windra06

I was a little taken back in the MDR watching them brush the crumbs on the floor and reset the table after guests. I'm really glad we always dined early as I wouldn't have wanted to sit at a table that wasn't clean having had other guests food and hands all over it! No table cloth would be better than this! On the towel front, being on the ship isn't quite the same as being at home, it's a more damp environment and towels are often used more than once per day. You also have the stewards hands all over them. For this reason I would have them changed more frequently than at home, but not twice a day.

We used the cookery club a few weeks ago, they have quite a number of classes on sea days with a morning session at 10am which is usually savoury and 3pm which is usually sweet. They also had hosted meals alongside the tutored sessions. You can book through the 'App' when you board, it doesn't tell you the prices but they leave a leaflet in your cabin on the first day with the full selection and prices, which is 45pp. We had no problem with availability, usually a booking for 2 share a workbench but my partner and I ended up having our own as there was space. You can also cancel bookings within MyHoliday 'App'. We took the Chocolate course which involved 'Chef' giving a live demonstration of making honeycomb, then he walked us through chocolate brownies and chocolate truffles which we observed and then went back to our benches to follow along. At the end of the course you get to take what you made back to your cabin, and are also given a little booklet with the recipes to keep.

No it was not available when we were recently on her.

We are just off the Britannia and had similar opinions of Sindhu and the buffet, it's sad to see it is the same on the larger ships. Sindhu was bland, not a hint of chilli or spice. We were expecting the best meal of the cruise and it was actually the worst. We also thought perhaps they were trying to cater to the wider audience but went too far. Horizon buffet also similar, not a lot of choice and very chaotic, we only ate there twice out of necessity.

Not anything noticeable no, there did seem to be more people coughing towards the end of the cruise but didn't see anyone report being isolated. There were 3-4 posts on our cruise Facebook group for those testing positive when they got home so it's still going around as you would expect.

Thank you I've not seen this before definitely would interest me!

