Selbourne

I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed the updates. We seem to be unlucky with noise on cruise ships. Some people never have a problem yet we have had noise issues on probably half our cruises. We find that sound insulation between cabins is very poor and I guess it doesn’t help that we get no noise at night at home, living on a no-through road. We’ve had a number of issues on Aurora as well, which seems to be particularly badly insulated for noise. In addition to the ‘drawer slammers’ (who never remember where they’ve put anything, so open and close every drawer every time they want anything) we’ve had people who are a bit deaf and put their TV on at full volume very early (it doesn’t help that the default sound setting is way too loud). On one cruise we could hear every word of the couple’s conversation next door as they both had loud voices (some of it was quite amusing though). On another Aurora cruise we were woken at 5.30am every morning with the chap next door having a sneezing fit (no attempt to suppress the noise) and on yet another the person above used to get out of bed in the early hours for the loo but it sounded like he fell out of bed and we were woken with an almighty crash overhead every night. There are plenty of other examples I could give. As I say, we are clearly just very unlucky 😂

DAY 14 (Sea Day) We usually find that time passes slowly on cruises. A week often seems like a fortnight and a fortnight usually feels like a month. Not this time though. This cruise seems to have gone quite quickly for both of us. A little bit of excitement pre breakfast as a large grey military helicopter with a soldier sitting in the open doorway came down very low on our side of the ship (it was the noise that alerted us to it), took a good look at us and then flew off again! The Peninsular restaurant had gone ‘Queue Full’ at least 30 minutes before last admission today, rather than the usual 20 minutes, so we got in the queue for the Oriental restaurant for the second time and were called after 15 minutes. Whilst the food is the same, service was a bit slower than in the Peninsular restaurant. I have started noticing a number of people with coughs over the past day or so. Hope it’s not you know what. I had to move seats on the shuttle coming back from Hamburg, as the lady in front of me kept hacking away, and in the restaurants I have tuned in to a few people with persistent coughs. Thankfully none have been that close to us or I would have asked to move, but there was one lady that was close enough today given that she looked pretty rough and was coughing and blowing her nose continuously. She seemed intent on infecting everyone in the entire restaurant! Perhaps she is unaware of room service 🤔 The same solo guest lecturer that we have had all cruise is doing a talk on Mary Queen of Scots today. Doesn’t remotely interest us, especially as yet again it’s smack bang in the middle of lunch at 1pm but there are a lot of Scots on board! Edit - it was announced that ‘due to popular demand’ the talk will be on at 11am as well (suspect that it’s more likely that people have said ‘what idiot planned the one talk at 1pm? 😂). In the absence of anything else to do we used the rest of the morning to pack everything that we won’t need for dinner or the final morning, accompanied of course by the constant crashing, banging and thudding from our lovely next door neighbours. I hope for their sake that we don’t meet them in the corridor when we leave our cabin for the last time tomorrow morning 😡. This is one of the major things that plagues us on cruises. Sound insulation between cabins is poor and we always seem to get a thoughtless occupant(s) one side of us, opposite or above us. It’s not just kids. We’ve had it on Aurora a few times as well. One of the few things to look forward to about getting older must be partial hearing loss, when you no longer hear these irritants 😂 We weren’t at all hungry at lunch time but, conscious that on sea days the app closes after 30 mins or so, we joined the queue at 12.25pm with 37 in the queue and were called 40 minutes later. Having already done most of our packing, at 2pm we attended an art talk on street art (Banksy