bar was my fallback. Limelight Club menu was always good though with one of the two courses being veggie and substantial. 
 

Food apart, it was good to see the staff were plentiful and friendly - we were on Iona post covid and it was grossly understaffed and some venues closed, so it was super to be back to ‘normal’. I’m sure Britannia will be going in for a refit next year so the tired carpets and general wear and tear in places can be fixed. As the flagship of P&O, she deserves some TLC…
 

 

[Interestedcruisefan]

Absolutely brilliant review

 

[Interestedcruisefan]

It will be worth you noting that P and O on the newest ship (Arvia) have Green and Co. A speciality restaurant dedicated to plant based meals 

 

Here's a link

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[windra06]

6 hours ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

It will be worth you noting that P and O on the newest ship (Arvia) have Green and Co. A speciality restaurant dedicated to plant based meals 

 

Here's a link

 

 

Thank you I've not seen this before definitely would interest me!

[shot2bits]

Where there any outbreaks of Covid? We sail Friday and that’s our only worry! Great reviews

[windra06]

4 minutes ago, shot2bits said:

Where there any outbreaks of Covid? We sail Friday and that’s our only worry! Great reviews

Not anything noticeable no, there did seem to be more people coughing towards the end of the cruise but didn't see anyone report being isolated.

There were 3-4 posts on our cruise Facebook group for those testing positive when they got home so it's still going around as you would expect.

[Pippa04]

29 minutes ago, shot2bits said:

Where there any outbreaks of Covid? We sail Friday and that’s our only worry! Great reviews

I'd say there were a few.  People next door to us confined themselves to cabin and noticeably more room service trays around in last few days. We both went down with it day after our return. Here to stay unfortunately but just a cold this time even for my immunosuppressed husband.

[daiB]

9 hours ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

It will be worth you noting that P and O on the newest ship (Arvia) have Green and Co. A speciality restaurant dedicated to plant based meals 

 

Here's a link

 

 

Not sure of the validity of the report but I have read recently that this restaurant was no where near as full as the equivalent space on Iona, the Olive Grove. This would be disappointing if it were not being supported. We will certainly try it next year.

[Aud761]

As regards COVID, a couple of us in our group developed a cough on the last day and both of us tested negative when we got home. It could have simply been a different virus we picked up or maybe the air conditioning. I heard of a few positive tests a few days later but there's no way of knowing if they came from the ship or from the flight home.

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, daiB said:

Not sure of the validity of the report but I have read recently that this restaurant was no where near as full as the equivalent space on Iona, the Olive Grove. This would be disappointing if it were not being supported. We will certainly try it next year.

I really enjoyed the food in there but it was virtually empty every day apart from the Sushi bar which was well supported.  The costs did add up in there compared with the other speciality restaurants but overall I liked the food a lot and thought it was quite innovative.

 

Interestingly despite the lack of other restaurants and MDR problems the attendance did not seem to increase.

[daiB]

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

I really enjoyed the food in there but it was virtually empty every day apart from the Sushi bar which was well supported.  The costs did add up in there compared with the other speciality restaurants but overall I liked the food a lot and thought it was quite innovative.

 

Interestingly despite the lack of other restaurants and MDR problems the attendance did not seem to increase.

I cannot see it continuing if its not used, especally with the other venues possibly stretched.

[Interestedcruisefan]

13 hours ago, daiB said:

I cannot see it continuing if its not used, especally with the other venues possibly stretched.

They can keep it but just make it smaller I'm sure and offer something else alongside

 

Vegan and vegetarian food is such a big thing now they won't take it away altogether I'm sure

 

Interestingly despite my wife not eating meat (she's Pescatarian) we never found time to go there on last 2 week Arvia cruise. We will make sure we do next time

 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[Megabear2]

17 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

They can keep it but just make it smaller I'm sure and offer something else alongside

 

Vegan and vegetarian food is such a big thing now they won't take it away altogether I'm sure

 

Interestingly despite my wife not eating meat (she's Pescatarian) we never found time to go there on last 2 week Arvia cruise. We will make sure we do next time

 

 

The food is very good and you can mix in the sushi.  Actually the vegetarian sushi was my best meal on Arvia along with the beetroot starter.

[Interestedcruisefan]

1 minute ago, Megabear2 said:

The food is very good and you can mix in the sushi.  Actually the vegetarian sushi was my best meal on Arvia along with the beetroot starter.

Yes we did dine in Mizhuana and loved it there. Didn't realise you could mix and match in Green and Co

 

Thanks  MB

[Selbourne]

54 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Actually the vegetarian sushi was my best meal on Arvia along with the beetroot starter.

Funnily enough, I had a sushi starter at lunch time on both Britannia and Iona and they were both absolutely fantastic - and that was in the MDRs! I would have happily had larger portions of them as a main course.

[Ilovemygarden]

I am embarking Britannia tomorrow and had an email from P and O  about 5.00pm asking everyone to delay their boarding time by one hour as “her arrival has been slightly delayed due to weather” - must be a bit rocky out there!    

[Eglesbrech]

2 hours ago, Ilovemygarden said:

I am embarking Britannia tomorrow and had an email from P and O  about 5.00pm asking everyone to delay their boarding time by one hour as “her arrival has been slightly delayed due to weather” - must be a bit rocky out there!    

Have a wonderful cruise.

[GSPG]

13 hours ago, Ilovemygarden said:

I am embarking Britannia tomorrow and had an email from P and O  about 5.00pm asking everyone to delay their boarding time by one hour as “her arrival has been slightly delayed due to weather” - must be a bit rocky out there!    

It appears Britannia will be some four hours late docking and unloading this morning as it’s currently near Hythe.

Wonder why it’s late?