Britannia Christmas Cruise

[forest_]

Just a quick review of the ship.

 

Great ship if not now my favourite, love the style very elegant, great to see the Crows Nest pop up again.

 

Loved the rear Sunset Bar, shame I had to walk through a cloud of smoke to get there, opted for other side most nights.

 

Wish the child pool was more child like both family pools too deep.

 

Limelight club great meal, needs to be opened up after 11.30 as a nightclub.

 

Fellow passengers, decline in certain standards which would most probably stop me from booking with P&O again. I have cruised with them since 1990's and the decline now was larger than I had previously seen. Still had an amazing time, and for sure don't let any comment but you off from booking.

 

But when you see men wanting fights in Children's tea over wearing of no tops was one of many less than desirable episodes, with more than I would wish to write on a review.

 

Definably try Britannia but if you are an old time Cruiser, I think their are other lines with smaller ships that, that maybe offer a better more olde School cruise than I think P&O are now offering.

 

Cabins - Great if only balcony's wider.

 

Stairs only an issue if you can't walk.

 

Entertainment - Hit and miss

 

Food - Great on formal nights , again hit and miss other times.

 

Ports - St Maarten the best , St Vincent talk a tour.

 

Overall 3/5 And sad to say looking like my last Cruise with P&O .............

[dgs1956]

So basically you had a great cruise that was spoiled by moronic passengers. What a real shame that is.

[uk338]

Thank you for taking the time to post a great review.

 

With the reveiw aside, can we now indulge in the gossip about the troublesome passengers? Every cloud and all that.... it gives me a good laugh.

[kevinyork]

Thanks for your review. I presume your Christmas cruise coincided with the school holidays and would have produced a more family orientated cruise. Our cruise on Britannia was also during school holidays but I've been curious to experience her in term time with perhaps more regular P&O passengers. She has a lot of positives: deck space, adult pool, nice decor, ok food, a very good buffet design, huge sunset bar, crows nest bar, Brodie's bar, crystal room. Some negatives: no central stairs combined with small lifts, glass house too small and part of the atrium, balconies too shallow, bathrooms too small, theatre and showbar too small. As she doesn't have a covered pool I had thought she would suit the Caribbean very well and I have an eye on a transatlantic when I think she may come into her own. Sorry you are moving from a P&O. I think the time of cruise lines having a static passenger base are waning.

 

 

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[bee-ess]

Sorry you are moving from a P&O. I think the time of cruise lines having a static passenger base are waning.

 

 

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Loyalty need to be a 2 way street and I don't feel that P&O offer much to their loyal customers compared to some of the other cruise lines.

[soobs]

We did the pre-Xmas cruise on her in 2015 and experienced similar behaviour that was without the kids and a constant issue with sunbeds so avoided her this year and went on the Azura. Sunbed issue not a problem and no behaviour issues just a captain who was in a race to get to New Orleans so he could retire!!

I agree for people who love the old traditional P & O Britannia in the school holidays is not the best choice of ships and term time choose your cruise carefully.

Edited January 5, 2017 by soobs

[CCFC]

Thanks for your review. I presume your Christmas cruise coincided with the school holidays and would have produced a more family orientated cruise. Our cruise on Britannia was also during school holidays but I've been curious to experience her in term time with perhaps more regular P&O passengers. She has a lot of positives: deck space, adult pool, nice decor, ok food, a very good buffet design, huge sunset bar, crows nest bar, Brodie's bar, crystal room. Some negatives: no central stairs combined with small lifts, glass house too small and part of the atrium, balconies too shallow, bathrooms too small, theatre and showbar too small. As she doesn't have a covered pool I had thought she would suit the Caribbean very well and I have an eye on a transatlantic when I think she may come into her own. Sorry you are moving from a P&O. I think the time of cruise lines having a static passenger base are waning.

 

 

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We got off on December 17th, I try to avoid the school holidays where I can.

 

Hardly any kids to be seen apart from one woman who let her two sons run riot, when challenged by a woman in a wheel chair to try to be less disruptive the mother went ballistic and threatened to push her out of the wheelchair, nobody speaks to her kids like that! I intervened and she went all sheepish hopefully realising that she had just threatened someone.

 

As for unruly passengers apart from a group who insisted on calling any waiter they saw Manuel which they all thought was a great laugh I didn't see much hassle. Apparently 500 under 18's arrived the day we were getting off and boy could you tell the difference in atmosphere.

Edited January 5, 2017 by CCFC

[Selbourne]

We have been on 2 cruises on Britannia, both in peak summer school holidays. There were (from memory) around 800 children on board each time and I can honestly say that we never experienced any problems from unaccompanied children.

 

We did, however, on several occasions, see families in the restaurants allowing young children to get out of their seats, wander around getting in the way of the waiters (dangerous) and irritating other passengers whilst doing so. In those cases, I don't blame the children, but the parents who fail to exert basic parenting skills. I don't think we were model parents, but we would never have allowed our children to do that in a restaurant when they were that age.

 

Much as we really like Britannia, the passenger mix is, shall I say, quite 'mass market'. No surprise given that cruises are now far cheaper than they used to be and P&O has many times more cabins to fill every week than they did in years past. Thank God for select dining restaurants, where we regularly seek sanctuary :D

[forest_]

Thanks for all your replies, as I said loved the ship, and if possible would have travelled out of School Holiday's, I also understand that cruises are cheaper and thus, putting it simply attracts a wider spread of the population, the downside is it also allows standards to have dropped without anyone noticing etc.

 

P&O seems to have lost the good old cruise feel, and more like a floating hotel than ever before, like I said aim olde school, loved the sailing part and fact you are on a ship not a floating resort.

 

Would say Britannia is a must if you have not tried her, in terms of passengers, standards have dropped across the board, but fighting in children's tea and other areas around the pool would have had you thrown of the ship years ago.

 

Like I said only small issues and for 14 nights had a fab time.......but enough to question sailing with P&O again.

[Mark@cfcmail.co.uk]

I agree with one of the posters above, we like the Glass House, but it's so much better on Azura than it is on Britannia, or for that matter the one on Ventura (which is still better than the Britannia one, but it's a bit "Disney").

 

 

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