We were extremely disappointed with our Arvia cruise.
We have cruised with P&O on four previous occasions and each time the experience was delightful.
Thus, we were expecting to enjoy our cruise on Arvia.
Our concerns are listed below: In the past, we have always booked Club dining and enjoyed the relationships we were able to build with our fellow diners, and with the waiting staff.
We understood that Arvia was Freedom dining only, but expected this to run smoothly.
Unfortunately, this was not the case.
It was anything but ‘Freedom’ dining.
We used the My Holiday feature, having to join a virtual queue at 6.30pm.
It was irritating that it was impossible to view menus on My Holiday; although there was a tab for this, it did not work.
The unpredictability of the virtual queueing system made it impossible to plan our evening.
We had no idea when we would be called to dine, and had to keep refreshing the phone screen.
We mostly had to wait between 30 minutes and 1 hour, but on our second night we had a wait of 1 hour 30 minutes.
Such variable and lengthy waiting times are totally unacceptable and did much to spoil our holiday.
Older passengers not conversant with smart technology, and indeed the My Holiday system, were obviously struggling, to the extent that they were timed out of the system and had to resort to other means of dining.
It seems to us that the dining capacity of Arvia is not commensurate with the number of passengers.
It was not even possible to book the speciality restaurants, as they were fully booked very quickly.
We tried once to have breakfast in the HorizonCafeeria, but that was a dreadful experience; no free tables and absolute chaos by the food counters.
We were also concerned about hygiene, as the volume of people meant tables were often not cleared before the next diners.
The difficulty we encountered in booking our dining was not the only problem.
We were disappointed with the choices available in the various bars, where menus were rigid; for example even well-known and popular cocktails were unavailable.
In the past these have always been available, even when not printed on the menu.
Our observation was that the ship seemed very overcrowded and staff, facilities and systems were not able to cope with the number of passengers on board.
On several occasions we were unable to find anywhere at all to sit on deck and had to return to our cabin.
The swimming pools too were woefully inadequate for the number of passengers.
The general pools were obviously popular with children, but they were crowded and the ship’s rules regarding use of the pools were not enforced.
The adult-only pool was very small and always overcrowded.
The high standard that we have come to expect from P&O was absent in everything.
Dress codes in the restaurant were not adhered to; menus and quality of food were much lower, and the previousAmbience of style and elegance on P&O ships had entirely vanished.
Standards of cleanliness in our cabin were not what we expected from P&O.
Staff tried hard, but they seemed stressed and poorly trained in comparison with our previous cruises.
Our conversations with fellow passengers indicated a widespread dissatisfaction with the Arvia experience.
I could go on, but it is enough to say that this was the most disappointing holiday we have ever had and we are appalled at the fall in standards in everything that we experienced on this cruise.
I would not travel on this ship again and am not sure if I want even to travel with P&O again.
