Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

Reports about cruises on Britannia
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Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#1

Post by Mervyn and Trish »

Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 1

If you simply don't like big ships look away now. If the lack of a wraparound promenade deck at the same level as the lifeboats is a showstopper, Britannia is not for you. If you have to have acres of polished wood everywhere to feel comfortable on board, then then she's not that sort of ship.

But, if you are still reading, here are our thoughts after the Maiden Voyage. And let's nail our colours to the mast straight away. We've tried five different cruise lines so far and we generally like P&O. We set off on cruises expecting to enjoy ourselves, not looking for a chance to moan and seek compensation.

The design brief was to create a ship which reflected traditional P&O values with a modern twist and in our view they've achieved that. We think a lot of the P&O faithful (excluding those who stopped reading after the first paragraph) will feel at home. Those who have tried and rejected P&O before will probably not be converted. But potential new cruisers may well like what they find. The ship is satisfying for those who set out to enjoy their cruise and has enough little niggles for those whose day is not complete without a moan to feel included too.

So let's start with an overview. Is it a hotel or a luxury yacht? Well of course it's a floating hotel, as most modern cruise ships are. But it's a jolly good hotel. Sorry to upset the traditionalists but Canberra was a floating hotel too, albeit rather more akin to a seaside B&B with the shared toilet and bathroom at the end of the corridor. Be assured Britannia is fully en-suite and our bathroom was among the best we've seen afloat. But more of that later.

The decor varies through the ship but the themes are generally muted greys, creams, greens, and black (or close to) with richer contrasts in various places, rather than mahogany and Berni Inn red plush throughout or the bright primary colours some lines prefer.

Despite the usual gripes of "I can't find my way round" (let's face it some people can get lost in a one bedroomed flat) we found it pretty easy and familiar. The public rooms are mainly on Deck 7 (get used to the helpful lady in the lift calling it "Main Deck" rather than "Promenade Deck" because that's upstairs) with the theatre at the front and another entertainment venue at the back and other stuff in between. There are more public rooms on Deck 6 and a few more on 5. If you need rejuvenation, the Spa is down here, not up at the top.

The rather splendid atrium, the social hub of the ship, is in the middle spanning decks 5 to 7. One negative for us, not the ship itself but the use of it, is that despite having more shops than a modest market town (though there is no Oxfam or Cancer Research shop) they still feel the need to clutter this lovely space with car boot sales selling gold plated chain by the yard and reduced price handbags.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#2

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Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 2

The restaurants are mid-ships (two of them, Freedom Dining) and aft (one, Club Dining). As on several of the other ships the galley is between so to get to the Oriental on deck 6 aft you have to go sternwards on deck 7 or above and then down. You can't walk aft on 6. But it doesn't stop some people trying.

There were some issues with Freedom Dining on the first couple of days with long queues and some disgruntled passengers not sitting down till after 9.30. This may be a teething issue, or may because of the high number of traditional P&O passengers on this voyage. There were 200 cruise virgins but that leaves 3,400 old hands, many of them in the top Peninsular Club tiers. We were comfortable in 2nd Sitting Club, but apparently that option was fully booked very quickly and a lot of passengers allocated to Freedom Dining really didn't want it. It seemed to settle later so either teething troubles were eased or passengers better spaced themselves or ate elsewhere. Whether it was a Maiden Voyage issue or they've got the balance wrong for this ship in the longer term only time will tell.

There was a queue for the Club Dining on the first night as people were shown to their tables but arriving at opening time or a couple of minutes after we never had to wait again. If some passengers choose to arrive well before the opening time it is not really P&O’s fault if they have to wait. Enough said I think!

But I digress. Back to the general layout, and the pools and other public rooms are at the top. Again in a pretty familiar way, deck 16 has the buffet restaurant aft, the two main pools in the middle and the Crow’s Nest forward.

We liked the layout with the two pools in a common area, with no obstruction between. It felt more open and less crowded but this wasn't really a sunbathing cruise. The test of the ship for that will be later in the year.

