Food and dining on P&O ships

[snaefell]

We are on Arcadia on May 14thy,today(April 30th) should have been the day bookings open for on board dining & the website is different but still shows Enquire On Board for Ocean Grill & Sindhu which of course are the only options on Arcadia,embarkation day is my Wife's Birthday & we are hoping for a table in OG,annoying isn't it!

[Fionboard]

1 minute ago, snaefell said:

We are on Arcadia on May 14thy,today(April 30th) should have been the day bookings open for on board dining & the website is different but still shows Enquire On Board for Ocean Grill & Sindhu which of course are the only options on Arcadia,embarkation day is my Wife's Birthday & we are hoping for a table in OG,annoying isn't it!

No prebooking on small ships, just Arvia, Iona and Britannia. Don't worry. 

[oAlgo]

12 minutes ago, Fionboard said:

No prebooking on small ships, just Arvia, Iona and Britannia. Don't worry. 

On Britannia you can only book the Limelight Club at this moment, on all the rest it says "Enquire on board".
I´ve been trying twice per day for the last 10 days, for both of my cruises.

[snaefell]

Just now, Fionboard said:

No prebooking on small ships, just Arvia, Iona and Britannia. Don't worry. 

Thanks for that info,pity the website indicates otherwise,why should I be surprised!

[Megabear2]

18 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

You are stressing yourself unnecessarily, there should still be time to book venues even if you dont board till 4:00 pm. However I doubt there will be much of a queue so late in the day, so maybe aim to arrive a little after 3, and if you explain that you cant stand for long they will probably let you wait in the downstairs area which should enable you to log on to the ships app using the last 6 numbers on your boarding pass.

Thank you.  The stress is more to do with the missing bookings I've already made and paid for.  I just don't want to have an argument standing there at reception waving my receipts around.  I cannot understand why they have disappeared from my itinerary having shown in there at 3.00am.

[Fionboard]

2 minutes ago, snaefell said:

Thanks for that info,pity the website indicates otherwise,why should I be surprised!

Have a lovely cruise. Nice itinerary. I am on it too!

[Selbourne]

As I understand it, when it says “Enquire on Board” there will be no opportunity to pre-book that restaurant before the cruise and all reservations have to be made when on board. However, when it says “Coming Soon” that should mean that bookings can be made from 14 days in advance. Of course, with anything P&O IT related, the word ‘should’ becomes the issue!

[happy v]

22 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Thank you.  The stress is more to do with the missing bookings I've already made and paid for.  I just don't want to have an argument standing there at reception waving my receipts around.  I cannot understand why they have disappeared from my itinerary having shown in there at 3.00am.

Have you looked in your itinerary to see if your bookings are there?

[Megabear2]

2 minutes ago, happy v said:

Have you looked in your itinerary to see if your bookings are there?

Yes.  At 3.00am immediately after I booked they were all there along with my excursion and entertainment.  At 9.00am they had disappeared.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Megabear2

[happy v]

20 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Yes.  At 3.00am immediately after I booked they were all there along with my excursion and entertainment.  At 9.00am they had disappeared.

I can understand your concern. It is so frustrating when IT acts up.

They will probably all reappear when someone updates the system. Your receipts are proof they are in there somewhere. I hope it resolves soon. Sorry I was no help 

[Ardennais]

We could only book the Limelight Club before boarding Britannia. We didn’t use the other speciality restaurants at all. 
 

I’m sorry to say that the food offering generally was quite limited. Limelight meal was nice. Less choice than before in the Horizon and food was generally on the cold side. My husband had sponge pudding and custard for lunch in the Peninsular Restaurant one day too and it was really cold. 

We weren’t impressed to be honest. Iona was so much better in February, food wise, 

[snaefell]

33 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

As I understand it, when it says “Enquire on Board” there will be no opportunity to pre-book that restaurant before the cruise and all reservations have to be made when on board. However, when it says “Coming Soon” that should mean that bookings can be made from 14 days in advance. Of course, with anything P&O IT related, the word ‘should’ becomes the issue!

It used to come up with a message that dining reservations WOULD be available as from April 30th,beginning to wonder now exactly what that meant! 

[snaefell]

39 minutes ago, Fionboard said:

Have a lovely cruise. Nice itinerary. I am on it too!

Yes,we booked it because of the Itinerary but one of the ports we were really looking forward to was Gibraltar,I know many on here think that it's omission is good news, I know many people who love the place & it would have been nice to find out for ourselves first hand!

Nothing new for us though we have cruised with Royal Caribbean who seem to change every itinerary after booking,sometimes even during the cruise!

The reviews for our Royal Carib cruise taught to take it as it comes,the reviews were awful,the cruise was amazing!

We WILL enjoy,hope you do too!

[Ardennais]

The best meal we had on Britannia was ….. Room service! 
 

Very tasty and piping hot! How they managed to do that for room service, and fail elsewhere, I don’t know! 
 

[happy v]

59 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Yes.  At 3.00am immediately after I booked they were all there along with my excursion and entertainment.  At 9.00am they had disappeared.

I'm probably starting to annoy you now, but are they still showing in my 'orders' ?

