This was our tenth cruise, but first with P&O and we particularly chose it because it included some nice capital cities, such as Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Tallinn, Bruges and St Petersburg overnight. It also included a proposed call into Kristensand, which was excluded due to bad weather.

We were very keen to sail on this new ship, in order to sample the differences that it and P&O offers. The ship has a passenger capacity of over 4000 and we were pleasantly surprised to see it cope in bad weather with available public spaces and seating. However, Britannia does have some some serious problems for passengers. The lifts are not large enough or too few, especially as the mid staircase only goes down to deck 7 and you cannot reach the atrium levels (5 and 6), some dining areas and disembarkation points, without taking a lift. The sliding doors from outside into the Horizon Cafeteria areas (deck 16) , brought very strong draughts into the eating areas and beyond when the ship is moving or a wind blowing. Also, the Headliners Theatre is simply too small for the number of passengers and if you want to guarantee seeing the show, you should make sure you are in your place early. They do, however, have other entertainment options around the ship at the same time, including the cinema and lounges.The standard of entertainment is good throughout the ship and the theatre has excellent scenery changes and imagery projection equipment.

Our original cabin was number E722 (deck 10) rear of ship. We had to ask to be moved on night three (2 am) as we could no longer stand the noise from vibration and rattles, even on the third night we were moored up in Oslo harbour !!! We were moved to B208 ( deck 14) front end, which was quiet. However, we have a feeling that the Pilot from the aborted attempt to get into Kristensand (Norway), stayed on board Britannia overnight. We think he may well have been put into cabin B208 the night before we went into it.( The cabin was not fully prepared in time for our arrival the following night. ??) We suspect this to be true, as for the next two nights, the restaurant booking officer asked us where the 3rd member of our party was, without mentioning a name. However, when we received our disembarkation paper it had my wife's name on it, plus a Mr Pilot.?? We were never told why the first cabin was so noisy, but suspect it was a generator being used. Mr Choudry of the information desk did acknowledge our problems and sent us a complimentary bottle of wine. Cabins are a wee bit smaller than other ships, but hanging space for clothes, numbers of hangers and glass door screens in bathroom are good things. One at a time in the bathroom though !! Read more