We also liked the design of the buffet restaurant area. This is a big and busy ship but we never had a problem getting a table, even on disembarkation day when it can be manic on some ships. The area where the food is laid out is much more open than on Azura and seemed to flow better. A nice innovation at the entrances was not just anti-bacterial gel dispensers but also washbasins with liquid soap and water from automatic dispensers and taps, far more effective in fighting nasty bugs than the gel alone. The crew just need to be sharper in topping up the soap. And sadly too many passengers are in too much of a rush to get another meal to think about hygiene. Another introduction up here was self-service beer and wine stations. There was one technical glitch when the hot water supply for tea and the coffee machines failed, but it got sorted.

Just behind the Crow’s Nest on one side are some public rooms including the Marlow Room, used for cards etc., a room for ceremonies such as renewals of Wedding Vows and the Epicurean Restaurant (more on that later) and on the other the library and cyber study and a corridor of single balcony and inside cabins. These are the only passenger cabins sharing a deck with public facilities. However, the area round them seemed quiet, but we'd need to hear from someone using one to be certain.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#3

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Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 3

There are also no passenger cabins below deck 8, in fact they are all on decks 8 to 15. But before I talk about cabins let's stay upstairs and in fact climb further. Up a deck and forward is the Serenity Pool and the Retreat. The latter is paid entry but is smaller than on Azura and the pool is outside the gates and available to all. It is in a very pleasant area designated as a "quiet zone". I hope they enforce that.

Up higher aft are facilities including the sports court and the "Promenade". On the negative side it is unprotected from rain and sun and windy on blowy days. On the plus side it is well clear of salt sea spray on choppy days and of deck chairs and loungers. It's a pleasant circuit round the twin funnels with great views. Seven circuits make up your mile workout.

So let's go back to square one and boarding for this cruise. For those debating this topic, there is as yet no evidence of them enforcing boarding times or speeding the process. We arrived spot on our allocated time of 1pm to find the lounge already heaving and then waited almost an hour before we were summoned to check in. This may or not be typical. As mere Mediterranean Tier passengers we were probably among the 10% who didn't have priority boarding! Once checked in, the security area at Ocean Terminal has been rearranged and enlarged and did move quite quickly.

We were on board soon after 2pm and all cabins were ready. We had a Superior Deluxe Balcony Cabin. Like the rest of the ship the decor is very modern and different from the cabins on Azura. The layout is similar, though overall we preferred the Azura version.

Just inside the door is a walk-in wardrobe area and entry to the bathroom. In these cabins that includes quite a decent sized bath with shower over and, joy of joys, a glass shower screen rather than awful clingy plastic. The bed is pretty much as expected on a P&O ship. Personally I'd prefer the option of feather pillows. I found the allergy free ones a bit too fat and springy, but they seemed to squash down a bit with two week’s use!

At the other end is a comfortable settee, which converts to an extra bed, table and chairs, and extra drawers as well as the dressing table. The mirror thereon is a bit small, dictated rather by the large TV on the wall, one of two in this type of cabin, the other opposite the bed. It's the usual interactive thing we expect on new ships these days with a choice of live TV channels (two news, two sport and one lifestyle - whatever that means), a selection of on-demand music, TV shows and films, ship info, navigation info, weather, webcam etc. The weather forecast for ports ahead was a potentially useful feature but they seem to have forgotten to give anyone the job of updating it and it vanished from the menu a few days before the cruise ended.

Missing were the ability to check your account and order room service but apparently that software upgrade is coming soon. I was just a bit surprised that in the time it took the welders to join all that steel together the techies couldn't install the software Azura had 5 years ago! We did get some muffled noise from next door's TV at times. It turned out our neighbour was deaf and turned it up loud rather than use her hearing aid, but I don't know if there is also an inherent issue of having the TVs fixed to the cabin partition walls. We heard nothing from the other side.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#4

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Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 4

Now to the much discussed balconies. If your cruise history is ships like Aurora and all you want to do is sit in the fresh air with your cuppa and your book, they're okay. But if you've been used to Ventura or Azura, especially C and D decks, and want to get your top off and spread out in the sun they are titchy. I suppose the ship is however wide it is and unless you hang on sticky-out bits like Azura it's a balance between space in the cabin and outside on the balcony. In the Med in March it was okay. In the Caribbean in January it might feel different.

