DS_Dean

It can be a bit bushtucker trial in there I find.😄

Here on Iona.. doesn't seem too windy from what I can tell. Just been for a night time hot tub! But this is my very unprofessional opinion. 😄

Yes it's annoying there are some really weird restrictions. They should publish a list if they are going to block normal websites.

Now that it's StarLink there is plenty of speed!

The only downside is that some sites are blocked like Reddit for some reason. That's a bit annoying.

I'm on Iona right now on Essentials plan and the internet is great! So much faster. Must be using Star Link I guess. Much better service. Really happy with it!

Hopefully it is because of new Star Link plans perhaps 😁

Looking forward to Starlink system. What I have never understood about current WiFi is that the "Essential" and "Ultimate" seem to have the same speeds. The "Ultimate" is advertised as faster but twice I upgraded to it on two different cruises and had to get if refunded on both occasions as the speed was the same as "Essential".

I'm on mobile phone so cannot really expand on my comment about the app but will do so when I get home in more detail with better explanation 🙂

The app on Arvia is all over the place. It has been ok last few nights but at the start of the cruise it was a disaster. You would join a queue for instance Glass House. Wait over an hour because you are in the queue, grow impatient, go down to the Glass House and be admitted straight away because it turns out app had stopped working that night. But there is no communication...

I've noticed kids in the swim up bar all cruise. Sounds like a nice idea to have a swim up bar but I guess the lower water level is more appealing for children.

That's pretty much the case. It just seems like they don't have the experience right now to properly manage capacity, at least not on Arvia. I did appreciate the sea boat option though this time.

It was a wait again today but thankfully not as bad. We got the sea boat back which was nicer than the coach 🙂

Hehe. Honestly I think all the entertainment has been good. Rock On was a great performance also. There was an act doing Coldplay which was really good. The singer in The Club, Hannah Stearne I think her name was, great also. Zoe (?) in Limelight Club is fantastic. Phil Melbourne was a funny comedian. Entertainment has been first class IMO. Makes up for the shuttle bus disaster somewhat!

The acoustics in sky dome are not great... But otherwise entertainment on Arvia has indeed been amazing. Neil Lockwood tonight was outstanding.

We are Select guests also so yes we were also not impressed by that news. Debating going to reception to complain but always so busy down there. Have you done anything?

P&O is changing and heading more down market I think, particularly in terms of service. A bit more Ryan Air "take it or leave it" kind of customer experience. Like with noisy cabins and generally useless organisation of shuttles, queues on board and barely functional app. I think P&O know about these things but they don't really have the committment to sort them out as that's not really where the brand is positioned. But the price reflects this to an extent. Cost per night is so much better than hotel holidays and the entertainment and food is mostly really good. On the point of the app, we know Princess have a much better system with medallion and yet despite that being already available Carnival UK put out this crap app for P&O UK. I think I saw somewhere this is being reversed though and hopefully p&o will get the Princess system soon.

Tried Uber as well but found the same that it's not available in Palma. I'm on mobile so sorry for brevity but I agree with @Megabear2's sentiments. we used the app but then found the app is not working. We queued for Glass House for 1.5 hrs, saw the queue wasn't moving and went down there only for them to say the app had stopped working... ??? And we were admitted straight away. I'm also confused why swim up bar pool is not adults only.

Well Captain Camby did apologise on tannoy. I assume to avoid en masse complaints at reception. Perhaps they should offer something for those that went ashore and had this painful experience. Some OBC might sweeten passengers frustrations.

Hmm yes heard some similar sentiments from passengers. One person was new to cruising and asked if this is normal. Don't think he'll be converted to cruising unless the rest of the cruise improves! Others we spoke to said they prefer smaller ships as doesn't seem like p&o have the experience to manage passengers on larger ships. Back on board now... At least there is Rock On in theatre tonight. They are good!

It'd 16:50 now and we just got on and yet the queue is still doubled back. Ship will be quite substantially delayed I think unless they can sort out coach capacity.

Just got on the coach after an at least 2 hour+ queue. Disgraceful! Celebrity Edge and MSC had no problems. This was purely a P&O capacity planning issue. Will certainly be complaining! Breathing in all the fumes from buses as well queuing for so long.

I'm sure there used to be a page on P&O website that listed the current films shown on board but it seems to have been removed. 🙁

Hooray! Now this is a wise move on Carnivals part. Next up. Just re work all the rest of the IT Infrastructure 😄

We have a future cruise booked on Arvia (14 nights) and we were thinking of booking The Retreat. The price on the Cruise Personaliser is showing £429 for the whole cruise, per person! So over £800 for two. Havnt booked the Retreat before but we had thought about it in the past and I am sure that when on board on Azura it was cheaper. Is this something that it is better to wait until getting on board to get a better price? I assume availability dependent, there might also be single day passes? Has P&O increased this price or was it always this expensive for the 14 nights? I feel like it has increased based on other ships but can't put my finger on what it used to be before. I might be crazy but I thought it was more like £250 per person for 2 weeks. But maybe I am very crazy. 😄