Fur coat and no knickers

[Megabear2]

Atrium ... well the Arvia one was like an airport.  Extremely loud with a footway through the middle.  One side given over to the coffee bar, the rest served by one big bar.  In one corner a small stage with a couple of rows of bench seats allowing you to look at the act which was normally some Spanish singers or on one occasion the lady busker.

 

Waiters were hard to come by, very over busy and appearing to be giving preference to large groups.  Other entertainment offered were acrobatic performers on the immediate floor area by the stairs.  On Celebration night the photographers set up in this area and large queues form.  The stairs are also closed off to facilitate these photographers.

 

Silent disco is held here too.

 

As a solo traveller I use the Atrium on most ships as it can be a good place to meet people, particularly early on.  Arvia's Atrium unfortunately being so loud wasn't a good place for conversations due to the "airport effect".  Compared with the other ships entertainment chosen to be in this area simply didn't work as well.  It is a massive area but seems to have little identity.  

[Interestedcruisefan]

2 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Atrium ... well the Arvia one was like an airport.  Extremely loud with a footway through the middle.  One side given over to the coffee bar, the rest served by one big bar.  In one corner a small stage with a couple of rows of bench seats allowing you to look at the act which was normally some Spanish singers or on one occasion the lady busker.

 

Waiters were hard to come by, very over busy and appearing to be giving preference to large groups.  Other entertainment offered were acrobatic performers on the immediate floor area by the stairs.  On Celebration night the photographers set up in this area and large queues form.  The stairs are also closed off to facilitate these photographers.

 

Silent disco is held here too.

 

As a solo traveller I use the Atrium on most ships as it can be a good place to meet people, particularly early on.  Arvia's Atrium unfortunately being so loud wasn't a good place for conversations due to the "airport effect".  Compared with the other ships entertainment chosen to be in this area simply didn't work as well.  It is a massive area but seems to have little identity.  

Spot on

 

[JeanieC,Aston]

18 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

TBF you were very unlucky to experience all the worst possible issues that seem to have occurred on Iona or Arvia, all on one cruise. I do agree that P&O don't seem to have enough venues for live music, and the Atrium is very dull, so maybe P&O could emulate Princess and use the Atrium routinely for their musical groups, hopefully it's acoustics would be a hundred times better than the Skydome.

Similarly the food and service in the MDRs could be much better, and some of the more recent reviews do suggest there are improvements. In addition P&O do seem to be addressing the queuing problems, or at least looking to how they can make the virtual queuing feature more suitable.

But, when you compare the pricing on P&O to most of its major competitors, then that has to be a major plus factor, and passengers cannot expect RCI, Princess or Celebrity standards at those prices.

Hi

You would be surprised…

I am looking for a cruise next October from Southampton.

There is x2 options Celebrity Apex and P&O Britannia.

As TCF books inside cabins I had a look.

Granted Celebrity is 11 nights and P&O is 14 nts.

Celebrity===£2700 with £300 OBC.

P&O = £2600 with £140 OBC on Select.

Its worth a one off for P&O fans to see just how much better P&O could achieve.

The choice of food in the buffet would be worth the difference alone,,,steak or fresh fish grilled while you wait on P&O for lunch? 
The buffet on Silhouette makes the buffet on Ventura look like a snack bar

[Winifred 22]

3 minutes ago, JeanieC,Aston said:

Hi

You would be surprised…

I am looking for a cruise next October from Southampton.

There is x2 options Celebrity Apex and P&O Britannia.

As TCF books inside cabins I had a look.

Granted Celebrity is 11 nights and P&O is 14 nts.

Celebrity===£2700 with £300 OBC.

P&O = £2600 with £140 OBC on Select.

Its worth a one off for P&O fans to see just how much better P&O could achieve.

The choice of food in the buffet would be worth the difference alone,,,steak or fresh fish grilled while you wait on P&O for lunch? 
The buffet on Silhouette makes the buffet on Ventura look like a snack bar

You can’t compare 11 nights v 14 nights as a fair comparison Celebrity deducting OBC   £218 a night P &O is £175 . P&O for me please. I prefer value for money. 