etc) in the Live Lounge. The first 45 minutes was very good before it cleverly morphed into a sales pitch, telling us all that we won’t get a better investment opportunity than to buy some of the pieces that they have on board 🤔. Afterwards, we returned to the cabin to watch our final film of the cruise on our interactive TV. As we had enjoyed the previous Timothy Spall film so much we watched another - this time Mrs Lowry and Son. Pre dinner drinks in the Crows Nest was followed by our 4th visit to Epicurean. Our 7.30pm booking coincided with our entry into the Dover Straights, so we were on migrant watch, especially as the seas were flat calm! With our bridge talk still fresh in our minds, I should imagine that those dinghy’s must be an absolute nightmare for the lookouts. In a case of cruise ship versus dinghy there’s only ever going to be one outcome. Incidentally, the sea has been like a mill pond today. Flat calm, yet there’s been an awful lot of vibration at the aft of the ship, even up on deck 14 where we are. Our Epicurean meal was excellent (so that’s 3 out of 4 that lived up to expectation) and it was a lovely way to end the cruise. It didn’t start well though, as when we exited the lift on deck 16 and started to walk towards the restaurant we could hear a very loud baby or toddler. When we got to the restaurant there was a couple with two young children, one of which was in a high chair, and the kids were full volume. I then couldn’t believe what I saw. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least one square meter of the carpet underneath the tots high chair was absolutely covered in food mess. It was everywhere. When our kids were that young we wouldn’t have taken them to a restaurant like that in the first place, but even in a pub if food fell off the high chair, as it inevitably does, one of us would pick it up. We would never just walk off and leave the staff to deal with it. Not this couple. Not a care in the world as Dad just topped up the wine. Thankfully we were seated quite a way away from them (I’d have refused to sit any closer) but we could still hear them for the first hour of our meal. This is one problem that we discovered with Epicurean when we used to use suites. If you get a family like that staying in a suite, you have the pleasure of their company every morning for breakfast! Finally, we ended the day with a rare thing - a Headliners show that we hadn’t seen before - Mr Tockerton’s Clockwork Circus. Well they saved the best till last. I never really get the story lines of these shows and the first half was just OK, but then they upped the ante with a much better second half including a few hits from the Greatest Showman. We both enjoyed it. Although we disembark Friday morning, it has been possible for the entire cruise to make speciality dining reservations for Friday night. Whether this is a P&O IT glitch that will take a few years to fix, or a nice option for anyone doing a back-to-back, is anybody’s guess. I can’t help but wonder how many who are leaving the ship tomorrow made a reservation for what they thought was their last night on board and have been disappointed when they turned up at the restaurant to find that they didn’t have a booking? I will update with Friday mornings disembarkation process once we have arrived home and I will also do a final summary of our thoughts on our first P&O cruise since Covid. As for Britannia, she remains one of our top 2 ships on P&O (the other being Aurora), although we’ve really missed not having a promenade deck, especially on the sea days. I like to walk a few laps a few times a day in the fresh air. If this ship had been built with a wrap around promenade deck and midship stairs it would be nigh on perfect. We have certainly appreciated the more accessible nature of the ship compared to Aurora, which can be challenging in places. We shall look forward to ‘promenading’ on Iona in 4 weeks time, especially as there’s the added attraction of nosing in on all the Conservatory mini-suites 😂. Whilst all ships operate a bit differently, I’m hoping that the knowledge that we have gained on this cruise as to how to work around the challenges of the app will stand us in good stead. Wish us luck 😂

