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Arcadia

P&O not as it used to be

Kusadasi

I’m not sure where to start as there are so many points to raise. Let’s start with the cabin. 

Balcony cabin (accessible)

I’m confined to a wheelchair chair as any movement of the ship and I will fall, although I can walk with a walking frame or wheeled walker. On arrival at the cabin we had to request that the chair and table be removed as there were insufficient space for my wheelchair. On checking the storage space for clothing, baring in mind we are on the ship for 99 days, there was 2 very small drawer units, a cupboard underneath the dressing table, and a small wardrobe with a safe and life jackets in. So insufficient room to store clothes so some clothes had to be left in the cases stored under the bed and that was an issue as we are both disabled and have difficulty getting down or back up from getting case’s from under the bed. The amount of space between the bed and bulkhead wall was just over a metre and often we could catch the bed shunting across the room. On occasion we would notice metal coils on the floor and it became apparent that the wheels of my wheelchair were scuffing the metal skirting board chamfering the top edge of the skirting boards. 

The cleaning of the cabin left a lot to be desired as we had to clean mirrors, tops of skirting boards, pictures and other areas before we felt it was clean. The balcony area was covered in paint drippings and the glass safety panels were grubby and stained and when seated could not be looked through. The seats were also very grubby and even after a good wash we were really not going to sit on without a towel on them. As a wheelchair user I couldn’t get onto the balcony with my wheelchair. 

Food. 

My companion is dairy, gluten and tomato intolerant so food is an issue, so although it was difficult generally to find the right food, it is appreciated that it is difficult her go to would be salad but this was very limited as they had tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce with sometimes egg, carrots, onions and beet root but not all at the same time, and all the vegetables had butter on them. All the hot meat was over cooked and dried out and nothing had fat on it. We suffered this issue and after several complaints we finally got a meeting with the senior chef, senior waiter and deputy catering manager. This took 75 days out of 99 days and it finally got food sorted to a fashion but we had to eat every meal in the restaurant and my partner had to pre-book her food for the following day, still an issue taking an hour and a half one lunch time to produce a ham sandwich and a bowl of chips.

Ports of call.  

This was a major issue with docking in working ports and then having to use local transportation that wasn’t accessible. Out of all the ports of call we had 7 ports that we were unable to leave the port terminal. What was frustrating was, that had we been informed, that these ports of call would be like this then we would have cancelled the cruise. This must have been known as they regularly do the world cruise on this ship and they would have known about the problem with accessible transportation. 

P&O response. 

They have offered £1000 refund or £2,400 future cruise credit each for £15,000 cruise.

Disaster 

Having been on numerous cruises before we decided to book the world cruise with P&O. What a mistake we made.  A captain for the first leg of the cruise to Australia accusing the passengers of being dirty by bringing illness on board. a very arrogant attitude. Fort Lauderdale was a nightmare as there were only two shuttle buses available ( Capt stated 7 were ordered but only 2 turned up. What did he do to arrange further buses? Nothing.) Things seemed to improve with the arrival of a new Capt in Sydney.

 The buffet was very disappointing  compared to previous P&O cruises, many dishes did not look appetising.  One dish was welsh rarebit. I am welsh but I have never known it to be a finger of fish with breadcrumbs sprinkled on top. The speciality restaurant (Ocean Grill) was the best place to eat on the ship, but at an extra cost and ordering room service was another option. The main restaurant had a very uninspiring menu.

 The entertainment consisted of mainly quizzes, karaoke, a busker and a duet most nights. The best entertainment was a group called Pulse and speakers of varying topics. The only redeeming feature were the crew, from buffet attendants to the cabin steward, bar staff to waiters none could be more helpful. 

 Disembarking was a nightmare, after leaving our cabin at 7.30 am we were not allowed to disembark until 11.45 am as the luggage had not been started to be offloaded until 8.00 am despite docking an approx 6.00 am and it appeared that everyone else was in the luggage hall looking for their luggage at the same time there did not appear to be any staggered time for disembarking as on previous cruises   Sadly for a cruise of a lifetime costing close to £30,000 it was very disappointing. There does not appear to have been a well organised cruise.

  If it wasn't for the fact that we have already booked a further P&O cruise and would loose £2500 deposit we would cancel the next one .  From top of the tree to the bottom in 12 months (January 22 cruise on Ventura was excellent) is a very sad state of affairs.

 Having done 25 plus cruises I think P&O will not see us again after our cruise in February 2024 and we will be returning to Princess more regularly.

