Concerns About Azura

[david63]

Just been talking to our neighbour across the road who returned at the weekend from three weeks on Azura. He said that the actual cruise itinerary was good, cabin steward excellent but was totally underwhelmed with the food and entertainment and there was a general shortage of staff claiming that they have not fully recovered from Covid restart.

There was virtually no variation in the choices in the MDR (even on Black Tie nights), the Glasshouse was virtually impossible to get in and the Beach House menu has gone downhill. They only ate in the MDR three times and most of the other nights they ate in the buffet.

The entertainment was dire - all the Headliners shows were the same old same - nothing new and the other acts were repetitious resulting in them not going to the theatre at all.

From reading reports from other cruises I am getting the impression that P&O are putting their effort into Iona, Arvia and possibly Britannia at the expense of the other ships which does not bode well for them.

Our neighbour is so disenchanted with P&O that he is going to cancel his Aurora cruise for next year and loose his deposit.

I think that this goes a long way to demonstrating that P&O are turning their backs on those who have cruised previously in favour of new cruisers who know no different and only goes to reinforce the view that we have of the P&O product.

[Stephen]

Same here David.

I get the same impression that everything is thrown at the new ships with the older one's left to plod along with the same old same old.

This is partly why we have booked a taster five nighter on Saga for next year.

[barney]

We came off Azura on Friday, David, and don’t concur with that.

We ate twice in Sindhu.
Both times excellent.
Twice in the Beach House.
Both times the food was great but unfortunately, on the second time, we were pretty late with the dining time and they started clearing up while we were still on our mains, which somewhat killed the atmosphere.
Three times in the Glasshouse.
All very good.
The secret is go early, get your table and have a drink then order food when you’re ready.
They don’t allow booking anymore.

Those aside, we ate in the MDR and we always found something nice to order and it was always good.

The buffet ?
It’s just not for us.
We ate in there on the Asian night and the food was top notch but …. Unfortunately the clients were not.
It seems to attract a type, if you get my drift.

Entertainment is very subjective.
We never bother with the headliners, basically because we find it a bit loud and screechy.
Haven’t been for years to their shows.
All of the tribute acts were good.
Cher was actually the best we’ve ever seen.

As I say, it’s all subjective and depending on what you think it should be.
We’re back on Azura in January for two weeks.
We are pretty experienced cruisers and tend to plough our own furrow these days.

[barney]

I would add that I didn’t like the fact that they have stopped the MDR queue on the app and have reverted to the buzzer.
It didn’t really bother us too much but I know others were annoyed.
We just take the buzzer, go for a drink and wait for it to buzz.

We must be the most chilled passengers on the ship.
Btw, I do agree about the itinerary.
It was brilliant.
Also our steward was fantastic and couldn’t do enough.

[david63]

Cher was actually the best we’ve ever seen.

Ah but have you seen the original?

I was only relaying what I was told - and they are longstanding P&O passengers.

[screwy]

I’ll reserve judgement, we’re on Azura in 3 weeks.

[barney]

Cher was actually the best we’ve ever seen.

Ah but have you seen the original?

I was only relaying what I was told - and they are longstanding P&O passengers.

Oh, I’m not implying that this was not their experience.
The reason that we don’t use the buffet is mainly because it’s moan, moan and bloody moan.
We either have breakfast in the MDR or room service on our balcony.
We’re not really lunch eaters but if we do, either mdr or burger or pizza on deck.
Dinner, never the buffet except the excellent Asian cooking evening.
It’s very possible that P&O is no longer for them but more likely that cruising is no longer for them, because the gripes about P&O are similar on other cruise companies forums, unless you’re going well upmarket, and I’ve even heard moans about them.

We have good friends who usually travel with Saga and always have a suite, so serious money, but they still find quite a few things that they don’t like that much.

We’ve two more cruises booked but nothing after 2024 and we may well revert to good quality land holidays …… which some will still moan about.

I’ve a theory that it’s some people’s nature.
For example, my brother will return from holiday and I’ll say, did you have a good time ?
He’ll reply …… well ………. Then list several trivial niggles.
That’s life, I suppose.

[Ranchi]

I must admit we find the Headliners’ shows ‘screechy loud’. At first I thought it was just a poor cast and dodgy team of technicians but have found the same on several P&O ships and have concluded that P&O must see loudness to the point of distortion and screechy vocals as being desirable…why? I don’t know. We found shows on both Cunard and Princess a more acceptable volume and less shrill.
When considering dining it’s the consistency that we find a problem (pre Covid we would have always preferred Aurora or Oriana - just for ref,) but our most recent MDR experiences have been Aurora -disappointing (shock, horror), Ventura good (what a surprise) and Britannia very good. The lack of consistency is one of the reasons that we haven’t got a P&O cruise currently on the horizon. Princess we found looked good but didn’t always deliver.

