Arvia - I read the reviews and didn’t believe them, now I do

[NewWestwardbound]

13 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

Unfortunately for smokers, they now represent a small and reducing percentage of the passengers, and in general it is those non smoking passengers who set the tone of what the ship should provide for smokers. P&O like most other cruise lines are trying to walk a narrow line and keep both sets of passengers happy, but it is difficult for them. IncidentlyAzura and Britannia are also P&O ships, so if you feel happier on them, then maybe avoid Arvia in future.

My point was that the implication that the poor review was solely due to the smoking facilities was somewhat misplaced, if not a complete misrepresentation. 

[miopyk]

So unfortunately things took a down turn last night or rather early this morning. It appears that I consumed some prawns that may have been past their best last night  and while they tasted very nice on their way down less can be said when we were reacquainted several hours later. 
 

Now one thing I have learned is not to complain about potential incidents of food poisoning on a cruise ship unless you’re absolutely sure it can’t be mistaken for something more virulent. 
 

Suffice to say my wife who wisely chose something different last night has had no symptoms whatsoever and the cornflakes I consumed later this morning have continued on their correct trajectory, so dodgy prawns it was. 
 

Saturday morning really can’t come quickly enough.

 

 

[NewWestwardbound]

Sorry to hear this and hope you feel better soon.

[miopyk]

10 hours ago, NewWestwardbound said:

Sorry to hear this and hope you feel better soon.

Thanks. Pretty much back to normal today and my light dinner last night seems to be progressing as normal. 
 

We were talking to another couple yesterday who it turns out are regular customers with P&O and without any prompt from us opined that the food on this cruise was comparatively poor with their previous cruises. We then told them about our experience and they said they weren’t surprised, not that that serves as a representative sample.

 

Anyway last day today and freedom tomorrow. 

[Fionboard]

I was on this cruise and although I did not enjoy the ship,  I think the food was the best I have had on any ship recently. I only dined in the MDR and found the service acceptable too, considering how busy the waiters seemed. 

[doog442]

1 hour ago, Fionboard said:

I was on this cruise and although I did not enjoy the ship,  I think the food was the best I have had on any ship recently. I only dined in the MDR and found the service acceptable too, considering how busy the waiters seemed. 

 

Thanks but please don't spoil the doom and gloom  🤣

 

There's still time for the OP to be slapped by a waiter !

 

(Michael Mcintyre comedy sketch on Trip advisor reviews - I was just waiting for the opportunity.😅)

 

Sorry OP I hope it goes better next time (Obviously it won't be on the Arvia).

 

 

[zap99]

4 minutes ago, doog442 said:

 

Thanks but please don't spoil the doom and gloom  🤣

 

There's still time for the OP to be slapped by a waiter !

 

(Michael Mcintyre comedy sketch on Trip advisor reviews - I was just waiting for the opportunity.😅)

 

Sorry OP I hope it goes better next time (Obviously it won't be on the Arvia).

 

 

If I had said that ...🤣🤣🤣🤣

[miopyk]

1 hour ago, doog442 said:

 

Thanks but please don't spoil the doom and gloom  🤣

 

There's still time for the OP to be slapped by a waiter !

 

(Michael Mcintyre comedy sketch on Trip advisor reviews - I was just waiting for the opportunity.😅)

 

Sorry OP I hope it goes better next time (Obviously it won't be on the Arvia).

 

 

Cheers, yes I’ve seen that, it was funny and yes I get the parallels 🤔 Fortunately I’ve still got my sense of humour and as we spend several months a year travelling we’re already looking forward to the next trip shortly and this one will soon fade to a distant memory. As my wife said last night it was cheap for a reason and no, we won’t be doing it again 😉

[NewWestwardbound]

5 hours ago, miopyk said:

Cheers, yes I’ve seen that, it was funny and yes I get the parallels 🤔 Fortunately I’ve still got my sense of humour and as we spend several months a year travelling we’re already looking forward to the next trip shortly and this one will soon fade to a distant memory. As my wife said last night it was cheap for a reason and no, we won’t be doing it again 😉

Glad you have kept your sense of humour, but I am disappointed that P&O or at least Arvia has lost another future customer. I hope you will pull your thoughts together and submit a review on this site, and respond to the post-cruise questionnaire so that there is the possibility that things will change for the better for future travellers. 