[JeanieC,Aston]

17 minutes ago, FangedRose said:

You do realise that once your order is put in the tablet it is instantly transmitted to the bar staff who then produce the drink? Much more efficient than the waiter trotting back and forwards to the bar. Swiping the card and giving it straight back is infinitely preferable to them disappearing with your card for minutes at a time.

Hi

I know how it works,the problem was the waiter would walk the floor collecting orders.

Instead of delivering them as they were made he stood at the bar talking to the other waiters until All the orders were completed.

The waiters in the queue waited even longer.

I have never heard so much complaining about the time taken to get a drink.

Another problem was if you only had x2 barmen making drinks and x6 waiters floor walking it was chaos.

It only needed one section of the bar for waiter service and one for bar service,,,and each manned up with enough for a ship with near 6000 passengers.

[JeanieC,Aston]

33 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

In the atrium the time I wanted a drink there I went and sat at the bar to order direct having seen quickly it would be a long wait sat in the normal seats waiting for drinks to be ordered let alone served

 

No doubt part of the reason I prefer other places on the ship with much more instant service

Hi ICF

Dont want to seem rude but you have admitted that you are in bed for 22:00 and also said you never went into the clubhouse or pub……try the Club for the 22:30 show or the pub at 23:00 at night and you will see the real problems with lack of staff.

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by JeanieC,Aston

[JeanieC,Aston]

15 minutes ago, Winifred 22 said:

You can’t compare 11 nights v 14 nights as a fair comparison Celebrity deducting OBC   £218 a night P &O is £175 . P&O for me please. I prefer value for money. 

Hi 

I did say as a one off to see the difference….Value?
There is an old saying “Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing”

This really does apply to cruise ships.

 

I have to admit after my Celebrity cruise this May it looks like it was my last.way too expensive going forward,,,,they have now lost value for me.but that’s for balcony,,,,£2700 if you like an inside seems OK.

It looks like I will just have to settle for P&O.problem is I end up comparing all the time.

Edited November 22, 2023 by JeanieC,Aston

[Interestedcruisefan]

14 minutes ago, JeanieC,Aston said:

Hi ICF

Dont want to seem rude but you have admitted that you are in bed for 22:00 and also said you never went into the clubhouse or pub……try the Club for the 22:30 show or the pub at 23:00 at night.

 

No problem. You arent being rude.

 

I tried the clubhouse. Again sat at the bar. All the seats were full.  Only went because we wanted to see the ukulele band who we'd seen earlier in the cruise in the theatre

 

Went in brodies first day on Iona in the afternoon to watch Forest play Arsenal

 

Even when quiet - service wasn't good in there. 

 

I guess because those places I don't like anyway then the fact they are slow doesn't bother me as I don't use them to get annoyed by them 

 

The places I like the service is great. Atmosphere is great and quality is great

 

Anderson's Bar

Crows Nest

Epicurean

MDRs (only tried on Iona)

710 Club

Headliners

Quays

Pool bars

Sindhu

Olive grove

American diner

The sushi one

Cinema 

The hot dog, pizza burger bar in skydome (normally 5 minute queues there)

 

These are the places we like

 

And I like the buffet. Never had any issues using late buffet either on the occasions we wanted it. Never had any problems during the day either. Always got the food we wanted always found tables easily

 

So we don't see the  issues or experience the problems others do

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[JeanieC,Aston]

Hi all

See what I did there!!!!😏

Hasn't the last x3 pages been more interesting than talking about chocolate.
 

[Megabear2]

11 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

No problem. You arent being rude.

 

I tried the clubhouse. Again sat at the bar. All the seats were full.  Only went because we wanted to see the ukulele band who we'd seen earlier in the cruise in the theatre

 

Went in brodies first day on Iona in the afternoon to watch Forest play Arsenal

 

Even when quiet - service wasn't good in there. 