[barney]

I told Mrs B about David’s neighbours experience and she tended to agree with them about the MDR choices.
She thought that it was a much restricted menu as well, although she always found something she liked.
She’s pretty much a vege these days so tends towards the non meat options which were generally very flavoursome.

I thought that the age demographic on our recent trip was much lower than previous cruises.
Azura seems to have a nice buzz about it, buffet excepted.
Thinking about it, we used the buffet for the Asian evening and twice for a late breakfast.
That was enough.
On the evening that we were there, within easy earshot, we had one couple rowing, the table opposite was complaining about the carrots not being fresh carrots.
The table to the side were complaining about the sticky toffee pudding and lack of custard.
When Mrs B got up to get her food, the lady said loudly, don’t have the sticky toffee pudding, it’s rubbish.
Mrs B replied that she didn’t really eat things like that and the woman said whooo, get you !

So, as you can imagine, it wasn’t the greatest experience. Btw, the curry and add ons were excellent.

[Stephen]

I agree about the buffet curry night. Excellent.

As has been mentioned, the P&O clientele has gone down hill in my opinion, and that’s not me being a snob but an observation.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I do think the pricing structure means the riff raff (present company excepted) are gravitating towards P&O. Our trip on Iona last summer was great, but not our usual thing because two of the boisterous kids in the pool were our granddaughters. Our last Azura cruise had too many who saw the drinks package as a challenge. Fingers crossed for Aurora next year. 2025 it'll be Saga.

[Onelife]

Hi Stephen, I can’t comment on whether the clientele is as you say as I haven’t cruised for 8+ years but it’s inevitable that when management decide to relax standards the whole ambience of the cruise experience appears to take on a different atmosphere…you could see this starting to happen when we last cruised.

I’m sticking with Butlins

[Mervyn and Trish]

You do know P&O is Butlins at sea housed in floating blocks of flats?

[Onelife]

I have noticed the resemblance…its only when you step inside that you see Butlins is still playing catch up.

[oldbluefox]

I must say we were pleasantly surprised on Arvia after our experience on Azura where we had seen a stand up row around the pool by a mother (sunbathing on the upper deck) defending her son who was being a **** squirting water from the hot tub over anybody sat near. We didn't witness any loutish or drunken behaviour at all, not to say there wasn't any but we didn't see it. I know it's personal opinion but I liked the atrium on Arvia which was light and spacious. We found Azura and Ventura rather claustrophobic but each to their own.

I agree with Stephen that because cruising with P&O has become much more affordable it has attracted a different clientele who have little idea of manners or etiquette. No, I am not a snob but I do know how to behave in public. Fortunately Arvia is such a big ship there were plenty of places to get away from the crowd.

We were disappointed with the dining room arrangement which we found pretty frenetic. There was no time to have any rapport with your waiters who were far too busy and the lag in ordering and getting your meal was frustrating. Add to that the menus were not what they were. Ultimately unless we had booked one of the speciality restaurants/diners we resorted to the buffet. To avoid the crowds we avoided the early rush, chose our food from the furthermost food area and sat towards the back of the ship where it was much quieter and you could enjoy your meal in peace. It was calmer there than in the dining room. And I never thought I would be saying that!!!

Sad to say but cruising as we remember it is a thing of the past.

[barney]

Cruising as we remember is definitely a thing of the past.
No doubt about that, and that’s a shame.

With reference to the drinks package, we were aware of a few really hitting it, but didn’t witness any unruly behaviour except for the couple having a row in the buffet.
Maybe they were piddled
I dunno.
What I do know for a fact is that our drinking spend was nowhere near the cost of the drink package and we both has literally everything that we wanted, which begs the question, how much do these people drink ?
The cost for the package for our cruise was around £1,500 for the duration.
Our OBC was £970 and had £0.56p left at the end.
We had Sindhu x 2 - Beachhouse x 2 - Glasshouse x 3
A bottle of Bulgari for me and various Chanel products for Mrs B plus all of our drinks including cocktails and wine.

One thing we did this time which we hadn’t done previously on any cruise was to use Brodies pub.
Never liked the look of it previously but really enjoyed the variety of beers this time.
Even went up a few times to bring a bottle back to the balcony to enjoy in the sun.

[CaroleF]

It's struck me, looking at the current P&0 television advert, that it's easy to see the sort of cruise that the company is offering and the age demographic they want. This contrasts completely with the current Cunard advert. When I was on Aurora, I admit only for four nights, with my daughter back in April I was pleasantly surprised that the demographic wasn't full of Hen or Stag nights. However, I think that's probably just because it was Aurora. I too will be looking at Saga and even possibly Cunard.

Carole