Pacific Pearl Review

3.5 / 5.0
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Pacific Pearl Food & Wine Cruise - Liked It!

Review for Australia & New Zealand Cruise on Pacific Pearl
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princessbandicoot
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Aug 2012

As first-time cruisers, we took the Pacific Pearl's 3 night Food & Wine Cruise from Sydney in August 2012. We travelled as a small group and wanted to try out a short cruise with a theme that appealed to us, to see if a longer cruise might be for us in the future. Pacific Pearl certainly confirmed that cruising is something we want to do again, but, there were a couple of issues along the way.

Embarkation was not a great start. The Pearl was delayed on its return to Sydney due to rough seas, so we were delayed leaving. This was ok and not a big deal. We all received text messages and recorded message phone calls from P&O explaining what was happening and how they would manage the embarkation process. The process was meant to be that you arrived and embarked according to the deck number of your cabin. As we were Deck 11, we were the first required to arrive at 4pm. To make sure we weren't late we arrived at 3.30pm, but this is where the positives ended. Basically the staff told us that whatever message we got from P&O was absolutely meaningless and they were running their own process, we wouldn't be boarding first and that all depended what embarkation card number we were handed when we turned up. We got number 14 out of a possible 20, despite being in the group of passengers who were meant to arrive first. This meant that we waited and waited and waited and did not board until 6.30pm. Something went badly wrong with this system and P&O need to look at it and work out how to manage things better in the future so that people like us doing what we have been told to, don't get messed around.

Despite a disappointing start, we really liked the Pearl once we got onboard. The staff were almost always helpful, pleasant and friendly and we felt happy with the level of service we experienced. The cabins were a lot roomier than I was expecting, and also more modern than I had anticipated. It was very easy to get around, although the lifts tended to be a bit temperamental.

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