No pager thank you

One option could be, to get the best of both worlds, is to see if you are wanting to go on another cruise (of similar/higher value in 12 months); transfer the current cruise for free; and then re-book your current cruise at the new, lower, price - either now or less than 90 days out. There is a small risk of loss of cabin choice, but even if you decide not to go on the new cruise then you are still no worse off.

Update from Britannia: Biscuit-gate: Cabins remain stocked with the "St Michel" variety. The humble biscuit is hidden in the drawee out of the view of the accountants. Tray-gate: It's the end of the line for the tray. Buffet has been like a scrum on occasions. Epicurean: Good service but all food remains plated (not done at table). Coffee is now Nescafe not Douwe Edgberts. Prices on board seem stable to last year, with exception of on board retail, where there has been rises, particularly perfumes and accessories/clothing. The popular "4 for £45 or £55" offer on bottles has also gone. Notably less stock in some of the on board retail outlets. Otherwise, same as so far, enjoying Skagen today.

However much money is spent on Aurora and Arcadia, and whatever on, we can all rest assured that, according to P&O, 99.9% of customers will approve....

Perhaps the trays are needed to store all of the biscuits no longer being delivered to cabins 😉

It's around a mile walk between the hotel and the ship I believe. I'd be surprised if the taxi was more than £8. If you have booked the hotel and car parking together then it may be worth speaking to the hotel, because sometimes the package includes a voucher for a return taxi journey between the terminal and your car, or you can add that on. Personally, I would normally walk it, but not if I was pulling cases - get a cab.

I suppose the key bit is per piece. Providing that the cases have limited width, you will more than likely be able to fit three or four pieces in the cabin i.e., underneath the bed/s. Hopefully this will be ample. The alcohol taken on board policy has been present for some time, but usually not enforced. This would be helpful, particularly, (and clearly only for example), one were to choose, and be comfortable in, allocating one bottle per piece of luggage, including hand luggage. The company has better things to do on embarkation day! The scanners were out in force a few years ago but they seem to have gone off this, which is again the company's choice. The only alcohol they do confiscate is that which is bought in the on board shops and, the worst that can happen is the bottle from the winery is returned at the end of the cruise. Therefore, if you like to enjoy a glass of local wine in your cabin/on balcony, particularly if not served on board, then perhaps just go ahead? If you do choose for it to be served in the restaurant then there is the corkage charge which you are happy to pay, so P&O will likely be grateful for the free income, I believe £20 per bottle.

No worries, think it's in the Rising Sun, but the Horizon planner will tell you for definite - each day the bingo is listed and when you can buy the tickets in the casino.

Hello, my understanding is that the Bingo offer is the same now across the fleet. In summary: -- It's usually played once a day either every, or most, Sea Days, in a mid/late afternoon slot. Occasionally, there is an evening slot. -- There are five games, playing for a line (only) on the first two games, two lines (only) on the second two games and a full house only on the final game. The games are made to last by the Entertainment teams - often over 30 minutes! -- By memory, the prices are £20 for one book of six tickets, or £30 for doubling up I.e., two separate books of six tickets. All have to be used for the session/date purchased. You can buy three tickets (I think £12) or one ticket (I think £6). Dabbers are £2 or £3. -- In my view, the tickets are expensive and it's been worked out before that the payout rate is around a third of all receipts. Gone up from £15, although not the prizes. It's a bit easier to work out sales on the smaller ships as you can see who's playing. Prizes go for around £20 to £100+ on the smaller ships. -- There is, theoretically, a £5k jackpot available every day, although its very hard to win, something like 42 numbers, which stays the same. This has replaced the "Snowball" feature, meaning that, unlike previously, no passenger gets to pay off their on board account due to luck on the bingo. That said, a passenger can no longer let the pot build without playing and just come along on the last day and win it, which used to cause upset! You still get one free go for buying books and there is sometimes a loyalty draw I.e., there was a raffle on Aurora for a model ship, signed by the Captain. -- Its low tech all the way! Hope this helps.

