More bad publicity for P&O

[bobstheboy]

2 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Isn't  there a classic management saying that revolves a lot of "P's" !

Yes ! Mine was the polite version.

[CarlaMarie]

10 minutes ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

That is very true, but it ended up being a maiden voyage. I do feel sad for those that were affected and also the staff who struggled. I just get fed up with always hearing the negative issues from a small % of people. Lets hear what was good as well as what went wrong. 

 

Regardless of it being a maiden voyage, those who booked didn't know it would be a maiden at the time of sailing and furthermore I don't think you would expect issues as big as these. 

 

Both Iona and Arvia had the same problems, so something has gone very badly wrong. Passengers sitting down for their Christmas Dinner gone 11pm isn't acceptable and I don't think any of us would have been happy if we were the passengers. 

 

Booking dining via the app is well known to have its flaws on some ships (evident in how busy the buffet is now after 7pm, my parents faced issues on Iona getting into the MDR the first couple of nights on their cruise this year and had to use the buffet as some of the select dining venues had been closed - yet on Britannia it worked well). It would have been sensible to have reverted to club dining for both Arvia and Iona so that they could manage on what would have been the busiest day for the MDRs. 

 

Personally, I think the ships are far too big for P&O. 

[zap99]

16 hours ago, Yorkypete said:

Do people do it for more compensation? or do they do it because they are ignored with complaints until the matter is taken further? The sarcasm and bias shown on here against customers is amazing. People have bad experiences but don't complain...they just moan a little and book another cruise. P&O will never improve their customer support/relations unless people do complain and take it further.

 

Some folk take great delight in complaining and their eyes light up when they find something. We were in Menorca and were impressed with the life guard who eyes never left the people in the pool. His defribulator was out of its cover by his side the whole time. The tiles were mosaics and a chap was in the pool with some epoxy resin, sticking some tiles back on. He missed one, so some concerned punter went to reception to fill in a complaints form while the maintainence man was still there. Trip advisor review was followed by an email to head office. The gleam in his eye when he told the other guests that he always did this and normally got some compo.

[zap99]

40 minutes ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

That is very true, but it ended up being a maiden voyage. I do feel sad for those that were affected and also the staff who struggled. I just get fed up with always hearing the negative issues from a small % of people. Lets hear what was good as well as what went wrong. 

Some folk seem to have holidays full of drama and complain forms. We must lead charmed lives. In all the cruises we have taken, issue have cropped up a few times. A trip to reception normally gets it sorted. Admittedly,  nothing as serious as the great O'Neil macaroni crisis.

[zap99]

20 hours ago, kalos said:

 

I feel sorry for Cap't Camby who was FORCED to make an announcement !

Sounds better than decided to, that's if you're a journalist  .

 

 

Rumour has it that when he brings her back to Southampton he will be forced to  avoid the Isle of Wight.🚣

[kalos]

7 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Rumour has it that when he brings her back to Southampton he will be forced to  avoid the Isle of Wight.🚣

No problem, I'm sure ships insurance will cover hitting islands etc😉

 

I see Our Vera has docked in Lanzarote ok but off camera as the Germans got there first .

Apart from the other day, people will hopefully have put it behind them and getting on 

with enjoying the cruise .After all they do say worst things happen at sea .

 

[Josy1953]

43 minutes ago, CarlaMarie said:

Personally, I think the ships are far too big for P&O. 

Why? Lots of cruise companies have similar or larger sized ships to Arvia.

[Snow Hill]

2 hours ago, Harry Peterson said:

However much people might try to defend P&O on this, and attack The Times and the passenger, it’s still indefensible, particularly when P&O could so easily have defused it all with a relatively inexpensive gesture or two.

 

If it reaches the gutter tabloids such as the Sun, Express and Mail they’ll make a lot more of it than The Times did - particularly if they latch on to this, which is actually rather worse:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2900271-britannia-christmas-2022-goes-live/page/5/

Too late already hit the Express, a couple of Regional Daily’s. There seem to be a lot more posts from the Happy Clapper brigade on SM last night and this morning, although I noticed a couple who have since gone rogue. With the issues with Arcadia and Iona as well not a good end to the year for P&O’s PR team who will have try and repair the damage. 
 

The test will come tomorrow night with the NYE celebrations, I hope there is no repeat of Christmas Day.

[Bill Y]

1 hour ago, CarlaMarie said:

It would have been sensible to have reverted to club dining for both Arvia and Iona so that they could manage on what would have been the busiest day for the MDRs.