The same argument I suppose applies on Deck 7. Promenade Deck, or a bit more space inside? The inside of Britannia did feel more spacious to us having given up the outside space on Deck 7, other than a couple of shelves mid-ships and aft and access to the lifeboats.

But back to the cabins. The only other ones we can report on are the suites. A friend staying in one told us they are smaller than some other ships, especially the lounge are, but adequate and again he said the bathroom was excellent. The size seems to be reflected in the fact that they are cheaper than those on some other ships.

So now to the public facilities, first the entertainment venues. As you'd expect on a big ship there are a lot of them, but only one really big one, the theatre. Technically it's very advanced with its LED backdrop and other technical gizmos. You'll see shows on Britannia you won't see elsewhere because the other ships don't have the technology (yet). And although it's called the Headliners Theatre, the on board company is also different to those on the other ships, supplied by an independent production company, specifically commissioned for Britannia.

The auditorium is single tier but with entrances on Decks 6 and 7. The latter arrive through two walkways almost to the front. It makes for easy access but does have the downside of effectively dividing the seats into three blocks. Once you're committed to, for example, the centre block, if you can't find a seat there you have to either go almost to the back or front to change tack. There are no outside aisles beyond the first few rows, presumably to enable them to fit in more seats.

The good news is most of the seats have a good view - most. The exceptions to avoid are round about where the walkways from Deck 6 enter. There are three rows which are level rather than raked and the view from the rear two is restricted by heads in front. The row immediately behind this block is superb. As on the other larger ships some popular shows had three performances available.

The range of entertainment on the Maiden wasn't typical of other cruises we've done. There were more solo cabaret artistes than usual, so fewer production shows. Most of the artistes were not household names but they were mostly very good. Of course we heard the inevitable "it's not like Ventura, they have West End shows every night”. Yeh, right. But at least it spared us the "we've seen this show five times on Oriana and eight times on Canberra". The resident company's shows we did see were very good in our view, but of course entertainment is a subjective issue.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#5

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Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 5

There are a number of other smaller venues. A popular one with many will be the Crystal Room. It wasn't, if I recall correctly, promoted as such, so maybe it was unique to this cruise or an on-board decision by Entertainment Manager, Neil Oliver, but it was pretty much exclusively used for various forms of dancing. We're not ballroom dancers but some fans we met on board (you know who you are!) gave it a big thumbs up in comparison to other P&O ships.

There's also a proper cinema. It is used for other things such as talks, but it is fully enclosed, not just a screen in a bar. We didn't use it personally, but we did overhear another cruiser slating it. However, as he seemed to not have a good word for anything about the ship I don't know how much notice to take and from a quick look in it seemed fine to us.

The one venue that needs more thought is the Live Lounge. It's at the stern where you normally find the show lounge, but it is not as big. Most nights it is okay but one night there was a very popular Queen tribute and we, along with a lot of others, couldn't get into the second show after our dinner. It wasn't helped by the act apparently telling the first house that the second show was different and encouraging them to stay, which many did. Hopefully the entertainment team will learn from that and tell acts they must do identical shows and ask people to vacate at the end of the first performance to allow others a chance. With popular acts perhaps they could do three performances, like the theatre, too. We did get in with little difficulty to see an excellent Take That tribute later in the cruise.

A new entertainment concept is the Limelight Club, dinner with an act for a modest supplement. Each act did three or four nights before the next took over and they were exclusive to the venue. We enjoyed it very much and it seemed popular. Dinner was a choice of two starters, three main courses and a fixed dessert. It's a single sitting at 7.30 and we got a 10 minute sampler of the artiste between courses with the main performance once coffee was served.