I think that the other relevant point about the difference between booking the preferred cabin type at initial booking with P&O and "banking on the bid" is as follows: -- Any extra OBC which could have been achieved at the point of initial booking, is not made available to successful bidders. This can be quite lucrative, particularly if P&O has an offer on to encourage bookings of outsides and balconies. This "loss," plus the 5% discount (sometimes) available by using a TA, unless one chooses the "price match" available from P&O, both have to be added together, and then contrasted with the lowest available price for the cabin at the point of initial booking. This is because the new cabin will most likely be in the lowest grade type. Together these factors together make it not look such a great deal always, particularly if the trend if giving out free upgrades, which will possibly happen by default of changing more cabins closer to departure, is seen in practice by passengers I.e., why risk paying extra when I may have a better chance of paying nothing and receiving the same, or I could even get the same for free by visiting reception? Perhaps the savvy thing to do in future will be to take note of all the price options when booking the cruise. Then use this to compare both if it makes sense to "ditch and switch," if the price comes down a lot (and therefore it makes sense to either forgoe or move your deposit), and how good a deal of "bidding up" really is, when the opportunity arises. It also has the possibly interesting, but unintended, consequence of dissuading some people from booking the select, rather than the saver fare. Have to say though, this is quite a clever money making scheme by P&O, and will wind most people up less than increasing drinks prices, for example.

Linked to the above, we are booked on to one of the eligible cruises (Britannia, May) but have not received an email inviting us to upgrade, for a fee. For our booking, three will share a cabin, so I would have assumed that a multi occupancy cabin at the next tiers up would have been available, in principle. Just another take as I have seen a few questions about solo occupancy. I also checked with the link posted earlier in the thread but the response was that the booking was ineligible. Perhaps P&O will upgrade us for free - says chuckling!!!

We are also going on this particular cruise having booked a little while ago, wanted to go for a while... we noticed that by booking a balcony cabin, we had more in extra OBC than the equivalent, cheaper, cost of an inside or outside cabin...no brainer! What I would say is the same cruise has bumped in price since by £1000 like for like, however it appears to be much better value for money than the preceding one still, which goes to Norway, Iceland and the North Cape. Worth keeping an eye on. Notably, the excursions on this cruise are amongst the most expensive I have seen on P&O, however that seems mainly due to the very high cost of living in Iceland. We don't mind Arcadia, neither our favourite (Aurora and Britannia) or least favourite of the fleet (Iona). Key issue for us is if the food and service debacle has got sorted, have heard mixed reviews, but fingers crossed!

Although there would be an ample supply of hot air though to power the cars from the upper echelons of the building 😂

According to a certain executive, 99.9% of their staff apparently report a great work experience no matter what the pay and perks...🤣

Hello, I can't answer on the Butler issue as we do not travel in a Suite. However, I do know that when we were approached on Aurora, the Maitre D offered to put us in to the queue so that we could dine at our preferred time, which for us was 7.30. In truth, even with this (gratefully received) assistance, we were called for dinner anytime from 8.00 to 8.40. It appeared to be the case that another diner was on "our" allocated table, hence our reference to the 45 minute wait. I would assume that the Butler could book an allocated time in the specialty restaurant, or perhaps offer the same service as we received. One benefit of the Suite is that the same experience is not repeated at breakfast, as the Epicurean (or a separate space/restaurant) is reserved I believe. The issue isn't one for physical sitting space. If the guest cannot use the app, although this is encouraged, one queues separately at the entrance to the MDR, receives a pager, and then attends a bar/seating area, whilst their table becomes ready. On the app, you can sit in your cabin until this point. Hope this helps.

One of the issues is that on the smaller ships, there are fewer paid upgrade options and the buffet restaurants are not equipped to take sizeable numbers. Therefore, the success of the dining service relies more on the "predictability" of the flow associated with the club dining. My sense, also experienced on Aurora last year when we were on "Freedom Dining," but eventually, we were asked by the waiting staff if we would like to suggest a time of coming to dinner each evening. Our typical wait was around 45 minutes from that time. Waiting times for tables in Freedom have grown. This is because the issues around waiting on and kitchens staff are present on the smaller ships too. My sense is that, perversely, this will restore the popularity of "Club Dining," on the smaller ships, whereas the larger ships go in the opposite direction. This will though lead to the next problem, which is the trend of sharing tables appears to be less popular than in the past. More pressure on limited club dining capacity will require more couples to join larger tables, so, their "freedom" (of table size) will reduce too. Our choice, but we would always wait rather than share tables. A very good point about the attractiveness of the Select Fare - the upgrade cost is usually much more on the smaller ships than the larger ones. This made me wonder - is the plan to encourage more Arcadia and Aurora guests to choose "Early Saver," or "Saver," so that they lose control over cabin and dining choice (being given app-based "Freedom" by default), so that it reduces the problem stated above, or encouraging people to pay just "a little bit extra." Higher "Select Fares" are another, indirect way, of asking passengers to pay more for better, and a more predictable dining experience. This is the only way to achieve this, if this can't be got from attending and paying more for the specialty dining restaurants etc.