Yes our Iona cruise looks as though we can pre book most speciality restaurants 2 weeks out.

Plus the teenagers have probably finished early due to GCSEs etc.

I have wanted to have a word, but Mrs S won’t let me. We had the Chocolate fondu, which should be a £4 supplement, free.

Scottish schools and private schools are off, although I don’t think that the noisy pair next to us fit either category 😡

DAY 13 (Hamburg) I woke just before 6am so was able to see some of our arrival into Hamburg. Quite a complex manoeuvre to get into the Steinwerder Cruise Terminal, including reversing a considerable distance. That always impresses me. There’s a lot going on in this port. In addition to the usual container port there seems to be a huge shipbuilding industry, with big hangers and also things that look like enormous open ended skips, that a ship is built on and then is presumably lowered into the water to float the ship out. Ships being built here include Super Yachts and military vessels plus some unidentifiable ones that are covered in a sort of polythene scaffolding! We had breakfast back in the Peninsular restaurant and then after 3 days on the ship I was definitely more than ready to go ashore. Unfortunately the cruise terminal isn’t walkable to / from the city centre due to a complex and lengthy road network in order to exit the docks, which means relying on shuttles. My wife decided to stay on the ship and when I saw the distances and ramps involved to get from the ship to the shuttle buses, plus the fact that, unlike Copenhagen, I couldn’t see a single accessible shuttle, I was quite relieved. The P&O the standard shuttles were plentiful though. When one of our daughters came here with MSC she had to wait for nearly 90 minutes for one. We have been to Hamburg before, but on a tour from Travemumde, so the attraction this time was less about the city itself and more about the transit down the River Elbe, so it was good that the ‘all onboard’ time was 5.30pm as that would mean being able to enjoy much of the transit before dinner. It was a nice sail out, in spite of the constant thudding around from the kids next door (as my wife said, it’s been bad enough for us, but imagine what it must be like for those underneath them) and a group of teenagers sitting in the corridor outside the aft suites making a lot of noise. I am SO relieved that we don’t book suites anymore. One has been used as a rendezvous point for all the teens on board and another has the screaming baby from hell. Pity the poor souls in the suite between those two 😱 There are some serious properties on the banks of the Elbe in the first 5 miles after leaving Hamburg. Clearly a lot of well paid jobs in the area! As the cruise along the Elbe takes all evening, and we didn’t fancy anything on the MDR menu, we chanced a second booking in the Beach House as there was a late slot at 9pm available, hoping that most of the kids and babies might have left by then. Thankfully they had! We both had the fillet steak on lava stone and whilst it wasn’t quite the 10/10 that I’d had the week before, it was still a far better steak than you’d get at home. Top marks for service. The drinks waiter found me a bitter that hadn’t been in a fridge and the food waiter, noticing that I’d left some of my steak as it was a bit fatty in one part, offered us a free dessert. Whilst we have managed to get into all the speciality restaurants that we wanted to (thanks to early boarding) one thing that we have noticed is that even though every restaurant has been sold out, and some passengers will have been unable to make bookings, we have noticed at least one table of officers dining in every one of them during every visit. This surely cannot be right? Call me old fashioned, but customers should always come first. If a restaurant is sold out then surely the staff should be bumped? We didn’t bother with the show. The description of the artist as a ‘singing diva’ was enough to put us off. Hoping we have an undisturbed night as I am fearfal that the teenagers in the suite 2 doors away are likely to have a last hurrah with their new found friends on one of the last 2 nights. I sincerely hope that I’m wrong 🤞

Relevant to this thread and @Presto2 concerns, but here’s a sneak preview of a paragraph from my ‘Live on Britannia’ thread that I have still got to finalise for today; “Whilst we have managed to get into all the speciality restaurants that we wanted to (thanks to early boarding) one thing that we have noticed is that even though every restaurant has been sold out, and some passengers will have been unable to make bookings, we have noticed at least one table of officers dining in every one of them during every visit. This surely cannot be right? Call me old fashioned, but customers should always come first. If a restaurant is sold out then surely the staff should be bumped to make way for more passengers?”

Many emergency medical numbers have the +44 prefix format. From memory, I think you have to input in the ‘within UK’ format (e.g. 01xxx)

If they can I think the answer would be yes, but we have been on cruises where there are signs outside the freedom dining restaurants on the first few nights saying that Freedom is full and they cannot accommodate requests to change. I’m sure that if someone was to complain though, they would let you swap. This is our dilemma. We love the flexibility of freedom (well, the flexibility that it used to have) but we have to have a table for 2 nowadays. We would book 2nd sitting fixed now if we could 100% guarantee a table for 2, but we can’t. This is the biggest reason that we are now trying Cunard, as we can have fully flexible dining with none of the worry before the cruise or hassle during it.

Hopefully you will be fine, and I think most people are, but table size with fixed dining is always a preference and never guaranteed

We have a couple of 14 nighters booked next year on Cunard. We like their Club concept, where you have an allocated table which is for your exclusive use for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can turn up whenever you like within the opening hours for each dining session. No app. No pager. No queue. No playing the system to get in a queue at a time that you think might result in you eating at roughly the time that you want. No hassle. As I’ve said elsewhere, the P&O app (at least on Britannia this past 2 weeks) has been fine for those who prefer to dine earlier, whether that be lunch or dinner. For those of us who prefer to dine later, lunches have been fine on port days with less people on the ship but have been tricky on sea days. We’ve not used the MDR much in the evenings other than formal nights, the first two of which were problematic but the second two far less so. We’ve only dined in the MDR on one casual night and that was no problem. It’s not been a show stopper and most importantly the MDR food has been very good, so we haven’t been put off P&O as we feared we might, but I would probably advise people to go Club dining now to at least remove the hassle in the evening, especially if 2nd sitting suits.