Bars then. Well the usual mix. Our favourite, the Crow's Nest, a pub, Brodie's, the Blue Bar in the atrium, a rather nice bar outside Sindhu, the Glass House, serving food as well, and various deck bars. A good selection for all tastes. Our favourite was the Crow's Nest and we avoided Brodie's. Not our scene, though it did mean we missed the St Patrick's Day altercation which apparently meant the premature end to the participant's holiday when we docked in Barcelona!

Just one further observation on drinking. I'm told, not being a big beer drinker, that there is a bigger selection of beers on Britannia than the other P&O ships. There is also an impressive range of gins, which we did sample, in the Crow's Nest. Who knew you could get chocolate gin?

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#6

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Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 6

So onto the most important thing, food. We thought the standard was good and so did most of those we spoke to. A few disagreed but with food you can never please everyone. The main dining room was plated service, with a good choice and for our taste decent portions nicely presented. It was good to have vegetables to suit the main course rather than sprouts, carrots, ratatouille and croquette potatoes with everything.

We also tried both the Epicurean (fine dining) and Sindhu select options, both excellent, as was the food in the Glass House, similar to Azura.. The majority of the staff in the Epicurean are ex 17 on Azura. As mentioned before we also enjoyed the Limelight Club for food and entertainment.

Also new on board is the Market Cafe, posh cakes on sale in the atrium with a special afternoon tea option bookable in the Epicurean, which we also rated. Another handy innovation is Grab and Go. At breakfast time bacon rolls and so on to take away and later in the day sandwiches, wraps, salads etc. It did what it said on the tin!

While on food a quick mention for the cookery school. I know some people disagree with it in principle but we paid £100 (less our 8.5% Peninsular discount), for Trish to spend 2.5 hours in a lesson with James Martin. It was hands on (the food, not James) and she loved it. She definitely preferred it to spending the same money watching a couple of Premiership football matches or doing five laps of Silverstone in a Ferrari!

Getting on and off at ports now. Gangways were generally well organised and we never had an issue getting off. There were some long queues getting back on at peak times, typical big ship stuff, only really an issue for those waiting in Gibraltar when it was chucking it down. Disembarkation back at Southampton inevitably took time with 3600 passengers to get ashore. We had the chance to choose our preferred disembarkation time, on a first come first served basis. We chose 9.00-9.15 and were actually called to disembark at 9.20, a slight delay but not significant (though you could see some getting twitchy!) They use the system of sending each disembarkation group to a different public room to await instructions which seems to result in less chaos than the coloured card system.

We only had one tender port and getting off wasn't bad. Of course there was a bit of a wait but nothing unexpected on a larger ship. Getting back on was, however, a nightmare. Nothing to do with the ship, rather the weather forecast. There were unexpectedly strong winds and what the Captain described as a "confused swell" with waves bouncing back from the shore. The result was that however they positioned the ship there was no fully sheltered side and the worst tender conditions we and others have seen, with a very hairy ride back to the ship and tricky re-boarding. Think stepping into a lift as it passes by without stopping!

At one point tendering was suspended, we learned afterwards after a crew member broke three fingers trying to secure a tender. That caused queues and fractured tempers.

When we did get back to the ship the tender mooring lines snapped twice and the Captain was personally supervising the operation. Of course we had the usual know-it-all in our tender who thought he could do better. An indication of how rough it got was that it took over an hour to capture and haul the last two tender boats on board at the end of the day. There's no doubt if the weather we got had been forecast the port call would have been cancelled and instead of spending a day in Monte Carlo we'd have spent a day at sea listening to the moans about cruises ruined! All I can say is to agree with the Captain's broadcast that night that the crew had been both skilled and courageous in getting everyone back aboard without major incident

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#7

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Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 7

That brings me to my only major gripe. The lifts. I know they can be a problem on bigger ships. More people. More levels to climb, so less inclination to use stairs. But there do seem to be three issues on Britannia. One, structural, which can't be changed. Two, software, which can and hopefully will be sorted. And three, passenger behaviour, which should improve if the previous is resolved.