Arcadia is my favourite ship. I have sailed on Cunard QM2 but on that 7 days was too many.

Arcadia may not be perfect the buckets are still about but she has a soul and the friendliest most helpful crew at sea.

Embarkation was a bit slow as there were visas to check and a new online check in system was being trialled.  It is the only time my luggage has beat me to the cabin!!!  Our cabin steward was Elias and he was with us until Fremantle, then Jofran took over.  Both were above excellent.

Our cabin A173 was wonderful.  We spent many mornings having coffee on the balcony watching the wake.  There is a bit of soot around but I knew that before I booked the cabin.  Reception will launder free of charge if required willingly with an apology.

We usually have breakfast and lunch in the Belvedere then dinner in the Meridian.  The food is excellent in both.  We never needed a pager for the MDR on Freedom Dining and we did not necessarily go the same time every night except for the first night club dining was stopped due to social distancing.  Once in 99 nights is no big deal.  We always share a table as it is a great way to meet people.  We dined twice in Sindhi which is excellent but missed Ocean Grill as we had saved it for the last leg but the specialty restaurants were closed after 23 March due to social distancing measures.

The guest speakers were excellent.  Didi Conn (Frenchy in Grease) was very friendly and sociable.  Bob Champion, Ben McBean, Wayne Sleep, Terry Brown, Sharron Davies, the wonderful Reza Muhammad and Geoff Peters were my favourites.

The headliners were great and the guest acts excelled.  I enjoyed Dean Stansby, Suzy Madin, Fogwell Flax, David Copperfield and Jeff Stevenson, Mark Rueberry, to name a few.  I did not like Micky Zany at all and would not watch him again.  The very best performance was Entertainments Manager Nick Cosslett singing Music of the Night he earned a standing ovation in the early show.  The guest entertainers were outstanding for the last 31 days of the cruise especially as some had only signed on for 5!!!

We had 3 Captains, Ashley Cook, Wesley Dunlop and Luko Vojvoda.  All were great.  However a very special thanks is owed to Captain Luko who got us home safe and in good health when Covid19 was wreaking havoc across the world.  His 08:55 daily messages lifted spirits.  As he said we were all in it together.

The itinerary took a bashing but it could not be avoided the last place I wanted to be after the outbreak was Asia and the Australian ports were a bonus.  

We had a stretch of 31 days at sea but at least we had plenty of toilet rolls!!!

P&O went over and above in my opinion and we have been richly compensated for the changes of port in future cruise credit and extra OBC.

I booked a cruise titled Arcadia’s Western Circumnavigation and that is what I got just the bit in the middle was slightly amended!!!

Would I go again you bet already booked for 2021 so fingers crossed.

Thank you Arcadia you gave me the holiday of a lifetime and I am missing you already.

Best Holiday Ever

The cruise set off prior to virus and went well until half way round when virus caught up with us it then  became a mystery tour which p & o dealt with in a brilliant way.  The boat was a bit old and other were buckets around catching drips, but it didn't interfer with anything. Restaurant was excellent good service and food.  The self service restaurant was ok breakfast was really good, so was lunch evening meal always seemed to have a curry in some shape or form, but always had steak which was cooked to order.  We only went to sidhu once  but it was very good. The entertainment was varied and mostly very good. The ports that we did stop at were well described and lots of tips if you were doing it on your own.  The captain's that we had were very good especially captain Luca he had to deal with the change of ports and authorities regarding the virus.  It was a disappointment not to have the cruise that we signed up for but p and o did everything in their power to still give us an experience to remember.  We really enjoyed our cruise and a big thank you to p and o in this difficult time.  Some people didn't enjoy the experience but we did.  In the extreme circumstances a really lovely holiday. Didn't use the fitness centre or any of the trips to comment on. However there was an excellent bridge tutors which we attended they were brilliant. The library was also well stocked and a used book swope which was also good. The shop was ok but take own washing powder if you want to wash. Laundrette was also good I never had any problem getting a machine.