What are your biggest concerns? I’m wondering if I can allay any of your fears? Whilst the app is a pain, we have coped with it by knowing where the pressure points are and working around them and we have still enjoyed the cruise. The MDR food has been excellent and, if anything, more consistent than the speciality restaurants. If that had been the only dining option we would have coped with it quite comfortably and still enjoyed the cruise.

Those are the tables that we like 👍

I must confess that if we could 100% guarantee a table for 2 we would swap our future bookings to 2nd sitting fixed dining. It would remove a lot of hassle. It’s the fact that whilst it’s likely it’s never guaranteed that deters us.

I believe that you can on Iona and Arvia. As you know, with Britannia the only restaurant you can pre book is the Limelight Club. Those of us who get priority boarding have a distinct advantage in being able to grab the best slots when we board, but that’s not entirely fair for everyone else.

As I posted that I realised that I hadn’t thought it through. How would they notify people when the table is ready? As the app can’t work in isolation, if it was down to me I would bin it and go back to first come first served. Easier for the staff and, most importantly, easier for the passengers!

As I say, it’s difficult. One way they could get around that is to have podiums for bookings which are dead easy to use and also a manned one for those who can’t even cope with that. However that requires capital investment in a climate where they are cutting costs, so I can’t see them doing it. I fear they have rather boxed themselves into a corner with this one!

Thanks. Glad you are enjoying it. The app is a difficult one. IMO the only way they can improve it is to make it compulsory. Having virtual bookings, walk-ups and those waiting with pagers all competing with one another is when it goes wrong, especially when they turn off the virtual queue the minute that the pressure starts to build, so by doing what they are encouraging us to do puts you at the bottom of the queue. Of course, they won’t make it compulsory as there are large groups of people who either can’t cope with the App or refuse to use it. Therein lies the problem. For those who dine early, the app will work fine for them. It’s those of us who prefer to dine later (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) where the problems start. We have used it 100% of the time (where we could) so have now learned to find work arounds, as we can almost predict when the dreaded ‘Queue Full’ messages will appear, but it adds a level of complexity that wasn’t there before and with all the down time of tables that we have witnessed (due to the 15 minute time you get after being notified that it’s ready) the system is inherently inefficient. It would be a difficult call for P&O, but if they really studied it and looked at customer throughput before and after the app was introduced, I’m sure that they would scrap it and go back to ‘first come first served’. I suspect that they don’t have the ‘before’ data or, cynically, they are trying to reduce MDR usage in order to reduce costs.

We were on Oriana in 1996 after the propellors had been changed or modified in order to stop vibration (which they didn’t). We had to go up to max speed to test them. As I recall, this was at least 28 knots. We also cruised at around 25 knots for much of the rest of the cruise. Currently on Britannia floating along at 8-10 knots 😂