The structural issue is simple. There are no mid-ships stairs above deck 7 (other than emergency exits), only forward and aft. So even if you're willing to use stairs you can't do so mid-ships. So everyone there has to use the lifts. A truly bonkers design decision.

And there aren't enough lifts. There are fourteen in total. The manufacturers claim they can take 18 people. I'd just love to see the P&O and Fincantieri Boards try it! The most we saw cram in was 14, 12 is more comfortable and fewer still of course if wheelchairs or walking frames were involved. So when, for example, 3600 people have been to the Muster Drill on decks 6 and 7 and they all want to get to deck 16 for sailaway, even if some of those at either end are willing and able to use the stairs, that's still a lot of lift journeys which takes a while, even if everything works well.

Which it doesn't because the software is cocked up. As we waited patiently on deck 7 with some passengers in wheel chairs we observed lifts going to the top, then coming down to 8 or 9 before reversing and going back up. Perhaps 1 in 4 lifts actually reached 6 and 7. And guess what? Passenger behaviour had now kicked in and they were already full with people "going down to go up".

It didn't get any better during the fortnight. The lift behaviour became more erratic. I met one lady with a wheelchair who'd had three goes at getting down to deck 4 to disembark in a port. Each time she'd pressed the deck 4 button and each time it got as far as 5 before going up again.

And as the time went on more and more people decided the only way to secure a lift was to grab one and ride up and down till it reached the deck they wanted! I reckon at busy times up to 50% of the already suspect lift capacity was lost to people "going down to go up" and vice versa.

So given a major rebuild is not on the cards I reckon P&O could do two things to improve matters. One, update the lift software to make them behave sensibly. Essentially, if they are going down, keep going down till they reach the lowest deck required either by the buttons in the lift or a call button on a lower deck and ditto when going up. And second, at that peak time after muster put a crew member in every lift to ensure they go bottom to top and back again repeatedly until the queues have gone and during that time not allow anyone to "go down to go up" or to reverse the direction of travel. Lesson in common sense over.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#8

Post by Mervyn and Trish »

Poster Boy’s Britannia Maiden Review – Part 8

The ship's company included a high percentage of very experienced people and we found them excellent from the top down. Paul Brown is one of the best Captains we've sailed with and Neil Oliver our favourite Cruise Director - oops sorry, Entertainment Manager. But everyone we encountered was spot on and although they too were still getting used to a new ship in our experience it didn't show.

The passengers were, as mentioned above, largely an experienced P&O bunch. 99% were lovely people, but as always the other 1% made themselves known. Apart from those who actually managed to get thrown off, there were those who were rude to the crew. There were those who could do better at organising the whole thing. Those whose home cooked meals are Michelin standard, or for whom a meal without chips is not edible. Those who only accept queues if they are at the front. Those whose voices were raised when they spotted anything wrong and muted if they liked anything. Yes, at the end of Muster Drill I heard "it's not like Oriana." No, of course it's not. It's twice as big and twenty years younger. And most of us realised that when we booked!

One chap on a tour bus decided to catalogue the ship's deficiencies. After a couple of minutes of this barrage the patient fellow passenger to whom it was directed said simply "I expect you're saving the best bits to last." The moaner fell silent and you could feel the equally silent but heartfelt round of applause!

The award for "worst passenger of the cruise" goes to the person I saw in an almost empty lift who noted the approach of a wheelchair and quickly pressed the door close button. Sadly I was just outside the lift so there was nothing I could do beyond joining the wheelchair user in an expression of disgust. Scum. Sorry, there is no other word, well not one suitable for this website anyway!

Accessibility. I can't claim to be an expert on this one, so all I can say that there seems to be level or gently ramped access to all the public areas. Gangway access is from different decks depending on the port and the tide and there was assistance available when gangways were steeper than ideal. The big frustration for passengers who can't manage stairs will be the lifts, but hopefully the worst of that will be sorted.

So to the conclusion. It's a big ship, we already knew that. As such it suffers from the inevitable disadvantage that there are a lot of people and that means crowds and queues at peak times, though we felt less so than some other big ships. But it also means it has the advantages of a lot of choice, so much so that there are things we didn't get round to trying.