Yes and that could have highlighted the problem. In days of old every passenger would have had a table place allocated in a MDR for dinner. I doubt  if that’s true on the latest ships, the accountants no doubt have said X% will eat in the buffet and speciality restaurants so such space and staff  are not required, so more space for revenue earning. We will never know what percentage of a full complement of passengers can be seated in the MDR’s of Excel class ships. Anyone hazard a guess?

 

It's beyond me why with four MDR’s one can’t be available for club dining for those who want it, but maybe club diners do not fit into the profile of  the new customers that P & O crave.

[Ardennais]

1 hour ago, Josy1953 said:

Why? Lots of cruise companies have similar or larger sized ships to Arvia.

I took it to mean that other companies can cope, but not P&O! 

[Snow Hill]

2 hours ago, bobstheboy said:

A classic case of Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Having been responsible for preparing many Contingency Plans, I know you must think outside the box, so you cover 99% of all eventualities.

Same here, I managed numerous IT projects and the risk management aspect for installation and post installation has to be agreed by all parties involved, I would have thought there would be at least one line in the Risk & Mitigation Plan that says

 

”IT system fails on Christmas Day causing App and restaurant systems to be unavailable, what alternative systems are being provided to reduce or mitigate the affect on passengers”

[bobstheboy]

6 minutes ago, Snow Hill said:

Same here, I managed numerous IT projects and the risk management aspect for installation and post installation has to be agreed by all parties involved, I would have thought there would be at least one line in the Risk & Mitigation Plan that says

 

”IT system fails on Christmas Day causing App and restaurant systems to be unavailable, what alternative systems are being provided to reduce or mitigate the affect on passengers”

From info I have picked up on social media, I don't believe IT failure was the problem because it was fixed time dining, not freedom dining. The problem was the logistics of providing 5000+ dinners, with x number of tables seating a maximum of y numbers in one sitting. They were using the Horizons as MDR so they must have known the maximum number they could serve at a time, which would involve chefs, waiters and restaurant managers in planning. 

 

From the comment Moley made, they have tweeked the planning for NYE, so let's hope it works.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, Snow Hill said:

Too late already hit the Express, a couple of Regional Daily’s. There seem to be a lot more posts from the Happy Clapper brigade on SM last night and this morning, although I noticed a couple who have since gone rogue. With the issues with Arcadia and Iona as well not a good end to the year for P&O’s PR team who will have try and repair the damage. 
 

The test will come tomorrow night with the NYE celebrations, I hope there is no repeat of Christmas Day.

There is a photo of the MDR queue in one of the stories. Some of the poor dears look like they hadn't eaten for a good 30 minutes.

[lancashire_cruisers]

15 hours ago, Yorkypete said:

If a journo is proven to be lying he will be sued AND sacked as well. They rarely lie, unlike the cruiseline.

I refer you to the events at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 and the subsequent untruths printed in some sections of the media. 

[Harry Peterson]

There are clearly major staffing issues with P&O now, but apparently not with Saga and other competitors.

 

Maybe those notoriously low pay rates, every bit as bad as the P&O Ferries they like to assure people they’re not, are finally rebounding on them as staff find more enlightened employers.

[Ardennais]

28 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

From info I have picked up on social media, I don't believe IT failure was the problem because it was fixed time dining, not freedom dining. The problem was the logistics of providing 5000+ dinners, with x number of tables seating a maximum of y numbers in one sitting. They were using the Horizons as MDR so they must have known the maximum number they could serve at a time, which would involve chefs, waiters and restaurant managers in planning. 

 

From the comment Moley made, they have tweeked the planning for NYE, so let's hope it works.

If it was fixed time dining, why did some passengers have to wait until 11pm?! 

[carlanthony24]

The one couple who complained to the papers. Saying it’s the worst holiday. Photos from Twitter shows them enjoying themselves. Quite funny what people will do for attention 

Edited December 30, 2022 by carlanthony24

[bobstheboy]

6 minutes ago, Ardennais said:

If it was fixed time dining, why did some passengers have to wait until 11pm?! 

I assume there were different sittings, maybe 1730, 2000 and 2230. I am guessing but that would fit comments I have read.

[majortom10]

16 hours ago, FamilyCruiserUK said:

More utter garbage reporting by z list reporters. Is this really news worthy considering all the issues in the world. Its the same as the utter garbage pop ups of people looking sad and cant afford to pay bills sitting there covered in bling, with lip filler with drinks on the table behind them. Sorry its a maiden voyage, things will never go to plan. Sad for those very few who were affected by it. Over 5000 on the cruise and only a few complaints. Anyone who expected a flawless cruise is/was naïve. Never hear reporting of people who had crap meals at mcdonalds!! 