 

I guess because those places I don't like anyway then the fact they are slow doesn't bother me as I don't use them to get annoyed by them 

 

The places I like the service is great. Atmosphere is great and quality is great

 

Anderson's Bar

Crows Nest

Epicurean

MDRs (only tried on Iona)

710 Club

Headliners

Quays

Pool bars

Sindhu

Olive grove

American diner

The sushi one

Cinema 

The hot dog, pizza burger bar in skydome (normally 5 minute queues there)

 

These are the places we like

 

And I like the buffet. Never had any issues using late buffet either on the occasions we wanted it. Never had any problems during the day either. Always got the food we wanted always found tables easily

 

So we don't see the  issues or experience the problems others do

 

Interesting choice of venues.  Basically at night apart from the restaurants you don't use any large venues at all so you rarely encounter the things people give bad feedback on.  The pool bars are not open late on a non Caribbean cruise either as the weather/sea conditions are not ideal after sunset.

 

Explains a great deal. Really you're saying you don't see the problems so aren't really in a position to comment or tell people they're being unreasonable when they say they've experienced something different to you.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Megabear2

[Interestedcruisefan]

23 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Interesting choice of venues.  Basically at night apart from the restaurants you don't use any large venues at all so you rarely encounter the things people give bad feedback on.  The pool bars are not open late on a non Caribbean cruise either as the weather/sea conditions are not ideal after sunset.

 

Explains a great deal. Really you're saying you don't see the problems so aren't really in a position to comment or tell people they're being unreasonable when they say they've experienced something different to you.

 

 

Yes but equally if I have a great time in all the venues then I have to come away and tell others how great these ships can be 

 

There will be places on RCL and Princess and Celebrity I would avoid as well no doubt

 

Including the atriums  on all of them 

[terrierjohn]

22 minutes ago, JeanieC,Aston said:

Hi all

See what I did there!!!!😏

Hasn't the last x3 pages been more interesting than talking about chocolate.
 

Not really, I like chocolate anytime, especially if it's on a special offer.😇

But the odd special offer from Celebrity that competes with P&O does not alter the fact that for balcony passengers, which are now the majority of cruisers, their prices are generally significantly higher and their on board  prices of drinks, speciality dining, shore excursions etc are higher still, plus you then have gratuities.

Regardless of this we should still complain to P&O about poor food quality and poor waiter service, as well as any other aspect where we feel the service could be improved without increasing staff numbers.

[Megabear2]

12 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Yes but equally if I have a great time in all the venues then I have to come away and tell others how great these ships can be 

 

There will be places on RCL and Princess and Celebrity I would avoid as well no doubt

 

Including the atriums  on all of them 

I appreciate your choices but the problems are in other places and as you tend to go into attack mode when people explain their experiences in fairness you need to understand everyone has different expectations.  Andersons for instance isn't a particularly great place for a solo non alcohol drinker.  Atriums on the other hand offer lots of music, dancing etc on other ships and are actually the main hub.  As such they're ideal for socialising, hence their popularity.

 

 

[zap99]

5 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Not really, I like chocolate anytime, especially if it's on a special offer.😇

But the odd special offer from Celebrity that competes with P&O does not alter the fact that for balcony passengers, which are now the majority of cruisers, their prices are generally significantly higher and their on board  prices of drinks, speciality dining, shore excursions etc are higher still, plus you then have gratuities.

Regardless of this we should still complain to P&O about poor food quality and poor waiter service, as well as any other aspect where we feel the service could be improved without increasing staff numbers.

Celebrity are quite nice, but I prefer heroes.  We purchased some hotel chocolate selections for Christmas.

[Clodia]

20 hours ago, FangedRose said:

You do realise that once your order is put in the tablet it is instantly transmitted to the bar staff who then produce the drink? Much more efficient than the waiter trotting back and forwards to the bar. Swiping the card and giving it straight back is infinitely preferable to them disappearing with your card for minutes at a time.

Yes the drinks service works VERY much better this way. I've  been served promptly and efficiently every day this cruise. 

