This was our first experience of P&O having previously cruised with Disney (4 cruises), Cunard (2 cruises) and Royal Caribbean (1 cruise) so I am likely to use these as a comparison.

The cruise was a 2 night taster cruise to Zeebrugge and we had a booked a suite.

Embarkation - Parking with CPS was fine and our baggage was taken from us outside the terminal. As we had priority boarding we were guided to the check in line which was surprisingly long considering it was only 11:30. This took almost 30 minutes so not very impressive for priority (we had friends travelling and regular check-in took less time than that, which they found amusing!). Most of the check-in desks were already manned but they were idle which seemed odd when they could have cleared the line quickly. We went straight from check in the queue to board to were on the ship around 12:10pm. After being directed to the buffet on deck 15 we had a discussion with the P&O crew member and were directed to Sindhu as the priority lounge. At around 1pm I asked what time our cabin might be ready and as they answered 2pm I decided to go and make my wife's spa reservations and speciality dining bookings. Even at 1pm she was unable to get the spa appointments that she wanted but we did get the restaurants booked. If I waited for our butler I doubt we would have managed to get any bookings later in the day. Read more