Woo Hoo... Britannia day today...

[TigerB]

31 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

See, we don't seem to have a designated waiter and assistant, we are part of a section that has multiple servers doing different things. They are not very approachable or helpful, but efficient and hard working. 

You can tell their remit is to get you out of there as quick as possible. 

I get fed up with having to ask for absolutely everything, no sauces offered etc. 

These guys definitely don't have time or don't want to have positive vibes with anyone, we did try... 

Portion sizes are plentiful and all the food served hot, just the friendliness of service and quality of food on a couple of occasions has been lacking. 

We are going to try the mdr again tonight as its beef Wellington and we cancelled our Epicurean booking, so let's hope it's improved over the course of the week. 

Andy 

 

That's a shame.  Even when on freedom dining, as we always prefer, you can't beat having the same waiting team throughout the cruise. You can soon build up a good rapport with them and, for me anyway, a look or a head gesture is all that is required for seconds; no announcing it to the rest of the MDR that the fat knacker on table 735 is having two puddings ....again!😉

[P&O SUE]

Happy birthday Michelle, lovely to be on a cruise on your birthday 💕🎂🥂 🌹 

[rickpo]

Happy Birthday Michelle, have a great day.

Could I ask Andy, do they still hold the wine in a ice bucket for you or is it left on the table (white)?

Thanks for all the info you are providing, we are on in 4 weeks.

Rick.

[AndyMichelle]

3 minutes ago, rickpo said:

Happy Birthday Michelle, have a great day.

Could I ask Andy, do they still hold the wine in a ice bucket for you or is it left on the table (white)?

Thanks for all the info you are providing, we are on in 4 weeks.

Rick.

Ours was just left on the table for us to pour ourselves, but I thought I saw ice buckets,? Let me check tonight. 

Andy 

 

[AndyMichelle]

Thank you all so much for Michelle's Birthday wishes, I have read them all out to her and she was quite emotional at the outpouring of kindness from you all. 

A genuine thank you to all our fantastic CC family, you really are lovely people. 

Andy & Michelle xxx

[Selbourne]

3 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

In many cases buying wine in large glasses, 250ml, is no more expensive that buying by the bottle and sometimes cheaper. I suspect this is now P&Os favoured system, it is probably quicker for the waiters, and probably only needs one "wine" waiter per MDR to open bottles and pour the wine.

That’s interesting and chimes with what I noticed on the Limelight Club sample menu (i.e. 3 x 250ml glasses worked out cheaper than a bottle). Still not as convenient as them storing the bottle (I don’t always want a 250ml glass of white and a 250ml glass of red with every meal), but I think I might go with that as a better option than carting around half used bottles of wine which, apart from being inconvenient, looks naff IMHO. Thanks for the tip. 

[AndyMichelle]

3 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

That’s interesting and chimes with what I noticed on the Limelight Club sample menu (i.e. 3 x 250ml glasses worked out cheaper than a bottle). Still not as convenient as them storing the bottle (I don’t always want a 250ml glass of white and a 250ml glass of red with every meal), but I think I might go with that as a better option than carting around half used bottles of wine which, apart from being inconvenient, looks naff IMHO. Thanks for the tip. 

Our wine of choice worked out 50p cheaper by the bottle, but others look cheaper to buy by the large glass. 

Andy 

[Selbourne]

13 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

Our wine of choice worked out 50p cheaper by the bottle, but others look cheaper to buy by the large glass. 

Andy 

Thanks Andy. I guess it’s more about the convenience than the price, as it’s yet another thing that made cruises special that has gone, but it’s good to know that if we have to buy glasses rather than bottles we won’t be fleeced for doing so!
 

I just hope that they provide the wine promptly. I can’t stand it when the wine doesn’t arrive until after you’ve started eating. Am I right in thinking that wine waiters have gone in the MDR and you now order wine from the food waiters?

[daiB]

I can confirm Andy and Michelle do exist.

 

  

 

Gan Canny

 

Dai 

[Selbourne]

18 minutes ago, daiB said:

I can confirm Andy and Michelle do exist.

 

  

 

Gan Canny

 

Dai 

Well at least they got to play “Do you think that’s Dai?” for 5 days of their cruise 😂 

[TigerB]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks Andy. I guess it’s more about the convenience than the price, as it’s yet another thing that made cruises special that has gone, but it’s good to know that if we have to buy glasses rather than bottles we won’t be fleeced for doing so!
 

