Britannia Review

Disappointed

Review for Canary Islands Cruise on Britannia
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moirabolt
2-5 Cruises • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Mar 2015

My husband and I had travelled happily on P&O ships Azura and Ventura but expected more from the new, hyped ship, Britannia. We were disappointed . Lessons which should have been learned from the other ships had not been taken on board. Minor, niggly things spoiled our enjoyment of the trip - lifts which didn't work properly, the rooms and balconies were smaller than we had come to expect, the food was just average, even in the restaurants which cost us more to visit and for the first time ever on a P&O Cruise we experienced rudeness from the staff. Entertainment was good - what there was of it - overall I think we enjoyed about 2 hours. We could have had more had we been prepared to spend £22 each for a meal which was already paid for in the package in order to see some entertainment which others who had been there - done that - didn't rate very highly. The ship experienced bad weather and seemed to roll more than others. We'd been through rough seas on previous occasions but for the first time ever my husband was sea-sick. The medical centre only opened twice a day - not there when I needed to get help for him. The Shop sold some homeopathic pills at £5.50 which did no good. I later found that Reception sold some other pills, £3.60 which did help him but he suffered unnecessarily for at least 24 hours.

As regards lessons from other ships - when we came to disembark, we'd asked for priority as we had a 'plane to catch. On other ships people were issued with coloured cards to distinguish their order to leave the ship. This wasn't used on Britannia so people who hadn't asked for priority just went off when it suited them, clogging up the disembarkation process and we had to wait well past our requested time. No harm done as we caught our plane but stress which could have been avoided and which detracted from our overall enjoyment of the trip. Other things which were handled better on other P&O ships hadn't been taken into account.

The on-shore trips were good overall but, in some cases, rushed so much that we didn't have time to enjoy them properly, e.g. the trip to the Bodega and the Horse Show from Cadiz meant that we had a choice of going to the loo or visiting the shop at the Bodega and even then we missed part of the Royal Horse Show and there was no time to visit their shop (or go to their loos) afterwards. This trip would have been my highlight of the the voyage but was spoiled because of the rush.

Cabin Review

Cabin Superior Deluxe Balcony Cabin

Smaller than expected - OK - but balcony too small to use - never cleaned so covered in salt.

Couldn't sit on chairs without spoiling clothes - even leaning on the rail meant washing afterwards.

Port Reviews

Southampton

We phoned a taxi firm we had used previously and they turned up promptly to take us to the airport.

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