Our overall feeling is it's a great ship, with a few minor niggles and will be even better as they are ironed out. Our favourites remain Aurora and Azura, but as the cruise progressed Britannia was coming up fast on the rails. This review is of course just our opinion, but we did chat to a travel journalist on the ship who had done a quick verbal poll of people she'd met. She reckoned about 80% liked the ship, 10% didn't and 10% were undecided. The biggest negative she got was the lack of a wraparound deck 7 promenade. But we knew that didn't we? And if that's a problem you stopped reading at paragraph 1. And other ships are available, but this one will do for us.

I'm happy to answer any specific questions on anything I've missed or to clarify.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#9

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Hello Mervyn, we've been posting our thoughts at the same time.

I'll come back and read yours properly later, but, I noticed you were happy with the vegetables served with your meal.

Read my report for my personal vegetable hell!!
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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#10

Post by Mervyn and Trish »

Hi Gill. Yes, I've just read your report and can see your vegetable experience was completely different to ours. We got a good variety suited to the dishes we chose. It must be possible to cook the ones we had without salt. Can't understand why they didn't do better for you. They're normally so good with dietary requirements.

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#11

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Many thanks for a comprehensive and detailed review Mervyn. As a fan of the wraparound promenade deck I should have stopped at paragraph 1 but I didn't!!!
As one who cannot sit in the glare of the sun for long what areas are there on the ship if you do prefer to sit outside in the shade?
Welcome home!!!

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#12

Post by Mervyn and Trish »

oldbluefox wrote:
Many thanks for a comprehensive and detailed review Mervyn. As a fan of the wraparound promenade deck I should have stopped at paragraph 1 but I didn't!!!
As one who cannot sit in the glare of the sun for long what areas are there on the ship if you do prefer to sit outside in the shade?
Welcome home!!!
Thanks Foxy. I share your dislike of sitting in full sun for too long.Well if you shove the extraneous table and stool in the corner, the balconies, although compact, are pleasant enough for that if the sun is on the other side. There are also plenty of areas on the shady side of the public decks, including some nice sofas in the shade of the funnels, if the sun is not directly overhead. If it is there are shaded areas either side of the main pools on deck 16, which are also sheltered from the wind. And on deck 17 there are some nice little cabanas (I believe that is the technical term) in the quiet zone by the Serenity Pool.

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Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#13

Post by Manoverboard »

Thanks Merv but ...

I wish you had posted these as separate Topics like wot Gill did do ... too much to take on-board in one go but I will try to respond as best I am able.
Keep smiling, it's good for your well being


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Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#14

Post by Quizzical Bob »

M&T, thanks very much for posting all this. It confirms my pre-judgment but it's good to have the important points confirmed by someone who has been there.

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#15

Post by Kenmo1 »

M&T - Thank you for a very interesting review. My afternoon has been spent reading yours and Gill's review, it is so useful to have so much detail and opinions from different people. We will wait for the hype about the maiden voyages to calm down and then we will decide if we want to try Britannia.

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#16

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Another good and well balanced review, thanks for posting.

Whilst I'm not likely to sail on Britannia I did carry on reading and found it very interesting.
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Quizzical Bob wrote:
M&T, thanks very much for posting all this. It confirms my pre-judgment but it's good to have the important points confirmed by someone who has been there.
My pleasure. From what you've said about your cruising preferences before I don't think she'd be your favourite and I wouldn't try to sell her to you. But you know my motto, other ships are available, with plenty to suit all tastes. £1 spent on 14 nights on the wrong ship would be £1 wasted, rather than £1999 saved.

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#18

Post by GillD46 »

Thank you for an excellent review and for taking the time to write it.
Gill

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#19

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Thank you
I enjoyed that

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Manoverboard wrote:
Thanks Merv but ...

