Not At All Live From Our (Probably) Penultimate P&O Cruise

[TigerB]

2 hours ago, mrsgoggins said:

I'm enjoying your reports and accompanying photos as much as always, but I did find the exchanges you reported with Reception, both for yourself and the overheard conversation, very disappointing to say the least. 

 

I always get the feeling that the reception staff are like the call takers, they have a script or party-line to stick to, and you often get nowhere with them, and they try their utmost to not escalate it further, instead trying to wear you down with the same old rhetoric.

If I hadn't been busy teaching Shey basic maths, I would have caught that fella and advised him to complain by email.

[grapau27]

20 hours ago, TigerB said:

Tuesday 24th September 

 

Alicante today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ooh, is it someone's birthday?

 

This morning's venue for breakfast was Epicurean, as a treat for the birthday boy.

 

Ooh, who put that there?  Perhaps it was our cabin steward? I could have told him, I suppose. Nah! He'll notice eventually. And so he did, but not until after breakfast!

 

 

Rina and Daisy Luna were part of our waiting team, along with Mary Luna.

 

The menu:

 

 

The table...

 

Hey, stop judging me with my three different fruits and yogurt!  In my defence, when I asked for stewed rhubarb, apricots, and red berries, with yogurt,  I thought the fruit would all come mixed in one dish, with a small dish of yoghurt on the side.

Actually, I’ve just checked the photos from our breakfast on our lass’s birthday in February, on Iona. My mixed fruits were served in one glass. On that occasion the juices were served in champagne flutes, and we had jars of Bonne Maman preserves. 

 

 

The birthday boy had a fry-up...

 

 

His long suffering missus had...

 

 

Our lass had...

 

I had both!🐷

 

 

Throughout the breakfast, our waiting staff made a fuss of my BiL, and almost all of the suite guests who left wished him a 'happy birthday' or 'happy 75th birthday'. "How do they all know?" he asked. My sister told him that the girls already knew, and had told everyone else.

 

Towards the end of the meal, Agnes came to the table; she had been serving in another part of the restaurant but, upon seeing us, came straight over. Like the others, she made a fuss of the birthday boy. During the preceding few days he was moaning about turning seventy-five, and was threatening to stay in the cabin all day, under the duvet. He was being a proper Eeyore, and kept saying he didn't want any fuss. But you should have seen him at breakfast; he was revelling in all the attention, especially from the lovely female waiters.

 

That was a fantastic breakfast and, after paying the bill, I am happy to report that it hasn't been affected by the price increases on food and drinks. It was still £8.50 each, which is what we paid in February. As we were docked in Alicante, there was 10% tax added to that. Still great value though.

 

As we left, the birthday boy, when admiring his mature good looks in the mirrors near the podium, saw the label on his back. He looked directly at me and said, "I'll get you back".

"Don't blame me old man!"🤭

 

 

One thing of note, and this is relevant to the recent changes in the policy for powered mobility devices; there were a few users of such devices in there. As far as I could ascertain, they were all suite guests. You can tell the difference between suite guests and the liggers who want to see how the other half live. The former are almost always seated at the window tables, and are well known to the staff. One such guest appeared to have complex care needs, so I guessed they would have been in the only fully accessible suite on the ship. Of the other disabled suite guests, a couple of whom were using mobility scooters, I wondered how many of them had received the call in the week before the cruise to say that that they must be in a fully accessible cabin (of which there were none left) or in a suite, or bring on a manual wheelchair. I would wager that all of them hastily paid the substantial cost to upgrade to a suite. Kerrrrching go the Carnival tills!💰

 

 

We left the ship just after 10:00. There was a shuttle service just outside the terminal that took passengers to the end of the port.

 

I feel I need to write about this service which, from an accessibility perspective, was the most inadequate on this cruise. First of all, there were no wheelchair accessible minibuses laid on. When we got outside we were, at that time, the only party with a wheelchair. In the ten minutes we waited, three coaches pulled in and loaded up with passengers. Two of them had wheelchair lifts at the back, but they weren't used. Our lass lost her patience and said she would make her own way. She disappeared but I didn't see her head along the route towards the end of the port. I figured she had just thrown her teddy out and gone a little way off, expecting me to run after her. By this time, three more wheelchair/scooter users had joined the queue. Just as I bit the bullet to go seek our lass, a regular bus pulled up and filled up with passengers, including my sister and BiL; there was space for just one wheelchair. I sought out our lass who, in her haste to make her own way, went the wrong way and was at the end of the sea wall. We then made our way to the end of the port, where the buses drop off, a distance of just over 1km.  We both agreed that it is diabolical for P&O to lay on five buses/coaches with only two of them available for one wheelchair/scooter each, and then have the cheek to charge £4 for the 'privilege' 

 

 

This was a first visit to Alicante for all of us. We didn't have a real plan as such, just the usual bimble into town, get a magnet or some tourist tat, and perhaps stop for a coffee and some snackage.