[cruising.mark.uk]

2 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

 

 

If push comes to shove I will have to use Quays or buffet but not really want I expected.  It's just very much a down after all the excitement of the last few days.

 

I very much doubt that it will come to that.

 

We have just got home from 2 weeks on Arvia.  In 14 nights, we did not dine once in a MDR or at the Quays or buffet.

 

The only dinner we booked in advance was the Limelight Club.

 

Except for Epicurean, it was possible to secure seats in the upcharge restaurants throughout the fortnight, so long as you were prepared to be pretty flexible on timings.

 

For the no charge restaurants (6th St Diner and Olive Grove), it was not possible - before the cruise or on the ship - to book these restaurants for times later than 1830.  If you wished to dine after that time, you joined the virtual queue.  Between those two restaurants, we did that 7 times over the fortnight.  We joined the queue around 1900 / 1915.  The longest it took to secure a table was about 40 minutes.  The shortest was 10 minutes.  We also dined at Sindhu (twice), the Beach House (twice), Keel and Cow, Epicurean and the Limelight.

 

I think people worry far too much about dining on Arvia, based on reported teething problems on the first couple of cruises.  In our experience, the system works, the variety is fantastic and the quality and quantity of food (included and charged extra) was first rate throughout.  

[Selbourne]

49 minutes ago, Ardennais said:

We could only book the Limelight Club before boarding Britannia. We didn’t use the other speciality restaurants at all. 
 

I’m sorry to say that the food offering generally was quite limited. Limelight meal was nice. Less choice than before in the Horizon and food was generally on the cold side. My husband had sponge pudding and custard for lunch in the Peninsular Restaurant one day too and it was really cold. 

We weren’t impressed to be honest. Iona was so much better in February, food wise, 

Oh dear. They had better get their act together before we are on her in July. 🤞

[purplesea]

Well, I've just logged into My P&O and dining venues were available to book. So I booked one, and went back to book more and they are now all blanked out again!🤷‍♀️😕

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, purplesea said:

Well, I've just logged into My P&O and dining venues were available to book. So I booked one, and went back to book more and they are now all blanked out again!🤷‍♀️😕

I had that just now. 

[Harry Peterson]

2 hours ago, Ardennais said:

The best meal we had on Britannia was ….. Room service! 
 

Very tasty and piping hot! How they managed to do that for room service, and fail elsewhere, I don’t know! 
 

I respect your judgment, Ardennais. But I’m horrified at what you’ve said about the food, which for us used to be one of the high spots of P&O.

[Ardennais]

21 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

I respect your judgment, Ardennais. But I’m horrified at what you’ve said about the food, which for us used to be one of the high spots of P&O.

I’m no foodie mind you! I don’t think we had one really good 3 course meal. Something was always off with one course or another. E.g, rock hard meringue, cold custard, watery soup, fish with loads of bones, fatty meat, few crusty rolls etc etc. We normally use the buffet a lot, but the choice was really limited and food seemed to be so cold! We’ve never before left so much on the plate. That’s why I said that the delivered pie, peas and chips was the best meal, and also the room service trifle which had nice custard and fruit. 

[Britboys]

17 minutes ago, Ardennais said:

I’m no foodie mind you! I don’t think we had one really good 3 course meal. Something was always off with one course or another. E.g, rock hard meringue, cold custard, watery soup, fish with loads of bones, fatty meat, few crusty rolls etc etc. We normally use the buffet a lot, but the choice was really limited and food seemed to be so cold! We’ve never before left so much on the plate. That’s why I said that the delivered pie, peas and chips was the best meal, and also the room service trifle which had nice custard and fruit. 

Hope the menu didn't advertise "pie & chips" because they were french fries, which in my experience on P&O (and many other places) are a waste of space...

[Britboys]

4 hours ago, Fionboard said:

No prebooking on small ships, just Arvia, Iona and Britannia. Don't worry. 

Thankfully!

[Megabear2]

8 hours ago, purplesea said:

Well, I've just logged into My P&O and dining venues were available to book. So I booked one, and went back to book more and they are now all blanked out again!🤷‍♀️😕

I managed to get back in to the bookings at around 8.00pm and it allowed me to make bookings for week 2.  I eat early between 6.00 and 6.30 so it was important to me to secure reservations in advance as I understand once they're filled that's it.  Apart from one night with Olive Grove I have managed to secure my first choice times - quite a few of the things I looked at had no 6.15 or 6.30 options remaining.  

 

I'm quite interested in trying the Keel & Cow when I can book onboard.  Has anyone who has eaten there know what time dining starts in there, please?

 

Incidentally the reservations I made previously are still not showing in my itinerary although these new ones are including the paid ones.  I am confident they must still be there so won't do anything until I get back from the QM2 cruise.

 

This has been quite a trial and error process which I hope will be better for Iona in June.  It's a shame I have to eat early as I'm sure onboard booking would have been easier than this has been.

[purplesea]

I have finally managed to book a few dining and entertainment options, both late and early. They are also showing in my calendar.  As I have a lot of OBC I do not want to book them all in advance, but luckily I have boarding time of 12.15 pm.