I wish you had posted these as separate Topics like wot Gill did do ... too much to take on-board in one go but I will try to respond as best I am able.
You see my review was like the ship, good but with the odd niggle! I think she's too big for you Moby. In fact I know the answer to what's happening to Adonia and her Princess sister coming out of service. They're both hanging from davits outside Britannia's deck 7 windows

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RB1961
Senior Second Officer
Senior Second Officer
Posts: 456
Joined: January 2013
Location: South Northants

Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#21

Post by RB1961 »

Thanks for that M&T. Sounds like you enjoyed it. :D
Wife is a wheelchair user and your comments regarding the lifts happen on most ships that we have been on. Not a deal breaker for us as we are too laid back when we are on holiday to let it bother us, we just wait for the next one.

RB

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oldbluefox
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Posts: 11305
Joined: January 2013
Location: Cumbria

Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#22

Post by oldbluefox »

Manoverboard wrote:
Thanks Merv but ...

I wish you had posted these as separate Topics like wot Gill did do ... too much to take on-board in one go but I will try to respond as best I am able.
Don't worry Merv. Once we get him onto Ladybird 3c he'll be able to cope with all of it in one go!!!! :lol: :lol:

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Gill W
Senior First Officer
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Location: Kent

Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#23

Post by Gill W »

Mervyn and Trish wrote:
Hi Gill. Yes, I've just read your report and can see your vegetable experience was completely different to ours. We got a good variety suited to the dishes we chose. It must be possible to cook the ones we had without salt. Can't understand why they didn't do better for you. They're normally so good with dietary requirements.
On the dietary front, it seemed as if it was a lack of attention to detail. There was the lack of variety of veg, and other little things, such as the advertised almonds not being on my trout and, and no pieces of coriander in my carrot and coriander soup.

On the plus side, my chicken biriyani on the last night was excellent. But for starters, I got a tomato soup, rather than the tomato panacotta that I ordered. :crazy:

I gave feedback on the questionnaire and I'll mention it again on my online questionnaire. Perhaps they'll take action - I hope so.

I was in the first Queen show. I was disappointed that they were going to do two different shows, as all the really popular songs were going to be in the 2nd show. We wanted to see the 10.30 show in the theatre, so we didn't wait. I agree that both shows should be the same to give everyone an equal chance to see them.

Your main problem with the lifts was something that didn't really affect us.

We were on deck 11' near the forward staircase. We were normally about to walk up to our cabin from deck 7, and from our cabin up to 16, for the buffet. When we boarded the ship at deck 5, we used the atrium staircase to break the climb. I think I used the lifts twice during the entire cruise. But I did see a lot of people looking quizzically at the floor indicator panel, in the hope of getting a lift to stop for them.

Glad Trish enjoyed her lesson with James Martin. It's what cruising is all about, doing things you don't do in normal day to day life.
Gill

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towny44
Deputy Captain
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Posts: 8946
Joined: January 2013
Location: Huddersfield

Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#24

Post by towny44 »

Thanks Merv, and indeed GillW, very interesting reviews with exactly the sort of niggles I had expected, but hopefully some of these can be improved on if the staff are encouraged to be proactive with the passengers, unfortunately something we have found does not always have a high priority with P&O.
Glad you all enjoyed the cruise, I am just hoping the weather is warmer and more settled for our cruise, now less than 2 weeks away.
John

Trainee Pensioner since 2000


barr0ld
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Joined: March 2015

Re: Poster Boy's Britannia Maiden review

#25

Post by barr0ld »

Thank you Mervyn; a really enjoyable read, hot on the heels of Gills equally detailed and amusing review. I've been laughing so much, I've woken my partner up. Twice. But I'm still choking on:

"Of course we heard the inevitable "it's not like Ventura, they have West End shows every night”. Yeh, right. But at least it spared us the "we've seen this show five times on Oriana and eight times on Canberra"

Pity about the lifts, but we received our cabin allocation yesterday (cheapskate late savers who decided they needed a holiday now) and our cabin is very close to the aft lifts. So I think we'll be enterprising and sell cheap G&Ts to the waiting hordes. Profits will be maximised as we plan on buying the gin in Main Street and the tonic from Morrisons at our first port of call.......

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