DAY 10 (2nd day in Copenhagen) Brace yourself for a long update as this post covers 3 days! I have mentioned a couple of times that we have noisy cabin neighbours one side of us whose kids thud around the cabin continuously. Furthermore, I have come to the conclusion that we are about the only people in our zone who don’t just let the cabin door slam shut every time we come and go, whatever the time of day or night it is. However, it could be worse. 3 or 4 cabins away from us is a suite occupied by a young family, and the youngest has a hell of a set of lungs and screams blue murder for prolonged periods every day. I feel so sorry for those who splashed out on Suites and ended up either side of this family! When we returned to our starboard side cabin the previous night, I mentioned to my wife that I thought that I could hear music, but thought no more of it. However, when we were in the lift going down to breakfast a lady mentioned that she’d barely had an hours sleep due to a noisy party on the quayside (port side). I said that I shouldn’t imagine that this was anything to do with the ships crew, as they wouldn’t be allowed, but she claimed that a steady stream of them had rejoined the ship at 4.30am when it eventually finished. She didn’t seem like the sort of person who would exaggerate or make things up, but this really surprised me. Then finally at breakfast, the couple on the next table mentioned that they had been disturbed in the early hours a few nights earlier by noise near their cabin that went on for some considerable time. I guess that all of this puts our noisy cabin neighbours into perspective, as we are at least sleeping OK! We didn’t feel the need to get off a second day running in the same port, so we had a relaxing day on the ship whilst it was quiet. The sun was on our balcony all day, so my wife was quite content sitting out there reading. Ships would pass occasionally and it was also interesting watching the sea plane landing. Yet another very pleasant lunch in the Peninsular restaurant (we haven’t had a bad one yet) and a nice chat with a couple on the next table who are doing a back to back with the next cruise to the Med. As usual, none of daytime entertainment even remotely appealed, so we watched another film on the cabin TV prior to our sail-away. The Captain announced that due to predicted high winds, our departure from Skagen the next day could be challenging at our scheduled departure time so, as a result, we were going to arrive an hour earlier in the morning and only do a half day visit, leaving at 12.30pm. Not a problem for us as we’ve been before and it’s a small place that is just a 10 minute walk from the berth. In the evening we enjoyed pre-dinner drinks in the Crows Nest, prior to our 3rd dinner in Epicurean, which was our first visit with the new menu. I’m delighted to report that this was another first class experience. I didn’t particularly enjoy my pulled duck leg and caviar starter, but that was personal choice rather than poor cooking. My wife had the King Prawn and Octopus starter, which she enjoyed. For the main we both had fillet of beef with ox cheek. The ox cheek was a bit like stewing steak but the actual steaks were great. Following @rollingwheels feedback from Epicurean on Iona, I asked if the chef could cut my wife’s steak up for her in order to save me having to do it at the table and they obliged without hesitation. The pre-dessert was the famous blackcurrant and white chocolate lolly, so we now realise why we didn’t have it last week as it’s a different pre-dessert for each menu. Gorgeous. We praised it so much we got a second one each 👍 As for the actual dessert, there was no debate whatsoever. Graham’s photo of the white chocolate sphere with popcorn, candy floss and other sweet treats was firmly in my mind. Wow! That was fabulous. I will happily have that again on our final night 😂 We haven’t attended that many evening shows, but there’s a new group of 3 male singers called Remixed who have joined today, so we went to the first of their 2 shows. It was OK, but as with all these performers, their act would be enhanced considerably if they just sang songs and didn’t attempt the chatter between songs. One day, when the “are you having a good time? I didn’t hear you - are you having a good time?” nonsense comes out, I’m going to shout out “Hi-di-Hi” 😂 DAY 11 (Unscheduled Sea Day) The captain had said that we would be docking in Skagen at 7am, but when I looked outside at around this time were nowhere near land. A check of the navigational map on the TV revealed that we had passed Skagen. An hour or so later the Captain came on the tannoy to say that the Skagen pilot had come on board but they had both taken the view that we wouldn’t stop there today. I suspect that it’s one of those scenarios where a smaller ship would have berthed no problem, but a ship as large as this struggles with a bit of wind due to the high sides acting as a sail. The irony was that it turned out to be a reasonably nice day and the sea conditions were nothing to write home about, but we have to accept that these guys know what they are doing and, of course, safety is always the number 1 priority. We were told that there would be an announcement of ‘enhancements’ to the daytime entertainment schedule, but when this finally came I was in the busy atrium and the reaction from passengers was as you would expect when it is entirely underwhelming 😂. There will be no replacement port of call tomorrow, so speed has been slowed to 6 or 7 knots in order to keep us on schedule for an arrival in Hamburg Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, as