I just hope that they provide the wine promptly. I can’t stand it when the wine doesn’t arrive until after you’ve started eating. Am I right in thinking that wine waiters have gone in the MDR and you now order wine from the food waiters?

 

Not always the case. On our last cruise I noticed that most of the wines work out cheaper if you buy the 250ml measures, but not always if you buy the 175ml measures.

Champagne worked out cheaper pro rata by the bottle than by a standard 125ml measure.

 

As for wine waiters, in the MDR the orders are taken by the waiter; that said, we have always found drinks to be delivered promptly by the bar staff, sometimes within five minutes. Not so when we did the Chef's Table, where they had a dedicated drinks waiter who, for our section anyway, just could not cope; the consequence of which was the very late arrival of drinks.

[9265359]

3 hours ago, Selbourne said:

I just hope that they provide the wine promptly. I can’t stand it when the wine doesn’t arrive until after you’ve started eating.

 

If the wine doesn't arrive before the food then I send the food away and ask them to return with fresh items after the wine has arrived - I usually only have to make the request once per cruise.

[terrierjohn]

3 hours ago, AndyMichelle said:

Our wine of choice worked out 50p cheaper by the bottle, but others look cheaper to buy by the large glass. 

Andy 

Maybe if you point this out to the F&B manager, he will arrange to reduce the glass price of your favourite wine Andy. Looking forward to your final summation of your first cruise back Andy, and hope you have both enjoyed it.

[Presto2]

11 hours ago, Selbourne said:

That’s great feedback Andy - many thanks. We shall aim for the Peninsular restaurant on our cruise and we always avoid the MDR on the first night anyway. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the Glasshouse last night after your disappointing experience in Epicurean. Most importantly of all, a very ‘Happy Birthday’ to Michelle! 
 

P.S. Just looked at my notes for our cruise, and your feedback that Peninsular is the restaurant to use is also consistent with the feedback that P&O Sue gave during her cruise. Duly noted!

Same for us too in May. Much better than Meridian. 100 times better

[Presto2]

On 7/4/2023 at 11:08 AM, AndyMichelle said:

I wasn't being evasive, just conscious that our experience will differ to others. 

The Epicurean food and service was just not what we expected or had previously... 

Firstly, no dress code. It was evening casual, we were smart, as we're many others. Others had tatty t shirts, jeans and trainers, not smart casual in my book. 1 party of scruffy guys were so loud, it spoilt the atmosphere. 

The amuse buche was missed completely for us and the pallette cleanser served after we had finished all courses as they forgot us... 

The steak I had was very poor quality and drastically overcooked. I ordered medium rare, it was very well done. 

When I queried it, the answer was that passengers don't usually like to see pink!!! 

Michelle had the pork t bone, it was also overcooked and very dry. The chips, ironically, were undercooked. 

The scallop starter just tasted of pepper. 

The desserts were good. 

No choice of petit fors, just 2 served in a dish. 

We spoke to the manager who said sorry, but that was it. 

We have cancelled our bookings for the other nights without penalty. 

Unfortunately, everything else is fully booked, we will take our chances joining the queue for the Glass House where we received outstanding service and great food. 

Andy 

Hi both, am so sorry to read this as I know that you were looking forward to it. Just bizarre. When we went it was probably the best meal we've had for a very long time and the service first class.

What a shame and the response of just sorry was not great.

Glad you are enjoying other areas and eating venues though. We never got to the Glass House so will make sure we do when we return in the New Year. 🙂

 

PS Sorry. just catching up --- Happy Birthday Michelle 🙂 Time for a cocktail or two .. or more 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Presto2

[Selbourne]

57 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

 

If the wine doesn't arrive before the food then I send the food away and ask them to return with fresh items after the wine has arrived - I usually only have to make the request once per cruise.

Interesting approach 😂. Wouldn’t work for us unfortunately, as we use Freedom Dining so would have different waiters most days!

[Adawn47]

@AndyMichelle

A very Happy Birthday Michelle🥂.

I've only seen your thread this evening, but have followed it carefully,. I'm glad you are pushing all the niggles aside and enjoying your long waited cruise. 