By the way, the goat curry (yes) in the Beach House on Iona is one of the best curries I've ever had!

[FangedRose]

45 minutes ago, Clodia said:

Yes the drinks service works VERY much better this way. I've  been served promptly and efficiently every day this cruise. 

By the way, the goat curry (yes) in the Beach House on Iona is one of the best curries I've ever had!

I had the goat curry in the mdr on Aurora pre covid. It was very tasty. Reminded me of mutton which shouldn't have been a surprise. I did have to keep quiet about it though because one of my table mates was disgusted by the thought of it.

[Cruisemeister2002]

On 11/22/2023 at 7:31 PM, terrierjohn said:

TBF you were very unlucky to experience all the worst possible issues that seem to have occurred on Iona or Arvia, all on one cruise. I do agree that P&O don't seem to have enough venues for live music, and the Atrium is very dull, so maybe P&O could emulate Princess and use the Atrium routinely for their musical groups, hopefully it's acoustics would be a hundred times better than the Skydome.

Similarly the food and service in the MDRs could be much better, and some of the more recent reviews do suggest there are improvements. In addition P&O do seem to be addressing the queuing problems, or at least looking to how they can make the virtual queuing feature more suitable.

But, when you compare the pricing on P&O to most of its major competitors, then that has to be a major plus factor, and passengers cannot expect RCI, Princess or Celebrity standards at those prices.

We went on a cruise in March this year on Ventura. Can honestly say out of the 17 cruises we have taken this was by far the worst. It would take me an age to tell you everything that was not good. I agree P&O prices are very reasonable but when I started cruising with them back in 2002 everything was amazing. All those little things that really make you feel special. Little P&O bags with toiletries, a small bowl of boiled sweets, bed turndown and a chocolate on your pillow, a bottle of water in the fridge, chocoholics and sandwiches and drinking chocolate after the late show. Steak as a choice if you didn't like anything else on the menu and silver service with plenty of veg and a truckle of stilton with your biscuits, not like it is now. Sadly for P&O after the disaster of a cruise in March we are giving Princess a go next year and may never go back to P&O.

[FangedRose]

3 minutes ago, Cruisemeister2002 said:

We went on a cruise in March this year on Ventura. Can honestly say out of the 17 cruises we have taken this was by far the worst. It would take me an age to tell you everything that was not good. I agree P&O prices are very reasonable but when I started cruising with them back in 2002 everything was amazing. All those little things that really make you feel special. Little P&O bags with toiletries, a small bowl of boiled sweets, bed turndown and a chocolate on your pillow, a bottle of water in the fridge, chocoholics and sandwiches and drinking chocolate after the late show. Steak as a choice if you didn't like anything else on the menu and silver service with plenty of veg and a truckle of stilton with your biscuits, not like it is now. Sadly for P&O after the disaster of a cruise in March we are giving Princess a go next year and may never go back to P&O.

Glad to see the back of the boiled sweets, I would never eat anything left uncovered in bowl in my cabin. Never knew how long they had been there! Steak is still always available (at least in September). Also glad to see the end of the non Silver Service. Proper fed up of having to wait for fellow diners to acknowledge that the waiter was there then dithering over their choice. I've never had a cold meal since that palaver was got rid of. A vast improvement. If you want more veg just ask for extra veg when ordering. I'm sure the buffet is still open after the show (never needed (or wanted) to go myself), but tablemates were saying they had been.

[Winifred 22]

I am of the camp I can buy my own toiletries, boiled sweets and chocolates, if I want them.  As recent as May I had an always available  steak and  numerous bowls of tomato soup. I prefer today’s prices and as I said happy to provide my toiletries etc.. and yes the late night buffet was open and busy too. 

