We returned on the 11 April from the Britannia cruise to the Canary Islands. This was our first P&O cruise and will definitely be our last. Starting with the ship. We were expecting the latest in design, comfort, entertainment, staff, Hygiene, food etc. Everything you would take as an automatic given with P&O. The ship has major design faults: the cabins are small, the balconies are so small that you cannot recline the 2 chairs at the same time, the bathroom/toilet area is unbelievably small. It must be very difficult for anyone of above average size to easily use this facility. The lifts are small, unreliable and have a mind of their own. The area where the lifts are located is uninviting . I have seen better lift areas in multi-storey apartments. To make it worse, in the lift area midships, there are no public stairwells so you have to wait an age for a lift or walk to the fore or aft lifts.
The cabin TV's have no interactive facility on them for booking or viewing excursions or for keeping a check on your account. The cinema (Studio) was obviously designed by someone who has never been to the cinema with poor seating arrangements and poor sound. A very poor designed ship which appears to have been built to a very low quality by accountants'. (With all due respect to accountants' !).
Hygiene levels were atrocious, no enforcement to use the hand gel particularly in the Horizon. There was no one at the entrances to the Horizon for the first week, they then appeared for 2 days and then disappeared again. The majority of the staff were unfriendly, uncooperative and inefficient with a very abrupt attitude. I asked for a knife a couple of times and was handed it blade first each time. How unprofessional and unhygienic. The food in the Horizon was of a reasonable quality, but most of the time the food was unlabelled so you didn't know what you were getting. The public toilet areas around the ship were accessed through a common door. Once inside males went one way and females the other. Sometimes that didn't go to plan! When coming out of the male side you have full view of females washing their hands, powdering their noses etc. Very impersonal.
Very small, particularly the balcony and the washroom/ toilet facility. No interactive TV. UK plug sockets in the cabin, but European socket in the bathroom. Strange. Comfortable beds.
Efficient parking with CPS who take your car after unloading. No help with unloading the luggage from the boot and had to find our own trolley. Close to chaos in the embarkation building particularly when all the check in stopped for about 1 hour due to some problem caused by the wind. Check in desk staff were efficient.