First time P&O Cruiser - Impressions

[techwatcher]

We went on our first P&O cruise last week. We are frequent cruisers mostly with Celebrity and a few with Royal Caribbean. FWIW, here are our impressions of our first P&O cruise.

 

The cruise was on Arcadia, a short 5-day cruise to Amsterdam, Zeebrugge and Guernsey.

 

1. Embarkation/disembarkation - fine, well organised. Had to wait about 30 minutes on embarkation to be checked in - lots of seats so no big deal.

2. The ship - obviously Arcadia is not a new ship and styles have moved on, but it was fine. Bits of the ship don't 'flow' very well, e.g. forward on Deck 9 you have to exit via the Spa? It's reasonably well maintained and clean.

3. Cabin - functional, bathroom beginning to show its age but reasonably well designed.

4. Food - better than expected, and better than Celebrity in our experience. We dined mainly in the MDR and food was always hot and reasonably tasty. We had so-called Freedom Dining, which like on many cruise lines, isn't really. P&O should consider allowing reservations here.

5. Service - a bit rough around the edges in places. Speaking with the Hotel General Manager he acknowledged that this was due to the Britannia effect, where experienced staff have been sent there and there are lots of new and inexperienced staff on Arcadia. Honest, but not impressed.

5. Entertainment - typical cruise line fare. We don't care for the shows but dipped our toes into a couple - singing especially was amateurish. The entertainment staff didn't engage with passengers - they'd turn up one minute before something was due to start and disappear one minute afterwards.

 

Overall we enjoyed the cruise. P&O haven't wow-ed us enough to make them our new favourite but given the right itinerary we would sail with them again.

[Denarius]

Very fair comment. Just like to take up one point, that of MDR reservations on freedom dining.

When freedom dining was first introduced reservations were allowed, but this was soon discontinued. The reason, I was told, was that some people made reservations then did not turn up, having decided to dine later or elsewhere but not having had the courtesy to cancel. Others turned up long after the time booked, when the waiters and fellow diners on a shared table had concluded they were not coming and had started without them. It was decided that filling tables as people arrived at the restaurant was much more practicable. Reservations appear to work on Celebrity, but I suspect that this is because their ships have many more tables for 2 or 4 so late arrivals are less of a problem. Also, they do not reserve a particular table but merely give priority to bookings, unlike P&O where a seat at a particular table was assigned.