 

The birthday boy couldn’t make up his mind which filled croissant to have...

 

After all these years I cannot for the life of me fathom out why my sister married a bloke with an emoji for a head!😵

 

He relented (under pressure) and shared...

That was pistachio filled, and it was lovely!😋 

 

 

We then sought out a tourist tat shop for a magnet, before heading back to the ship.

 

 

Some photos around Alicante...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great photos.

I see you found Mushroom street in Alicante.

Happy belated 75th birthday 🎂 

[TigerB]

@grapau27, we never did find out the significance of the mushrooms 🍄 

[TigerB]

1 hour ago, grapau27 said:

Happy belated 75th birthday 🎂 

 

My BiL thanks you 🙂

[grapau27]

12 minutes ago, TigerB said:

@grapau27, we never did find out the significance of the mushrooms 🍄 

It was built as a tourist attraction and to brighten up a previously dodgy street.

[TigerB]

Thursday 26th September

 

Today: Cadiz

 

 

When I looked out if the window at about 07:30, they had just finished setting up the gangways; it was still dark outside.

 

After breakfast we took a walk on deck 8 to find it was drizzling; as Peter Kay has been known to say, 'that fine rain that wets you through'.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

We returned to our cabin to get ready then, before we got off, we had a meeting with Krishna Gupta, the Asst F&B Manager. 

He asked me about our experience; I told him. He said he had spoken with the finance department on the ship and the way in which the bill was calculated by Sindhu, taking the pre-payment off before applying the food discount, is the correct way; other locations were doing it wrong. I asked him if the pre-payments and discounts were applied manually; he said the computer does it.

"So, Sindhu has always done it this way, taken the pre-payment off before applying the discount?"

"Yes, sir; that is the correct procedure."

It just so happened that I had with me the same notebook that I used in April 2023, on our last Arvia cruise; in it I had recorded daily spends. "Krishna, have a look at this". I showed him four entries, two for Sindhu and two for Green and Co., and for all of them the 20% discount had been applied before the pre-payment amount was deducted. "Explain that, Krishna." He took the details of the transactions. I put it to him that it was done that way last year, and the same way on the four Iona cruises we've been on, but now it's being calculated a different way, but only for Sindhu. He had no answer, but said he would check.

I felt we weren't making any progress. I told him that it is common knowledge on various online resources, including a respected cruise forum to which I contribute, that if you pre-book for the restaurants in question you get your 20% food discount, and then the pre-payment is applied. I said I have never read of anyone who has had an experience like ours. He said it requires further investigation. We left it at that.

 

 

When we got off the ship, the weather had cleared up a bit, but in the three hours or so that we were ashore, it did rain several times, albeit just for a short period each time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we returned Just after 13:00 we went straight to Meridian for lunch.

 

Today's menu:

 

 

We had..

 

BiL...

Sorry, no photo! I’ll describe it instead: It was a bit of ham, with a bit of egg, and a bit of salad in one of those long bread rolls; oh, and there were about a dozen chips on the side.

 

 

Our lass...

 

 

Me and my sister...

That was nice

 

Me and our lass shared these...

 

That was devoid of polenta

 

 

For pud:

 

Our lass had nowt

 

My sister had ice cream 

 

I had...

...with an ice cream chaser

 

My BiL also had the cheesecake...

His eyes were welling up when he saw he didn't have any chocolate shavings

 

 

Afterwards, we returned to our cabins. I chatted with family and friends, and caught up on these reports.

 

 

 

 

Tonight's dining venue was 6th Street Diner, for the second time.  It was a different menu.

We went to Anderson's for a drink first, and took them in with us.

 

The restaurant host, Carina, allocated us the same table as before; I asked her for a different location, saying that we didn't have a good experience with our waiter on that visit. No problem!

After sitting down, I felt the need to return to the podium and explain. I told Carina that we had no problem with Junior, and that she was fantastic; I said we just didn't gel with Baptiste. I perceived a 'knowing look' from her as she replied, "Thank you, sir."

 

 

Tonight's menu...

 

 

We had...

