Southampton to Baltic Sea Cruise Reviews

Note: I have copied this verbatim from other social media sites where I have posted. Partly because it is tedious to retype the same words but also because it still makes me angry to relive the experience. I should start by saying this was our first ever cruise so we have nothing to compare it to and it was a 10 day Baltic cruise on Arcadia. In fact that doesn’t matter because this cruise ...

I chose this cruise because the itinerary and timing suited my needs. I had a dozen sea cruises and 3 river cruises under my belt, but had never used P&O before. I believed, though, that they had a good reputation. Other reviewers have mentioned the truncated visit to Amsterdam and missed visit to Zeebrugge. Disappointing as these were, I do not complain about them - I think one must accept ...

We are veteran cruisers and first sailed on P&O Arcadia in her maiden year of 2005. This was our fifth cruise on her. Oh dear: I really hate to be the one to say it, but P&O are a shadow of their former selves. Their standards have not so much dropped as plummeted. While the positives, on the whole, outweighed the negatives, we did find a couple of issues to be more than a little ...

The Arcadia is an old ship and it is starting to show. Leaky roofs and blocked toilets, stained carpets and scuffed creaky lifts. We found this Christmas cruise very underwhelming and thought there would be more activities and guest speakers. Our balcony cabin was kept reasonably clean by the steward, but I have had better standards on other lines. The food in the main dining room was monotonous. ...

We chose to sail Arcadia for the first time having sailed on Azura and Britannia. Was also our first ever cold cruise. Their were too many areas of complaint. Better to read the other reviews for details. In a nutshell the experience was not what we expected. As much as the staff tried their best the standard of food and drink on what should of been a showcase Christmas cruise from P&O was so ...

Having cruised many times we thought we would try a Christmas cruise. I am sorry to report this was by far the worst cruise we have been on. Regrettably this was a sentiment shared by all of the other passengers we spoke with. The Arcadia is frankly a ship in serious need of upgrading or perhaps retirement from the fleet. Passengers had issues with toilets not working and the heating in the ...

Chose this cruise as a nice break prior to Christmas and to see the Christmas Markets. Arrived at Southampton to find a chaotic scene; piles of luggage and no one outside to provide direction. Booking in was OK although extremely busy. Once on the ship, we received no guidance from the staff and had to figure out what to do and where to go by asking other passengers. It was a very poor experience ...

Firstly, I know this review is a 1st world problem. I am aware that I am lucky to have gone on a cruise at all which we worked for to go on. I Am also aware that other people on the same cruise might have had a different experience to what we had but this is our experience. A little background on us. I am 49 years old and my girlfriend is 42 yo. I have been on approx. 20 cruises all ...

Chose this cruise because it was new and read a lot of P&O pre publicity about the ship. Total disappointment as there are simply too many people on board. Constant queues around the ship for most of the restaurants, waiting times for drinks in the bar totally unacceptable. You have to “virtual queue” for a table in the main restaurants, in our case at one time had to wait 1 hour for a table. Even ...

This was our second cruise having previously been on the Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas in May that year. I knew that P&O do not offer the same level of service that RC do so I went in very open minded about this cruise and considering it was a fraction of the price of the RC cruise i knew it would be different. Fundamentally though i enjoyed the cruise and would travel on the Iona ...