The Arvia is huge,plenty to offer and beautiful.
For us, we found the amount of guests on board to much, especially when it came to the horizon buffet and booking a table in the restaurant.
There are no longer trays provided in the buffet which leads to people revisiting the the buffet over and over as you cannot manage to hold your meal/drink/cutlery.
We found we were waiting up to an hour and 20 mins for a table in the restaurant in the evening.
On this cruise we also felt staff in the restaurant/bars were so busy they did not engage in conversation like we have experienced on previous cruises.
When up on the top decks we saw no bar staff for the duration of the two week holiday and had to go down to the bars.
We also found the level of the speakers so loud in the sky dome, we could not sit in there.
On this ship we noticed a few things missing that we have seen on the other ships for example there were no table clothes in the meridian restaurant which made it feel less formal,there was also no fresh flower displays that we have seen and admired on the other p&O ships in the atrium which add to the grandness.
Our cabin was clean, we did notice our balcony never got cleaned for the two week holiday, and a couple of times the room didn’t appear to have been hoovered.
Entertainment was brilliant in particular liss Jones and Ray Quinn.
The headliners show Festival was the best headliners show we have seen.
We were looking forward to staying on the Arvia after loving the Iona the year before,however unfortunately for us we just felt it to be to crowded (5300 passengers on board) weather it was the destinations or the time of the year we don’t know but it did impact on our holiday enjoyment especially when a D&V bug broke out on board.
The captain on board advised guests to wash hands prior to visiting eating venues and to use own toilets in rooms where possible.
Staff were also very visible cleaning surfaces throughout the day.
We did witness a couple of guests vomiting in public places which wasn’t pleasant.
Credit to all the staff,the bug appeared to subside after a few days.
We have cruised with p&O six times now and this one unfortunately wasn’t our favourite, we will ensure from now on that we cruise on the smaller ships.
