At best the Cruise was only “satisfactory”.
Ignore the weather, which was quite rough, the cabins were good and clean.
We were with friends and that made the holiday satisfactory.
Overall we found the public rooms OK, but with quite a low level of waiting on staff so at times service was slow.
Shows were poor – the quality of artists was average to poor and the on ship singers were exceptionally poor (either that or the sound system was not working properly.
The number of empty seats for the shows said it all.
Food quality was only just “OK” but the service in the main dinning room has deteriorated markedly over the years.
We sailed on Oriana in 1999 and Victoria in 2002 – at that time there was silver service for dinner and ,for example, cheese was offered at room temperature from a trolley (which had a full stilton and a scoop to serve).
This time cheese was in sliced portion form, no choice offered and served cold straight from the kitchen.
The speciality restaurants, Sindu and the Grill room were good, Sindu in particular – service was a bit slow in the Grill – but they cost extra – Sindu best value.
I think P&O are aiming for a mass market and standards are much lower than one might expect from their Marketing Publicity.
I have to say that the best meal on board was the lunch offered to past guests with lots of points (we now have over 2,500) and because P&O can do that on arrival it highlights how poor the main service has become.
Of choice we will not use P&O again unless it is with Friends and Family when we are all able to travel together or to a special destination not generally offered (as was the case wit Victoria in 2002 which went to Svalbard))