 

On others’ response to the issues on your cruise, I stumbled across this today: 

 

“Twitter is just full of silly little people enjoying being sarcastic and rude and mocking.” Michaela Coel

 

Substitute other social media for Twitter and I think it still stands, for some. 
 

Hope you have a good evening and journey home tomorrow. 

[Megabear2]

18 hours ago, miopyk said:

Cheers, yes I’ve seen that, it was funny and yes I get the parallels 🤔 Fortunately I’ve still got my sense of humour and as we spend several months a year travelling we’re already looking forward to the next trip shortly and this one will soon fade to a distant memory. As my wife said last night it was cheap for a reason and no, we won’t be doing it again 😉

I hope you have a good journey home and thank you for taking the time to tell us of your experiences and views.  I hope your next trip wherever it is gives you a better experience.  Once again many thanks.

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Sorry to hear you had a disappointing cruise on Arvia. Many people have a great time but many also have a bad time. 

Cruising is always subjective and sometime little things can make it great or poor.

Arvia/P&O for us as a family is an enigma. We dont really  care about attentive in your face service, world class food, or clean sheets and towels every day. We like to just enjoy spending time together as a family, seeing new destinations. So for us P&O offers value for money. However on the flip side P&O are not what i would call a family cruise line. Yes they have kids club and put on a few activities but apart from that theres no extra incentive for families to book. Arvia is a prime example. Lots of silly small pools, when busy standing room only. No water slides, limited stuff for kids to do other then mini golf and the hgh ropes. Which whilst fun is what 1hrs entertainment. 

I do like P&O, being british you know what your getting and value for money is very appealing. 

The food, entertainment, service its the sme on most cruises ive been on with many different companies, some great most average some poor. 

I just wish they would go outside of the saftey box and be more adventurous with their future ships.

[miopyk]

Well we're back home having left Arvia at about 6:30 this morning. 

 

As I mentioned above we had an exceptional experience in the Retreat and the 3 regulars up there really went out of their way to look after us. It's a shame that subsequent passengers won't get to enjoy their company for much longer as they're all going back to Goa for Christmas and a well deserved break with their families. 

 

We're also not big drinkers so having access to a ready supply of soft drinks (and alcohol if you want it) in the Retreat negated the need for any drinks packages that actually seemed pretty expensive compared to other lines. Because of that and the great staff, this was the venue we spent most of our time in during the day and fortunately the weather was reasonable most of the time.. 

 

The cabin we had was pretty comfortable and suited our needs for this trip as we didn't really spend much time there. Other than the initial problems we were again looked after to a good standard.

 

I think I've commented enough on our experience with the food and associated service already but I was glad to hear that many posters enjoyed what Arvia had to offer without issue, it's clear that they can get it right but perhaps not as consistently as they should. 

 

We also thought the ship itself was a bit boring compared to other large ships from other lines especially with the number of sea days included in this itinerary. We didn't visit the entertainment venues very much and what we did see was as expected in terms of talent and engagement. Other than those there didn't really seem very much else to do. 

 

As mentioned though, the biggest issue was the MyHoliday App which isn't really an app at all. Some of the technical issues should be really simple to resolve but like many in house developments is likely lacking enough support and budget to make any significant progress. I am not hopeful that my feedback will make much difference despite promises to the contrary.

 

If like us you have issues it will likely impact your ability to manage your dining and entertainment schedule as there is no Plan B other than sorting it yourself (if you know how) or visiting the ship's reception desk. Again, I'm sure that most people have no issues at all but I suspect a reasonable number do based on it being a selectable topic heading when raising a question/issue with Customer Services which we did last week.

 

Interestingly we were offered a significant credit against a future P&O cruise before we left the ship but politely declined as we had already concluded that what P&O offers is not what we want regardless of the issues we had and the perceived "value for money" fares. Making it cheaper doesn't necessarily translate into making it better and ultimately our time is best spent elsewhere. 

 

Next for us, we are off to Singapore which we're really looking forwards to and I'm in the process of finalising several trips next year including a 5 week road trip around the Deep South in the US in June which should be great fun if the weather behaves so Arvia will be long forgotten in short order. 

 

In conclusion, I hope that those of you that felt you got some benefit from my posts enjoy any trips you have planned and wish you all the best for the future. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TigerB]

@miopyk, thank you for taking the time to write about your experience; sorry it's not been that great. As you say, others have had great cruises on Arvia, and no doubt others have had an equally poor experience as you have, but not all of them take the time to write about it.  I'm glad there was at least one redeeming feature, with your experience of the Retreat.