Britannia Baltics Sep 2023 We are just back from our Baltics cruise on Britannia, it wasn’t quite what we expected but great value for Monday and an itinerary we both enjoyed. We are mid 30’s and this was our 3rd cruise, first post-covid and first with P&O. I’d planned and spent time reading reviews, but we were still a little surprised overall compared to expectations. Summary: Overall we came away feeling that P&O are fantastic value for money he Itinerary fantastic, and if you bear in mind that you get what you pay for then you will not be disappointed. The British quirks of the ship are fantastic, and with OBC and reasonable drinks prices we finished the cruise with only 54p to pay on the bill which set this cruise apart of any other cruise we have done before. The public areas are well presented and there are plenty of choices of bars, however despite being the same size as ships we have sailed before, Britannia feels smaller. This could be because of the lack of promenade and the way that each floor is sectioned off into venues rather than open, leaving the atrium area feeling very small. We felt we have been spoilt by Celebrity and Royal Caribbean and the Britannia felt a little lacklustre in comparison. Embarkation: Much smoother than we expected, I was disappointed with a 3:15 check in time but after stopping to charge the car and traffic around oxford we had a 6-hour journey and arrived around 2:30pm to drop the car with CPS. As we arrived we saw the coaches disembarking and made a beeline for check in, just making it ahead of the coach passengers and as a result we sailed through check in with very little wait. We embarked into the atrium and were pointed to the muster station after which we spent a puzzled 5 minutes trying to work out why we were not given cruise cards during check in and whether rooms were available. We were close to brodies and so grabbed a drink while I posted to Facebook to sheepishly ask what the process was. Compared to past cruises I was flabbergasted that cruise cards are just left outside rooms for anyone to take, given they are a credit line to our account! We were given absolutely no information at check in or pre-cruise about what time rooms would be available or where to find the cruise cards, neither was there any announcement. We pre-booked shows and speciality restaurant before boarding but we needn’t have worried as there was still availability upon boarding on the myholiday ‘App’ – I would advise however to book on the first day as slots later on were limited. Room I chose G408 after looking at reviews and loved the room – technically obstructed as it looks out over the glass house deck, we had a lovely unobstructed view of the sea and never had any noise from the deck below. British plug sockets, fantastic luggage area, fridge and kettle really set this ahead of competitors for us. Brittania however is showing her age and rusty chrome, and dirty/mouldy grout gave the bathroom the feel of a travel lodge. The water was hot and shower great pressure, so given the price point it was acceptable. I brought my own soya milk and Brita jug which fit in the fridge, and Yorkshire tea bags as we dislike the Tetley provided. Herbal teas can be picked up in the buffet to bring back to the cabin and there was a fair selection. We were pleasantly surprised to find a good selection of movies available for free via the TV, including some fairly recent releases and my partner was happy to be able to watch sport 24 extra channel for the F1. My only gripes with the room were that the air conditioning is always on, I’m a light sleeper and the noise of the fan meant I didn’t get much sleep. Lack of USB sockets, or bedside sockets and that the shaver socket doesn’t fit the standard UK electric toothbrush charger as you might expect. Note on stairs: I chose a mid ship room feeling happy we would be close to the stairs but the insane layout of the ship caused us frustration for the entire trip. Whoever designed the ship really needs a good talking to! Not only are the central stairs crew only above deck 7, but the layout of decks 5 & 6 mean that there is no access to deck 5 from the aft stairs, nor access to the peninsular restaurant either. This meant that to get from our mid ship room on deck 8, to the peninsular restaurant we had to walk all the way to the forward stairs, down to deck 6 and then walk all the way to the back of the ship, OR go down the back stairs to deck 7, walk to the mid stairs which are accessible from 7 downwards. We only used the lifts twice and by the end of the cruise were thoroughly annoyed. Dining Working in the tech sector, I was looking forward to using the myholiday ‘App’ but quickly realised that it isn’t fit for purpose. We chose freedom dining, expecting that we could perhaps book a timeslot for dinner but in fact freedom dining handcuffs you to a queuing system which you can only join as dinner opens and needs one to guess ahead how long the wait will be and join the queue at the appropriate time. On the first night, we joined the queue at 5:50pm, there were 58 in the queue, and we were called at 6:40pm for dinner. Thereafter it was a mad dash to join the queue as it opened at 5:45 each day, as within 5 minutes the queue was always up to around 50 or 60. We felt that unless we joined the queue the moment it opened, we would always be in for a long wait and therefore for the rest of the cruise didn’t really have any ‘freedom’. Next time we will opt for the 6:30 fixed seating to avoid the stress of queuing. Halfway through the cruise, the ‘App’ completely stopped working (despite clearing my cache, history etc) and only started working again a few days before the end of the cruise. The food As a vegetarian I was pleased to see there were always 3 options available at dinner, and while most of the food tasted great, they were not well planned. For the first week there wasn’t any protein with the main course, and the portions were tiny. I felt sorry for my partner one day when his main was a tiny pile of quinoa with 3-4 mushrooms. My partner took to ordering many veggie sausages at breakfast to ensure he ate enough. Breakfast in the main dining room was good, with great vegetarian options but the buffet had none of the vegetarian sausages or bacon that were available in the MDR and resulted in a breakfast of toast, baked beans and potato curry. Lunch was hit and miss, often there were no ‘Large Plate’ options for vegetarians and limited lighter options, similarly to dinner the food we had tasted good but was very small. We feel that compared to Celebrity and Royal Caribbean, the dinner buffet was miserable in comparison with very little choice and lacking healthy options or vegetables. When we cruised Celebrity, I came home 8lb heavier, with P&O we didn’t put on any weight which is a sure way to tell that the food was lacking! Speciality - Sindhu The vegetarian options were minimal for the speciality restaurants, so we only tried Sindhu. I chose the only vegetarian option, and my partner who rarely eats meat went for the signature dish of 3 different mains. We were both looking forward to the meal as the star of the cruise but we both agreed the food was bland. My partner baulked that he had never in his life eaten a Rogan Josh with absolutely no spice, he joked that it tasted like tomato soup. In hindsight, given the demographic of the guests perhaps P&O are trying to cater to a larger audience but it’s at the expense of any flavour and it seems they don’t use any chilies either. The Dal in particular was tasteless, it really needed to be salted but alas there was no saltshaker on the table. Funnily, a few days later the MDR served a dal and it tasted wonderful, a little spicy and flavourful. Drinks We felt that the selection and pricing of drinks was fantastic, priced similarly to costa or pubs on land and on par with our local, I brought on board 2 bottles of wine and we struggled to spend our OBC. Staff: Being the off season and early diners, we felt the staffing levels were sufficient and only had slow service on a couple of days. Our steward Jerry was polite and dealt with a couple of minor requests efficiently, we received biscuits every day which caused some debate on our cruise as I hear this isn’t always the case. Being freedom dining we moved around and saw many of the staff at dinner. Dining early usually