we didn’t get off the ship yesterday, that is effectively going to feel like 3 sea days in a row for us now, which is bad news as we find them quite boring and one of the major reasons that we chose this particular cruise was because there was due to be no more than one sea day at a time 🙄 There were problems in the MDR at lunch again (as seems to happen on sea days). The App closes to bookings after just 20-30 mins and never re-opens again. The only way to get in is to do a walk-up and get a pager. When I questioned why this was, I was told that there were 200 in the queue, yet there were loads of empty tables. Two very obvious issues were noticeable. Firstly, there aren’t enough staff dedicated to clearing tables and re-setting them. Secondly, when the tables are re-set they can sit empty for 20 minutes or more until they are occupied again, in spite of the large numbers of people waiting. I’m afraid that my theory that the app system isn’t fit for purpose at busy times has now been validated quite a few times. It was never as inefficient as this when the only option was ‘first come, first served’. During the afternoon we watched a film in our cabin again, as the sole speaker was the same chap as before giving another dull sounding talk. I’m sure that those who were interested in it would have been distinctly unimpressed that it was scheduled for 1pm, smack bang in the middle of lunch! One passenger commented to us that this was probably deliberate to try to take some pressure off the MDR if they know that they struggle to cope on sea days. He may well have been right! At 8pm we went to the Peninsular drinks party. I’m very impressed with Captain Martin Allen. He delivers clear and informative announcements, and whilst his prime function is to be master of the vessel, he also has the personality that IMO is essential for the most senior representative of the company whose role also includes engaging with passengers. Afterwards we went for our second and final dinner in Sindhu. I didn’t particularly enjoy my meal. The scallops starter didn’t taste right to me with the seasoning and even if you cut the 3 small scallops in half it was well over £1 per mouthful for the pleasure 😂. My tenderloin of beef was over cooked and only had a tiny bit of masala sauce, which was flavourless. Thankfully the service was first class and when the waiter asked if I was enjoying it and I explained why I wasn’t, I was immediately offered the option to change it, which I did. My alternative dish arrived very quickly, for which I was most grateful. Chatting to the restaurant manager I also managed to solve the East India Punch mystery from last week. Apparently several of the ingredients are consistently unavailable at Southampton so they cannot make it, in spite of it featuring prominently on both the bar and food menu 🙄 At 9pm a family arrived and I overheard the gent say to the waiter that they had tried to make a booking for much earlier but had been unsuccessful, yet they had walked past a few times to see the restaurant half empty. We have noticed this in almost all Specialty restaurants on various P&O ships over the years - showing as full yet having loads of spaces. I should imagine that P&O could make a heck of a lot more money out of these restaurants if they could resolve that conundrum. To end the evening we went to the Headliners show ‘Centre Stage’. It’s a job to keep up with what is happening when on this cruise as things keep changing. As well as the formal nights having been incorrect on the cruise personaliser until a few days before the cruise (which caused people to have to rearrange plans), some of the show dates are in a permanent state of flux. As an example, we booked the Headliners show ‘Centre Stage’ for 20th before we sailed. When we boarded it had changed to 18th. Yesterday it changed yet again to 17th. Thankfully bookings update on the app, but you don’t get any notification of the changes. Anyway, I’m pleased to say that it was a much better show than the one that we saw on the first night. Even the singing was far better this time, especially the girls. We both enjoyed it. Word of warning for those who attempt to film any of the performances, as one lady did. If you are spotted by the person in the sound and lighting control box, they shine a green laser beam on you and if you don’t stop immediately a staff member approaches you to tell you to cease. You have been warned 😂 Shame they don’t do the same on those who feel the need to talk during the shows! DAY 12 (Sea Day) With yet another sea day to contend with, my wife wasn’t keen on getting up to go for breakfast and suggested that I went on my own. I eventually managed to persuade her otherwise, as the restaurant was open marginally later until 9.30am (note - even though the preceding day had been an unscheduled sea day, they still stuck with the early 9am shut off). As per usual, the Peninsular restaurant went ‘Queue Full’ at 9.10am so we had two options. Do a walk-up or join the queue for the Oriental restaurant in the few minutes before that changed to ‘Queue Full’ as well. We went for the latter and were glad that we did. Even though this is our 4th cruise on Britannia, we have always been on Freedom Dining, so this may have been the first time that we’ve dined there. We liked the ambiance as it is more compartmentalised than the very open plan Peninsular restaurant. Breakfast was just as good as it always has been in Peninsular. A quick visit to the library and a swing by reception to pick up ‘Britain Today’ before killing time until lunch! Knowing that the MDR gives priority