I am in the process of uploading my reports of our Arvia cruise, which preceded yours. Generally, we had a good cruise but there were some aspects, food and customer service, that failed to hit the mark, and will get a mention.  We do though prefer Iona to Arvia; however, it looks like we won't sail on either of them again, but that is down to the company policy rather than the shops and their crew,

 

Have a great time in Singapore and on your road trip next year; in May we did four weeks in a motorhome in the southern states, which was great.

[miopyk]

10 minutes ago, TigerB said:

@miopyk, thank you for taking the time to write about your experience; sorry it's not been that great. As you say, others have had great cruises on Arvia, and no doubt others have had an equally poor experience as you have, but not all of them take the time to write about it.  I'm glad there was at least one redeeming feature, with your experience of the Retreat.

I am in the process of uploading my reports of our Arvia cruise, which preceded yours. Generally, we had a good cruise but there were some aspects, food and customer service, that failed to hit the mark, and will get a mention.  We do though prefer Iona to Arvia; however, it looks like we won't sail on either of them again, but that is down to the company policy rather than the shops and their crew,

 

Have a great time in Singapore and on your road trip next year; in May we did four weeks in a motorhome in the southern states, which was great.

 

Thanks, I did read some of your report last night and I'm sorry to hear of the policy changes impacting your future plans. Hopefully that won't restrict your travel plans elsewhere too much in the future. 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 01:34 PM by miopyk

[janny444]

1 hour ago, miopyk said:

Well we're back home having left Arvia at about 6:30 this morning. 

 

As I mentioned above we had an exceptional experience in the Retreat and the 3 regulars up there really went out of their way to look after us. It's a shame that subsequent passengers won't get to enjoy their company for much longer as they're all going back to Goa for Christmas and a well deserved break with their families. 

 

We're also not big drinkers so having access to a ready supply of soft drinks (and alcohol if you want it) in the Retreat negated the need for any drinks packages that actually seemed pretty expensive compared to other lines. Because of that and the great staff, this was the venue we spent most of our time in during the day and fortunately the weather was reasonable most of the time.. 

 

The cabin we had was pretty comfortable and suited our needs for this trip as we didn't really spend much time there. Other than the initial problems we were again looked after to a good standard.

 

I think I've commented enough on our experience with the food and associated service already but I was glad to hear that many posters enjoyed what Arvia had to offer without issue, it's clear that they can get it right but perhaps not as consistently as they should. 

 

We also thought the ship itself was a bit boring compared to other large ships from other lines especially with the number of sea days included in this itinerary. We didn't visit the entertainment venues very much and what we did see was as expected in terms of talent and engagement. Other than those there didn't really seem very much else to do. 

 

As mentioned though, the biggest issue was the MyHoliday App which isn't really an app at all. Some of the technical issues should be really simple to resolve but like many in house developments is likely lacking enough support and budget to make any significant progress. I am not hopeful that my feedback will make much difference despite promises to the contrary.

 

If like us you have issues it will likely impact your ability to manage your dining and entertainment schedule as there is no Plan B other than sorting it yourself (if you know how) or visiting the ship's reception desk. Again, I'm sure that most people have no issues at all but I suspect a reasonable number do based on it being a selectable topic heading when raising a question/issue with Customer Services which we did last week.

 

Interestingly we were offered a significant credit against a future P&O cruise before we left the ship but politely declined as we had already concluded that what P&O offers is not what we want regardless of the issues we had and the perceived "value for money" fares. Making it cheaper doesn't necessarily translate into making it better and ultimately our time is best spent elsewhere. 

 

Next for us, we are off to Singapore which we're really looking forwards to and I'm in the process of finalising several trips next year including a 5 week road trip around the Deep South in the US in June which should be great fun if the weather behaves so Arvia will be long forgotten in short order. 

 

In conclusion, I hope that those of you that felt you got some benefit from my posts enjoy any trips you have planned and wish you all the best for the future. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for giving your thoughts about this cruise...it clearly didn't tick your boxes but you gave it a go.

Now...your future adventure plans sound really exciting...oh...if only we were a few years younger and had the inner drive but unfortunately age has caught up with us and are now quite content to just sit back & relax and watch the world go by 😀

I wish you well exploring new horizons