ensured quick service but at least in the first week felt the servers were a little brusque. Talking to one of the waiters it’s evident that all of the staff work incredibly hard for months on end. We overheard a fair number of complaints during busy periods in the market café, this was due to inefficiencies with service leading to long waits to be served. I witnessed 3 waiters standing at the bar waiting for coffee to be made, whilst 2 ladies a few feet away were complaining at the long wait. Rather than taking each order to the till, then returning the card and then waiting for the drink, if the servers were able to take several orders and queue them in the till it would avoid a lot of grumbling. In busy periods the waiters spent most of their time standing at the bar, however in slow periods they would literally pounce as you sat down. Entertainment On land we enjoy cirque du soleil, ballet, orchestras and rock concerts but are not big fans of musicals, so we only saw a few shows on the Britannia. I avoided what I thought were the musical shows and opted for shows like Astonishing, Mr Tickertons circus, Gravity and a comedian. We were tickled to discover that the first three were musicals but had a good time anyway. The ladies of the headliners theatre have amazing voices and put on a great show. Booking ahead is essential for the 8:30pm show and it was almost a full house each night that we went. Cookery School – With ample OBC to spend we treated ourselves to a cookery class. These were on sea days with savoury classes at 10am and deserts at 3pm and cost £45pp. Being vegetarian we were constrained to deserts and chose the chocolate course which was great fun and resulted in a cabin full of chocolate brownies for days! We were given a demonstration on making honeycomb and then a lesson on chocolate brownies and truffles to follow along. I’m not sure we would have spent our own money on the course, but it was a fun way to spend time on a sea day. Spa – We pre-booked the thermal spa and it was a wonderful way to ease muscles after 4 days of solid walking ashore. We had the spa to ourselves at 8am and really enjoyed the heated pool, Sauna and heated loungers. A few things were out of order such as one of the water beds, rainfall shower and we assumed the light sauna after we investigated and found it smelt heavily of mould. One bug bear was that all of the robe hooks were either located above bins, or over the emergency phone – they really need to move them to more appropriate locations. Other things of note: Power failure – Mid cruise during a sea day we suffered from a brief power failure caused by generator 2 failing abruptly. We had debated using the lifts but chosen to take the stairs just as the power went out and the engines came to a halt causing the lifts to lose power – a close call! The emergency power kicked in but we were without main power for around 30minutes while the problem was investigated. Co-incidentally or not, for the remainder of the cruise we never went over 16 knots – so it is unclear whether that second generated was working or not. Ongoing work due to Britannias little ‘bump’ in Palma de Mallorca Work went on throughout the cruise to fix the damage and by the end of the cruise the dents had been patched up and painted over and emergency rafts were back in place. The damaged lifeboat was dropped off at kiel and we didn’t appear to get a replacement that I know of. Some passengers had complained at noise and disruption from welding on the starboard side of the ship and as far as I know most were moved to new cabins. Passengers – being off peak there were very few children on board, a few babies and young adults travelling with family, only one or two school age children. As expected, the demographic was of retirement age, which suits us just fine as we like a quiet cruise and are usually early to bed! Almost everyone we spoke to, or sat with at dinner were lovely although after the first day we leaned towards dining alone to minimise the risk of picking up covid-19. The Itinerary Kiel – Helsinki (Overnight) – Tallinn – Visby – Copenhagen (Overnight) A great Itinerary, one we chose as something a little different to the standard med cruise, and one where you can do the ports on your own. It’s worth noting that cash was unnecessary in all ports. Kiel – We booked the Castles and boat cruise expecting this port to be ‘filler’ but were surprised to find Schleswig-Holstein to be an absolutely beautiful part of the world and would recommend getting out into the countryside. The vegetarian lunch provided on the trip was far superior to the meat version, every expectation was smashed, and we would definitely do the trip again. Helsinki – Shuttles were provided and dropped us off right next to the harbour where we used the HSL app to buy a ticket on the public ferry and spent a pleasant morning exploring Soumelina (fortress island). The café on the island provided hot drinks and some lovely cakes for lunch. After lunch we jumped on the skywheel, there was no queue and it was great to get a view of the city from above. The Hop on Hop off bus was included with the Helsinki card, it’s great for getting around and stops at the cruise terminal but I would recommend taking headphones to get the most of it. A live map is available online to track the buses and route, we made the mistake of joining at stop 1 to visit Sibelius rather than stop 13 and wasted almost an hour going back to the cruise ship and around in a circle to get there. For the remainder of the day and next we visited the botanical garden, museums and the stockman department store which are all walkable. Tallinn – A beautiful city but we chose to disembark early and were caught out by most places only opening at 11am. We chose to walk from the terminal which took longer than expected due to roadworks, in hindsight we should have taken the shuttle bus. The highlight of the day was visiting the Kiek in de Kok museum which is enormous and not only encompasses towers and walls but also has interesting basement tunnels. Hellemann tower was also worth a visit, and is the only venue that required cash (€4). We stumbled on the the Pierre Chocolaterie café, which served the most amazing hot chocolate, cake and chocolates all at very reasonable prices in a cosy interior. Visby – A beautiful place to visit, a shuttle was provided only for those who registered as having accessibility needs. We chose to disembark early morning again and enjoyed a lovely quiet walk through the small botanical garden and around the walls, followed by a walk around the town center and lunch at creperie & logi which was very good. One unexpected gem was stumbling upon a small glass shop Visby Glasblåseri where glass is made on site from recycles bottles collected from local restaurants. We purchased two lovely handmade oil burners as gifts which were around €25 a piece. Copenhagen – We docked at Oceankaj which depending on traffic can be a 20-30min shuttle from the port, the only transport available seemed to be a convoy of party buses which made for quite the experience. The lack of seats also led to reports of 2 hour waits later in the day for wheelchair users and there was a queue of around 80 people to return to the ship later in the day by which time they had managed to get a proper coach. The Copenhagen card is a must if visiting attractions as it includes an enormous amount of attractions, and depending on which you choose either the hop-on bus or public transport and canal boat tours. We spent our two days visiting many of the museums of which the Carlsberg glyptotek and Rosenborg castle were must sees. For the latter it’s worth booking a timed ticket online for entry to avoid having to queue up for tickets, as even at 10am it was fairly busy. Also worth noting that we visited on a Monday which is a common day for museums and attractions to close. Other highlights were the Round towerm Ripley’s believe it or not and the Hans Christian Anderson experience and Tivoli. We purchased a ride pass online and had great fun on the rides, there were no queues when we visited in the early afternoon. Entry is free with the Copenhagen card but the ride pass was additional. Having seen the skt. Peders Bageri on Travel Man, we queued at the bakery for some delightful Danish pastrys. Go early as they were selling like hot cakes!