[Interestedcruisefan]

4 hours ago, Cruisemeister2002 said:

We went on a cruise in March this year on Ventura. Can honestly say out of the 17 cruises we have taken this was by far the worst. It would take me an age to tell you everything that was not good. I agree P&O prices are very reasonable but when I started cruising with them back in 2002 everything was amazing. All those little things that really make you feel special. Little P&O bags with toiletries, a small bowl of boiled sweets, bed turndown and a chocolate on your pillow, a bottle of water in the fridge, chocoholics and sandwiches and drinking chocolate after the late show. Steak as a choice if you didn't like anything else on the menu and silver service with plenty of veg and a truckle of stilton with your biscuits, not like it is now. Sadly for P&O after the disaster of a cruise in March we are giving Princess a go next year and may never go back to P&O.

I understand your post for missing things you like

 

But IMO those extras you describe above are all actually low cost albeit great extras to enjoy and shouldn't make the difference between a good holiday and a bad one?

 

Your holiday can't have been the worst in 17 cruises for those reasons can it? I assume bad things happened alongside the missing extras above? 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[solentsam]

OMG no chocolate on your pillow or in the tumble dryer what ever next 🤣 gosh

[carlanthony24]

5 hours ago, Cruisemeister2002 said:

We went on a cruise in March this year on Ventura. Can honestly say out of the 17 cruises we have taken this was by far the worst. It would take me an age to tell you everything that was not good. I agree P&O prices are very reasonable but when I started cruising with them back in 2002 everything was amazing. All those little things that really make you feel special. Little P&O bags with toiletries, a small bowl of boiled sweets, bed turndown and a chocolate on your pillow, a bottle of water in the fridge, chocoholics and sandwiches and drinking chocolate after the late show. Steak as a choice if you didn't like anything else on the menu and silver service with plenty of veg and a truckle of stilton with your biscuits, not like it is now. Sadly for P&O after the disaster of a cruise in March we are giving Princess a go next year and may never go back to P&O.

Steak always available. Hot chocolate is served up in the buffet. Turn down service does not matter. No harm asking for extras. You go Royal Caribbean you will find they do not do turn down service anymore, I believe MSC, Norwegian and even Princess. All companies have cut backs now. You won't find things has they use to be be I am afraid. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by carlanthony24

[Megabear2]

42 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

I understand your post for missing things you like

 

But IMO those extras you describe above are all actually low cost albeit great extras to enjoy and shouldn't make the difference between a good holiday and a bad one?

 

Your holiday can't have been the worst in 17 cruises for those reasons can it? I assume bad things happened alongside the missing extras above? 

This one has been well repeated.  My memory serves: price was dropped significantly before sailing,  itinerary was changed quite a lot and less ports as a result, once sailingports were missed and there was a very long period at sea before the next stop, the ship sailed late - around 11.00pm if I recall, US immigration took until 4.30pm in the afternoon, two glasses of wine were nearly £20, the food was cold, the menu held little variety ...  

 

You get the idea. The gentleman unfortunately was unhappy with most of the cruise, I recall he wanted to get off after a week or so.  This was one of the 35 night cruises.

 

He's now very active on the Princess board so I assume he's moved to their ships for his next cruise.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Megabear2

[Interestedcruisefan]

37 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

This one has been well repeated.  My memory serves: price was dropped significantly before sailing,  itinerary was changed quite a lot and less ports as a result, once sailingports were missed and there was a very long period at sea before the next stop, the ship sailed late - around 11.00pm if I recall, US immigration took until 4.30pm in the afternoon, two glasses of wine were nearly £20, the food was cold, the menu held little variety ...  

 

You get the idea. The gentleman unfortunately was unhappy with most of the cruise, I recall he wanted to get off after a week or so.  This was one of the 35 night cruises.

 

He's now very active on the Princess board so I assume he's moved to their ships for his next cruise.

 

 

Meanwhile my parents have moved from Princess to Saga 

 

The grass is always greener somewhere I guess

 

[Megabear2]

It's getting greener for the P&O staff too! Having just had my worse wait in months to speak to them to buy my wine package i just got a guy who said Congratulations you're going to be my last ever customer!  Transpires he's leaving his job and 5.00pm is finish for him.  He's leaving the travel industry completely to go into catering - you've not been headhunting have you ICF.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Megabear2