Perhaps the bananas have been moved to the MDR as a new "always available" dessert?🙂

The 2 MDRs are similar in size to Iona. The difference is that the two smaller MDR on Iona (Aqua and Opal, I believe) have been made in to the 6th Street Diner and The Olive Grove respectively. These two new choices do both offer a three course meal, but it will not be to the taste of some traditional diners, I.e., the 6th Street Diner has a juke box and reasonably loud music to add to the ambience/vibe of the place. Similarly, The Olive Grove has a couple of menus which rotate, but not each day, like the MDR. For balance, we liked the former, particularly for breakfast, not so much the latter, where the quality of the Mediterranean food was OK, but not on a par with middle-range price restaurants at home. Going back to an earlier comment, on special occasions, like Christmas Day, it is estimated that around 95% of the guests on board would like a sit down meal in a MDR. It is assumed that, on other days, this may slip to around 60-70% with the residual using either the buffet, or the paid for restaurants respectively. So far, looking at the reviews of Arvia, and our own experiences, there appear to be a couple of issues: 1) Demand for the MDRs are still higher than 60-70%, meaning that, with the shortages of waiting on staff and capacity in the kitchens (also the available tables are not usually all in service), people are waiting longer than they used to for a meal, even though they all have "freedom." It's the poor table allocation and use of the available physical capacity which adds to the queuing. In terms of this issue, some people have suggested this is pushing the excess demand back to the paid for restaurant and buffet respectively, which helps to reduce costs and increase on-board income respectively. Again, some people will be happy with this because of the cheaper fares. I would suggest that, on the larger ships, this is what is actually going on, notably with the incremental but noticeable changes to the menu I.e., reduced "always available," options; smaller portions; reduced "premium choice" options in terms of fish and meats; slower service and no wine waiters; 20% on the wine; changes to the menu presentation to subtly dissuade you from choosing more than three courses. 2) As there is no option for "club dining," again, the passengers who would be happy with 8.30pm (second sitting) dining are being added to the general queue, unless they choose for 5.30-5.45pm dining, when you can book a table. Again, this group don't seem to be changing preference towards "early 1st sitting," and most can't easily get same table same waiters each evening. This exaggerates the problem shown above. 3) There also appears to be an assumption that the family orientated atmosphere on Arvia and trying to help the company attract a younger demographic may mean that less people want formal dining, but it isn't happening like that just yet, nor on Iona. More guests associate the good food and service as part of the expected cruise experience than what the company bargained for. In terms of earlier comments, club dining won't come back, more use of the app is inevitable, and walk in waiting will be kept, all because the aim appears to be to get people to avoid going to the MDR every evening. If passengers do eventually switch their dining preferences, then the queues, virtual or otherwise, will go down.

Worth pointing out that whilst alcohol purchased on board is retained until the end of the cruise, the practice of taking away alcohol purchased at ports of call before re-embarkation seems to have been stopped. Officially, it is, and if it is removed, it is then be returned before leaving in the same way. In practice this doesn't happen a lot, not at all on our last three cruises. Note, where the terminal scans your carry on bags/souvenirs etc, the P&O security does not usually need/wish to repeat the process. Terminals are very unlikely to wish to dissuade you from buying in their local store of course! Therefore, if you happen to run out of gin in your cabin mid cruise, well?? Perhaps just a bottle a bag to begin with??? It is more likely that you will be asked to check against the 4l allowance for spirits at disembarkation.

Thank you UkSatCom for sharing your experiences on this thread. With the remarks shared by Dentist at Sea, we must track down those two remaining passengers as fellow members of the 0.1% club!

Hello Beth, Yes, we have...poor insulation from adjacent service corridors and from decks above, particularly in the bathroom area. If to keep an inside, I would look for one without this feature, such as some of the "Inboard" cabins, or pay an upgrade if this is important to you.