I'm on Fridays cruise, will be Happy even if we sail a little late or miss the first port. Otherwise we won't get a chance to do the same itinerary for a year and might not end up getting away this year, we haven't been abroad since precovid so 🤞 Despite the abysmal communication they have reacted to the problem astonishingly quickly, im amazed they feel they can get the repairs done on Friday.

I got this impression too, several people posted that they had a letter telling them they had to leave while others flat out refused to go. In better news, reports on FB indicate that the P&O inquiry phone has an automated message saying that Friday's sailing will proceed as planned on Friday.

Thank you for your comprehensive review - we are on Britannia in September as first time p&o customers. Quick question RE water, my partner likes filtered water, I'll drink buckets of tea but concerned by your report of the water taste. Is there anywhere to fill up water bottles outside of the stateroom or would we be better off bringing a Brita filter?

I only mentioned it because I have just bought myself a 'Foldie' bag, but for the reverse reason...so i can bring more back than i take on board if i want 😄

Can you just pack a fold up bag into your luggage and move 5kg into the bag once you get off the plane?

Starting to get a little worried by the replies! Wish it was more like the airport where you can wait in comfort rather than in the rain. This will be our first holiday since pre-covid and we will absolutely be there early because we have a 4hr drive and nothing is getting in the way of us getting on the cruise. Going to leave plenty of time for traffic/ breakdowns & charging the car en route. Guess ill be packing the umbrellas 😃

I wonder this too, the biggest draw of a cruise over a land based trip is not being tied to one location and getting to see lots of different places all at once. We struggle being cooped up in a hotel, we don't enjoy sitting around on beaches or bars...if we did we would just fly to a resort. When visiting non English speaking regions, being able to just book an organised excursion and get out exploring is fantastic. Having said that we do enjoy our food but would usually have a big breakfast on board and just skip lunch or have a small street food snack.

I'm sure they absolutely could address you by name but it would sure cost alot more to then pay someone to match the letter to the cabin for the huge number of return cruisers. I'm surprised in this day and age they are even printing out paper letters! I would have expected an email or a notification on the app 😂