Sadly though, bad news, garbage reporting on sad events sells. 

 

Rant over and happy new year all

That is why P&O will never change because people will always stick up for them and blame the "gutter" press. Surprisingly we were on Ventura maiden voyage and there were all sorts of issues and poor service on restaurant. Excuse given by P&O was that it was their first "large" ship and the powers of be thought that they could run Ventura with same number of staff as Arcadia/Aurora and they were sadly mistaken as they were seriously understaffed. 14yrs on and things don't seem to have changed much.

 

[carlanthony24]

12 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

That is why P&O will never change because people will always stick up for them and blame the "gutter" press. Surprisingly we were on Ventura maiden voyage and there were all sorts of issues and poor service on restaurant. Excuse given by P&O was that it was their first "large" ship and the powers of be thought that they could run Ventura with same number of staff as Arcadia/Aurora and they were sadly mistaken as they were seriously understaffed. 14yrs on and things don't seem to have changed much.

 

The press always are one sided. You rarely see them post a positive story. Some of them can’t even get facts correctly like one news paper reported the aircraft was on the runway when said incident happened. In fact it’s on a taxiway it’s a big difference they also mention the wrong aircraft and even put a picture of a totally different aircraft. 
 

There is people onboard who say they’ve had no problems you don’t see the news paper adding or asking for their input. It’s so one sided.

 

I guess the lesson to be learned is not to book a maiden cruise a cruise before dry dock or even after since issues will occur. People booked the cruise after the maiden I wonder how many actually booked it hoping the cruise before them would be cancelled so they would be the ones to be first on the ship

Edited December 30, 2022 by carlanthony24

[Plugtheleak]

After our last cruise on Iona, we were asked to complete a survey. One of the comments we made was why could one of the restaurant not be allocated to Club dining? We are I would say in the sweet spot for P&O as we are 45/46 yrs old with teenage children. As my wife has a dietary requirement we find club dining works best for us as we build a good working relationship with the waiting team. Also the head waiter knows where to find us.

 

[Presto2]

We were on the first long cruise for the Celebrity Silhouette after she had done 2 x 4 day cruises when launched. The reviews we read after our amazing 12 days from experienced Celebrity passengers made us wonder if we had been on the same ship! We hadn't even noticed much of what they were complaining about and when we chatted on CC to some Americans we had made friends with they were pleased to read our review as it had made them rethink their complaints as we had seen it through different eyes !

 

I'm not saying PO are perfect but I do think that expecting perfection on a maiden cruise .. whether you booked it as such or not .. is a bit naive. You'll always get those passengers who are never happy and as others have said the press want a good sob story to sell newspapers.

 

Having said that I do hope that those passengers who have genuinely been affected by some mismanagement get some sort of an apology or recognition that it should have been better. Am not talking about lots of money but some times it is the small gestures that mean the most ....

 

Finally and then I'll stop waffling ..... as this is a similar ship to IONA I would have expected the experienced and best crew on other ships and IONA on a new ship. Sorry to keep comparing but we were told that this is what Celebrity do .... send all the best people to make sure it is a success. If it is the best people on Arvia ... oh dear ........ I feel for the poor Captain.

[davecttr]

2 hours ago, Bill Y said:

.....It's beyond me why with four MDR’s one can’t be available for club dining for those who want it, but maybe club diners do not fit into the profile of  the new customers that P & O crave.

The internal organisation of the galley must be different for Club and Freedom dining and maybe the galley on Iona/Arvia is designed for Freedom. Do the ships have 2 galleys? If so they could have one serving each MDR

[jaydee6969]

2 hours ago, Bill Y said:

 

 

It's beyond me why with four MDR’s one can’t be available for club dining for those who want it, but maybe club diners do not fit into the profile of  the new customers that P & O crave.

 

Don't forget, Arvia has 2 MDR's.  Opal on Iona is now The Olive Grove on Arvia, and Aqua has become the 6th Street Diner. 

 

In my mind this was always going to have an impact on the MDR dining availability.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, Harry Peterson said:

There are clearly major staffing issues with P&O now, but apparently not with Saga and other competitors.

 

Maybe those notoriously low pay rates, every bit as bad as the P&O Ferries they like to assure people they’re not, are finally rebounding on them as staff find more enlightened employers.

It's quite telling Harry. Folk on here singing the praises of Saga. Have a look at the Saga thread. Nothing. Also the folk who don't cruise, saying " I won't be sailing with P&O again ". Some haven't since Oriana.😁