All I can say on that matter is the "The Tidal Rum" should be tossed out to sea, we have re-gifted ours!

Hello there, thanks for your note... Yes the equivalent area mainly contains a small selection of board games, and a few reference books for show, which are not supposed to be taken away. There is no Library provision and the computer terminals have gone the same way. All glam left for Barbados I think. We received a Rum and Soda and a bauble for Christmas (which was a good touch), and at the end of the cruise we received a commemorative small print in a box. No ceremony and we departed late, due to issues with Embarkation. A few of the ports did ceremonial waterjets for Maiden calls and there was a moment where Iona and Arvia opportunistically met one another for a sail by. Personally, to us the drawing looked like a child's one, but that's just our taste. This was labelled as Maiden Season, of which there is a whole range of items in the shop, so fellow Arvia guests will probably get a copy. In summary, the traditional gift for a Maiden, for example we have a nice teapot and glassware from an earlier one, has been replaced by an opportunity to buy your own. A few passengers were flogging these on ebay, for a profit, which made me chuckle. In fairness, we never booked the Maiden, this became the Maiden due to the issues at the yard, so this didn't bother us too much.

Thank you Megabear, not your fault of course, but that makes me really 😡 In my view, these remarks are from a different planet, particularly when the Captain said in an all passenger address, at the end of the cruise, that the company would need to "learn from the experience," and that it is "the customers which ensure the success of the company." This was separate to the well publicised apology and the letter from the Guest Services sent to all passengers acknowledging the failings and sending £150 per passenger (£300 as a result per cabin). I can also say that the Executive made no attempt, whatsoever, to gauge actual passenger feedback. He knows full well that 99.9% of people did not have a great time. Just a shame that a respected journalist didn't challenge him with evidence - at the end of the day his job exists due to the success of Arvia and equivalent, so I can understand why chooses to offer this point of view. Poor culture starts from the top down.

Thank you for this, I have had a look. The reviews on there are poor, reading the first 20 or so, the ships with the worst comments appear to be Iona and Arcadia. If I understand it correctly, this website works by the company offering a link to provide responses, therefore the feedback can be assumed to be genuine, which is sometimes the criticism made of others like TA or TP (not sure if I can give the name of the websites on here). It's probably also indicative of broader customer sentiment as on there you can give a simple, friendly 5* review if you have had a great time for example. On this basis, there are more than 20,000 reviews shown. P&O have a tracker on their website which showed the net rating at around 4 or more out of 5. Now it is 3.7. That's quite a drop in customer sentiment and, in my view, goes to show that customer perception, including some newer customers who use social media, is going in the wrong direction. Also note that we haven't received a feedback request from P&O, which is why no Arvia ones are shown yet. Like another poster, I also joined a sailing specific group via another FB, the feedback on there was mixed. In fairness a lot of first time/newer cruisers on there who were happy enough.