 

Starters:

 

BiL...

 

 

Our lass...

Yes, it shouldn't work, but apparently it does.

 

 

Me and sister...

 

 

We had two of these for the table...

 

 

Mains:

 

BiL...

 

 

Our lass...

A little dry, she said

 

 

Me and sister...

 

 

Desserts:

 

Sister and BiL...

 

 

Me...

 

 

Our lass...

She really didn't care for that so, yet again, I took one for the team!🤭

 

That was a good meal and the service was a lot better than the week previous.

 

 

Afterwards, me and our lass had another meeting with Krishna. He said he had spoken with the finance department again, and they were going to speak with shoreside to establish if it was a fleet wide problem. I said that, as far as we were concerned, Green and Co are doing it correctly, Sindhu has done it correctly on previous occasions, but on this occasion our waiter has done it incorrectly. I said that the pre-payment should be classed no differently to using OBC, as a final method of payment. I asked him if he would be happy to attend a venue where the offer was 20% off all food, and they deducted the method of payment first before the discount, meaning the actual discount was less than the expected 20%. He said he would not.  

He asked me how much the overcharge was; I said it was £8. He said he would arrange a bottle of house wine to be at our table when we next eat. "So, you're going to refund the £8 overcharge and give us a bottle of wine?"

"No sir, it's one or the other." He went on to say that it took time to arrange a refund (really?) but it was easy to arrange a bottle of wine. So, the choice was: a refund of £8, which was obviously too much trouble for him to arrange, or a bottle of wine with a face value of £22, but which will actually cost me £8. "It's celebration night tomorrow, Krishna; how about a bottle of prosecco?"

"Of course, sir."

Before the meeting ended I said I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him this morning, but I was a little taken aback by the Head Waiter’s dismissive attitude and the ‘talk to the hand’ gesture, which I described. I made it clear that I wanted nothing more than him to be spoken to about it; just words of advice, I reiterated. I asked also if he would feed back to me the outcome of the investigation into the charging, saying that I will be reporting on a popular cruise forum about this cruise, and that experience, and that readers will want to be reassured that they are not being short-changed. "Yes, sir."

Call me cynical, but I got the distinct feeling that we would not hear from him again, that we had been fobbed off with a bottle of prosecco and, for him, the matter was closed: a tick to confirm that the customer's complaint was dealt with to their satisfaction. Not by a long way, pal!

 

 

We then met up with the other two in Anderson's for drinks; after a while we took the drinks back to our cabin so we could chat. Main topic of conversation: P&O and their stellar customer service, particularly towards disabled guests!

 

 

 

[TigerB]

Friday 27th September 

 

Sea Day

 

This is our penultimate sea day, two days until we're home.

 

After breakfast me and our lass visited the shops to see if we could spend our remaining £100 of OBC. Neither of us needed any fragrance, we didn't really need any more than the four litres of booze I bought on the second day, we weren't really interested in the tat they bring out nearing the end of the cruise; we just didn't want to fritter it away on drinks at the bars. So, a Pandora charm it is! That was £40, £60 left to spend. "Why don't you get some more booze," she said, "It'll come in for Christmas presents." So, four more litres it was then! 

No sooner had we returned to the cabin then she sent me back out for another charm she had spied. So, all OBC spent, and £30 or so, plus further spends at the bars, to go on the card.

 

 

Back in the cabin, we both pondered how it is always the same old, same old; you're almost home but you're stuck on a big ship on the water, and you can't make it go any quicker. We both miss our kitty and can't wait to pick her up on Sunday, and also have some 'normal' food.

 

 

Lunch today was bits and bobs from the Quays, brought back to the cabin.  The other two went to Zenith; my sister had the fish burger, which I’ve had before and really liked. I chowed at her for not bringing me one back!

 

 

It was very blustery today, and the sea swell has up and down, up and down; it probably looked worse than it was from our low cabin location. Nevertheless, I recorded some videos to send to a family member and a friend, both of whom definitely do not have sea legs.

 

 

 

 

We were back in Zenith this evening, for celebration night.

 

Tonight's MPW curated menu...

 

 

My sister was really unwell, and wasn't sure if she would keep down anything she ate. "Just have soup and bread," suggested her sister-in-law. I was a bit more pragmatic: "Sis, choose wisely when you order; just think, 'what would my baby brother like'?"

 

 

 

 

Starters:

 

BiL...

 

 

Me and our lass...

 

My sister...

Nope! Now mine 😋 

 

 

We all had...

 

 

Mains:

 

BiL...