to walk-ups once the restaurant has had the app open for just around 30 minutes, we played the system by joining the queue just before it switched to the inevitable ‘Queue Full’. The virtual queue moved at glacial speed, no doubt due to the walk-ups getting seated, but we persevered as much out of curiosity than anything, so that my feedback to the food and beverage manager (should he call me again) is accurate and based upon our personal experiences. In all fairness, unlike the day before, when we eventually went in for lunch the restaurant seemed full. At 2pm there was a talk in the theatre about the bridge and how it operates by one of the officers. We attended but it was a bit of a rush to get there with it taking so long to get into lunch. This turned out to be a great talk and well done to the second officer who gave it, as theatre presentations aren’t a key requirement of his role! Yet again, the theatre was full which must demonstrate that there is a keen demand for more daytime talks than P&O are currently offering. There were some amusing questions from the audience at the end. One about ‘’what does the Captain do, seeing as none of the examples you gave of who was ‘driving’ the ship at any one time included him”, another about pirates and the perhaps inevitable “as we couldn’t stop in Skagen, why couldn’t we have had an extra day in Hamburg” 😂 Afterwards we returned to the cabin for another afternoon movie via the interactive TV, which has been a godsend over the last few days. This time a bit of a tear jerker with “Last Bus” with the excellent Timothy Spall. I always enjoy any film that he stars in. It’s the final black tie night so we repeated our previous routine of pre dinner drinks in the atrium whilst listening to the fabulous Angelika Eckland. Having mentioned previously that there are only 2 alcoholic cocktails available in many of the bars, we have now discovered that you can pretty much get any drink in any bar, whether it’s on the menu or not. Seems daft that the menus only show a selection, but it’s good that we now know that, even though it’s taken most of the cruise to work it out 🙄. I was keeping an eye on the app to see how the virtual queues were going with the hope of getting in the queue before the inevitable ‘Queue Full’ messages. I joined the queue at 7.25pm when Peninsular restaurant was at 68 in the queue. 20 minutes later we were still 65 in the queue (probably confirming that walk-ups were getting priority, as I can’t imagine that only 3 people had entered an MDR of that size in 20 minutes) but we weren’t in a rush so we decanted to the Glass House for a nice glass of wine whilst waiting. Having finally used up all our OBC last night we are now into 10% loyalty discount territory. Every little helps 😂 The queue started moving quickly all of a sudden and we were called at 8.10pm which was about when we wanted to dine anyway, so all good. As the Marco Pierre White meal on the first formal night had been the most disappointing dinner that we have had in the MDR so far, I avoided it tonight. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it, but in all the restaurants now, even speciality ones, any Amuse Bouche is a tiny drink and not food. Tonight’s was a tomato and gin concoction that was actually the best so far. Our lovely waiter gave me a second one 👍. My wife had a starter and main from the Marco Pierre White menu. She wasn’t too keen on the Crab and Scallop Ceviche but she really enjoyed the King Prawn and Lobster main course. I had the fried goats cheese starter from the normal menu, which was delicious and the tenderloin of beef. Whilst this was completely missing the advertised mushroom crust (not so much as a millimetre of it) it was far better than the one I’d had the night before in Sindhu. My wife had cheese and biscuits for dessert whereas I had Apple Tarte Tartin, which was much nicer than the now pre-prepared Crepes Suzette in Epicurean. So that my wife didn’t feel awkward, I also had cheese to follow my dessert 😂 We decided agains the second ‘Remixed’ performance in the theatre, so cancelled our spaces on the app. Instead we returned to the Glass House as we had noticed earlier a rose’ port that we’d never tried before. Not sure that we’d get it again but it was nice to try something different. Landfall at long last tomorrow with our final port, Hamburg.

I’ve since checked. It would have been a lot cheaper in Copenhagen once the tax was deducted, but she seems to have cooled on the idea 😥 😂

Nooooo! Jam first. Great shame that with the abolition of afternoon tea on P&O, your only option is squirty ‘cream’ in the buffet 🤮 😂

Yes, I believe it’s pronounced Scane

Thanks. I’m pleased to hear that so many people are finding the review useful as it takes time to do it. I agree about the need for consistency, as it seems that it can vary not only between ships but also between cruises on the same ship! I should stress that whilst our first Epicurean experience was below standard, the second visit was significantly better, albeit still missing some of the nice touches that make it so special. We have two further reservations with the second menu and a second visit to Sindhu, where I shall order something completely different to last time (again, it will be a different menu). In all honesty, had there been no extra cost restaurants on board and we’d had to dine in the MDR for every meal then, occasional app issues aside, we would have still enjoyed the cruise so far. Given that it’s mass catering, the fact that every meal has been hot and the vast majority have been tasty and good quality is a credit to the team.