Hello all, Further to my last post, we have now returned from Arvia and wanted to follow up with some impressions from the Maiden Voyage. Overall, we didn't enjoy the cruise and had a very mixed experience. What we would say is that impressions on board vary - you will find just as many saying "no complaints, best cruise ever," as you will find those with a string of issues. We've tried to be fair! Good and Great -- Ronan Keating on NYE was excellent and there were a few high quality acts in The Limelight Club. -- The 6th Street Diner concept was, for us, a success and a welcome alternative to the MDR breakfasts. -- Although not for us, the ship was particularly family friendly, with children's facilities, clubs and venues the best in the fleet, particularly at Christmas. -- In her dining rooms and public areas, there is much better use of colour than Iona, she feels less corporate and clinical throughout. That said, she feels distinctly Carnival, not P&O. -- Gelato afternoon tea was excellent and a good concept. -- Same can be said of The Quays. -- Escape Room "Mission Control" surprisingly entertaining and picking up guests right across the age range. -- On board retail offer has been upped several notches. -- Some good excursions, not bad value for money. Bad - Cabins -- The shape of the cabins are now squarer to achieve the "inboard" additional insides, and are around a third smaller than on the "traditional" ships. -- In practice this means that inside cabins have service corridors directly adjacent to the walls with poor movement and sound insulation (the cabin shaked) when cages were banged against the wall. -- Insufficient wardrobe space, one wardrobe for a multi-bed cabin. -- No bedside cabinets/drawers. -- Cabin TV not facing the seating area/bed and lost all signal to TV channels, for most of the cruise, although in cabin films are there. -- More cuts - glass for toothbrush in bathroom; flannels have gone; turndown service not offered (change from bed to sofa); now Nescafe and the kettle no space to make a brew. -- Changing area in bathroom now very small such that we had a few bruised knees from the protruding sink/vanity unit. -- No sound insulation at all, in the bathroom (could hear kids screaming from above and word for word conversation). Worst experience on this front. MDR Food -- Essentially, if you choose not to pay, then the quality has definitely gone down. Our experiences included uncooked egg, raw sausage, and "fresh" fruit salad which was "off," on different occasions. -- However, if you choose to pay, then you can get attentive service, good quality food, and an enjoyable dining experience, "Select Fare plus" if you would. -- All issues with the app are "baked in." App-based dining has replaced Freedom Dining, except if you would like to dine before either 7.45am in the morning, or 5.45pm in the evening respectively. This is a combination of poor table allocation, IT issues, zoning of the restaurants to mask waiting on staff shortages, and gaps in the kitchen staffing provision. Wine waiters - gone. -- We won't go on about Christmas Day, but suffice to say the worst stories of that were true from our point of view and whilst the service improved on NYE, we were still sat on a long table, food was again poor (carefully selected to reduce delays), and we left early. We wouldn't have been happy paying for it in a restaurant for comparison purposes. -- Worryingly, this cruise did not appear to be operating at full capacity. -- Large areas of the ship understaffed (I.e., a total of three in the Keel and Cow) - staff were complaining. Lifts -- On average three out of eight lifts in each section were out of service and there were several incidents reported of passengers becoming stuck in the lift, and one, although we cannot verify, of a passenger sustaining an injury. -- We are aware of one incident of passengers being stuck in a lift, missing their shore excursion as a result, and then being asked to pay for a taxi to complete their excursion, without compensation. Photographer Not offered once at our table or at Port Side. Price has doubled. Drinks Another 20% inflation on most of the prices within a year. Bingo Price up to £20 for six tickets, "Snowball" feature taken away, this communicated to customers mid cruise after previously being told that the £5k jackpot would be won on the final day. In truth, unless spectacularly lucky the jackpot is £450. Retail Some ridiculous pricing - Benylin £23. Even the staff counselling the customers not to buy! All value shopping taken away (I.e. the £10 sale). Library Gone Also, Sports Court, no activities planned; Deck Games same; Syndicate Quiz ended; Darts and Pool Table broken within a week; "Traditional" Sea Day Entertainment pared back. Ugly We have picked out here only what should have been avoidable: Guest Services: We witnessed (and in a couple of cases experienced) the following: 1) Reception staff starting arguments with passengers and queues more than 50 deep. A few quotes: "Hooray, someone not coming to complain." "You can't expect it to be resolved the first time you raise it sir, what do you expect?" Senior Member of Staff: "Why do you think you are in anyway special?" 2) My Holiday reception line - Not answered for more than 1 hour on several occasions. Passenger queries - not responded to throughout the voyage, this added to customer frustration and usually, and to be fair, from all of our past experiences, the ship's company make up for shortcomings elsewhere. However, there are a number of "bad apples," on Arvia, whilst most were friendly and approachable, the above was not the exception. At one point, we asked if we could go home - we are aware that some passengers left early from the Canary Islands and we understood why, particularly those paying for deluxes and suites. No point in bothering with Shoreside, who the on board team ripped to shreds over the Christmas debacle. Yes, we pointed the above out (more than once), most issues weren't sorted. Our Conclusions: -- We gave the cruise 4/10. -- It's a question of accepting what you pay for, but the direct rudeness and poor service was unacceptable, irrespective of the price point. No real learning from Iona to be honest, this feels like the new normal for P&O big ships. -- We do doubt whether we would risk the larger ships again, unless we paid for almost all meals in advance and factored this in to a direct price comparison. -- It's four star surroundings, a two to three star cruising experience - this was worse than Marella. Happy to give any advice / tips which we can to others, sorry we can't be more positive, but just wanted to be honest. We don't think much learning will go on, much of the above is the "new normal." For some, willing to look past the foibles they will have a great time, for the traditionalists, time to consider looking elsewhere.