By the way Andy, are you missing your Peroni?🍺

Avril

[P&O SUE]

15 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks Andy. I guess it’s more about the convenience than the price, as it’s yet another thing that made cruises special that has gone, but it’s good to know that if we have to buy glasses rather than bottles we won’t be fleeced for doing so!
 

I just hope that they provide the wine promptly. I can’t stand it when the wine doesn’t arrive until after you’ve started eating. Am I right in thinking that wine waiters have gone in the MDR and you now order wine from the food waiters?

I can’t remember which ship we were on when they stopped wine waiters, probably Azura or Britannia and a couple of times we didn’t get our wine until our main arrived!

No such problems on my recent cruise on Ventura although as we were in Amsterdam for two evenings I think we had much less people using the MDRs. Likewise we found the waiters quite chatty but they weren’t busy!

[9265359]

11 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Interesting approach 😂. Wouldn’t work for us unfortunately, as we use Freedom Dining so would have different waiters most days!

 

It works in Freedom as well if you use the same restaurant as the head waiters are quick to spot if you are either sat not eating if it is a cold starter whilst you wait for the wine, or if a hot starter a whole table's untouched food has being sent back if it has got cold waiting (particularly as my wife's food comes from the allergy kitchen).

 

And then as reoccurrences are rare on subsequent evenings it is obvious that in the background a quiet word has been had with whichever waiter is serving that night.

[gsmt47471015]

Still trying to work out where this idea of ordering all required courses has come from as we only noticed it on our recent Azura cruise, and were suitably unimpressed, every time we asked the waiter to take any further orders after we had completed our mains , we felt it was all very rushed and had to explain that we didn't want coffee arriving with our desert ( on the occasions we had one) my good lady nearly always asks for extra veg ,however on a couple of occasions it arrived well after we were two thirds through our meal. It did appear on that cruise a lot of the staff were been trained and the finer touches were missing ,again just personal views and observations   

[Britboys]

4 hours ago, gsmt47471015 said:

Still trying to work out where this idea of ordering all required courses has come from as we only noticed it on our recent Azura cruise, and were suitably unimpressed, every time we asked the waiter to take any further orders after we had completed our mains , we felt it was all very rushed and had to explain that we didn't want coffee arriving with our desert ( on the occasions we had one) my good lady nearly always asks for extra veg ,however on a couple of occasions it arrived well after we were two thirds through our meal. It did appear on that cruise a lot of the staff were been trained and the finer touches were missing ,again just personal views and observations   

It was certainly in place last summer as they were doing it on Aurora. It seems fleetwide so must be an order from on high...

Maybe Mr Ludlow has said that 99.9% of P&O pax want to order their dessert at the beginning of their meal...

[terrierjohn]

50 minutes ago, Britboys said:

It was certainly in place last summer as they were doing it on Aurora. It seems fleetwide so must be an order from on high...

Maybe Mr Ludlow has said that 99.9% of P&O pax want to order their dessert at the beginning of their meal...

We were not forced to order desserts with our initial orders on Iona in February, a waiter did ask once but we said we preferred to wait till later. But then even on freedom dining with different waiters, we were not asked again, and coffee was always served after dessert was finished.

[Angel57]

4 hours ago, Britboys said:

It was certainly in place last summer as they were doing it on Aurora. It seems fleetwide so must be an order from on high...

Maybe Mr Ludlow has said that 99.9% of P&O pax want to order their dessert at the beginning of their meal...

With the two formal night dinners we ate in the MDR (Freedom) last week on Aurora the waiter only took our starter and main choices and we were then given the menu back again for puds after the main course plates had been cleared away. Coffee came after we had finished our desserts. That’s how it should be imo.

[Britboys]

5 minutes ago, Angel57 said:

With the two formal night dinners we ate in the MDR (Freedom) last week on Aurora the waiter only took our starter and main choices and we were then given the menu back again for puds after the main course plates had been cleared away. Coffee came after we had finished our desserts. That’s how it should be imo.

Hopefully that's what I'll find on second sitting aboard her this summer!

[JeanieC,Aston]

5 hours ago, Britboys said:

It was certainly in place last summer as they were doing it on Aurora. It seems fleetwide so must be an order from on high...

Maybe Mr Ludlow has said that 99.9% of P&O pax want to order their dessert at the beginning of their meal...

I’ve seen Americans having Cheese Plate for starter,,,it’s quite common.

 

As for coffee I always ask for my Macchiato be served with my Cheese & Biscuits.