 

 

Our lass...

 

 

Me...

 

Sister...

again, mine! 🐷

 

 

 

Desserts: 

 

The other three had...

I think my sister thought she would be able to keep some of that down.

 

 

Me...

with blackcurrant sorbet chaser

 

When I asked Clive for the soufflé and also the blackcurrant sorbet, he said the soufflé came with ice cream. "I know Clive, the sorbet is like an end of meal palette cleanser."

It's too late in the day Clive to start dessert shaming me; that ship has well and truly sailed!

 

 

Afterwards, we returned to our cabins, and my sister went straight to bed. I got out of my penguin suit with a view to meet my BiL at the 710 Club later.

Tonight's set was Handwritten

 

 

[TigerB]

Friday 28th September 

 

Sea Day

 

 

This was our last day onboard.

As with other sea days, we didn’t have breakfast until 08:15.  This was to be our last meal in Zenith; we were booked into Beach House tonight, and breakfast tomorrow, simply because disembarkation will be from deck 6, will be in Meridian.  So, we thanked Clive and Annisa for looking after us, gave each of them an envelope, and said our goodbyes.

 

 

It was a bit blustery, so our lass didn’t fancy going on deck; I had packing to do anyway, so we returned to our cabin. We spent most of the day in there, with me just leaving to pick up my pre-ordered booze, get some snackage from the Quays, and later do a final bit of ironing.

 

 

Our reservation at Beach House tonight was at 19:00.  We were seated in a different section to last week, but our waiting team were the same pair, Sahejad and I Putu. 

When Sahejad came for the drinks order he looked at me and said, “Punk IPA from the Laguna, right?”  What a good lad, remembering from last week.  He called over one of his lackeys, gave him my cruise card, and sent him on his way.  My drink came back before the others got theirs.

 

 

The menu...

 

When we placed our food order I told Sahejad that I had come in the day before to ask for prawns with my fajitas, and could he check with the chef if that is okay.  “You want prawns sir, I’ll get you prawns; leave it to me”.  He really was on top form tonight.

 

 

This is what we had...

 

 

Starters:

 

My sister and BiL...

 

 

Me and our lass...

 

 

Mains:

 

My BiL and our lass...

 

 

 

My sister...

 

 

Me...

 

The presentation was a little different to the one I had on Iona in February...

 

...but cracking all the same.

 

The lad that brought the mains looked at me and said, “Would you like some more wraps, sir?”  My reputation obviously precedes me!😂  He returned sharply with these...

 

 

 

Desserts:

 

Our lass and our sister...

 

 

Me...

This is different than the last time I had it: the waffle used to be a full sized one, and, with it not being warm, was a little hard going.

 

 

My BiL...

 

My sister: “Ooh, he’s got ice cream with his.”

Sahejan: “You want ice cream; I’ll get you ice cream.”  He left and returned with ice creams for the table.

 

That was a really good last dinner of the cruise.

 

 

Our lass was tired so we went back to the cabin, and I got her settled.  The other two had a reservation for iHoppers in Headliners; I went back out to catch the 22:30 set in the 710 Club.

Tonight was billed as Essence Of The 90s Returns.  However, it was Connor’s last night, so they really went off piste with his song choices from all genres.  That was a good set.

[TigerB]

Sunday 29th September 

 

Disembarkation Day

 

We were all up at sparrow’s fart, last few things packed, and down for breakfast by 07:15.  This morning we were in Meridian because our rendezvous point was the Limelight Club, and the gangways were also on deck 6.

 

Why is breakfast on disembarkation day always just meh?

 

Our rendezvous time was between 08:15 and 08:30.  After breakfast we made our way to the Limelight Club, arriving at the entrance at 08:05.  “Do you need extra assistance?” asked the crew member.  “No” I replied.  He then said we could make our way off the ship.

 

Twenty minutes later we were in the car park; we said our goodbyes to my sister and BiL, and they boarded their coach.  Our lass waited nearby while I went to retrieve the car.

I noted just eight miles had gone on the odometer.  It transpires it had been parked at the rear of a disused commercial vehicles showroom on Third Avenue, four miles away.

 

After loading our car we were on the road by 08:40.

 

On the way out of town I got caught out by a new bus-gate on East Park Terrace, which didn’t show up on the sat-nav.  Later research revealed it had only been open a few weeks, so I was hoping that it wasn’t being enforced, and I would avoid a fixed penalty notice.  So far, so good!🤞

 

 

 

I’ll be back on in a couple of days with my final thoughts.