World cruise with a difference  brilliant

Opportunity to transit Panama Canal.Embarkation excellent. Cabin reasonable. Staff very friendly and helpful. Special mention to Sam for port excursion talks- excellent and Albano our cabin steward who was excellent. Misty Blue trio very good and sail away parties enjoyable. Downside lack of dress code enforcement- on formal nights people seen in shorts, t shirts  which spoils it for those making an effort. Quizzes every night in almost every bar- bad if you don’t like quizzes -crows nest should be a quiz free zone!! Too many smoking areas around the ship spoiling the walk around the promenade deck!!! Smoking rules not enforced especially round the pool in the Aquarius bar. Booked the Ocean Grill and Sindhu on a few occasions as we didn’t like queuing for food -menu limited and fish in Ocean Grill very dry- staff good though. Had to ask for more toiletries when ours ran out which is bad. Ship had so many leaks so buckets wer strewn around the deck -not very nice. Seemed to be too many passengers for the size of the ship- had to wait ages for lifts- ok for us but people with disabilities suffered. Sometimes couldn’t get into the theatre as people had been reserving seats early on.Lack of performances from Headliners. Guest speakers on the whole were very entertaining. Captain’s cocktail party was farcical -too many people in the Neptune bar to be enjoyable. I don’think we will travel with P and O again as we have travelled with Cunard before and although more expensive it is a little less like a holiday camp.

Poor enforcement of ‘rules’

We flew to Southampton a day early so that we could have a stress free embarkation the following day, this gave us the opportunity to have a look round the city.

Embarkation was extremely smooth and we boarded Arcadia early.  When we first saw our cabin we were concerned where all of our clothes and possessions were going to go but in fact there was plenty of storage space and we were able to put everything away neatly and were quite happy with our "new home" for 2 months.  This was our first cruise so being on a ship was totally new to us and we were very impressed. 

Our preferred dining option became the Meridian restaurant where we had club dining, which was on a fixed table in the second sitting.  We initially thought this was a bit late (8.30pm) but in fact it worked out very well for us.  Our waiter for the duration of the cruise was fantastic as were all the other staff, they work so hard and have some difficult passengers to deal with.

There were plenty of activities to participate in if you wished.  We enjoyed some talks and presentations, in particular, the Port and Shore excursion presentations by the very knowledgeable Sam and the nature/bird presentations by Nigel Marven.  

The Captain had various problems to deal with, including passengers ill-health and avoiding a cyclone  in the South Pacific meaning we had to miss 2 ports.  This was handled really well despite the Force 10 storm and safety obviously had to come first.

Would we go on Arcadia again?  Yes, it was a fantastic experience.

Southampton - Sydney

Decided to do the world as a ‘Well Why Not’ and wasn’t disappointed generally. Arcadia is a very stable ship in adverse weather conditions. Cabins were very comfortable, although a tad tired/well worn.

Meals in Meridian Restaurant were excellent, think there was only one dish I disliked and that was me, not the restaurant’s choice. The Sindhu is totally delicious.

Entertainment was very mixed. Mark Labett (The Chase) was particularly good as were the many talks by naturalist Nigel Marven. So many to chose from. The Headliners in my opinion weren’t up to much as the female lead singers always shouted rather than sang. The Runaround Kids were excellent just a pity they have a silly name. Too many jugglers and mind reader type acts, once is enough! Entertainment Manager Emma was very personable, the same could not be said of her counterpart when Emma was on leave.

The excursions team were superb especially Sam and the ladies, the 2nd man wasn’t in the same way, not overly helpful or friendly. Sam’s port talks were quite outstanding.

Most staff on board were courteous, very friendly and helpful particularly Manuel in Meridian and Elinore in Piano bar.

My only complaint really was the coffee. That in the buffet was quite disgusting and undrinkable which meant I spent an absolute fortune on Costa cards/coffee. Dependant on the barista really whether a good or poor cup was dispensed. The quality was not consistent. Great room for improvement and a poor show that you can’t get a decent drink without having to pay for it - beverages I mean AND the fact you have to pay for water which is deplorable. Need water to live!

As I have already said, the trip all in all was amazing but a bit of tweaking required.

All in all pretty amazing experience

We chose this cruise for my husband to experience the Panama Canal . Don’t expect to much of anything on this ship very poor in so many areas and ways P&O have really dropped their standards. Dated cabins with dirty stained sweaty pillows threaded quilt covers dirty shower curtain that wasn’t changed for the duration of our 24 day cruise, unhelpful rude reception staff ( females mainly) dirty ripped chair covers on the furniture ( horizon pool ) are only a few of our many disappointments and concerns for others planning to sail on this ship. The restaurant and waiting staff were very polite helpful and friendly however freedom dining doesn’t exist as even although we booked this dining we were revived a pager for each meal. This cruise was an expensive mistake however a lesson learned. I’m really not someone who normally writes reviews however If this saves even one other person parting with £6000 plus of their hard earned money then my time and review will be worth it. Think twice before booking this ship.

Very disappointed 

We flew to London via Hong Kong, had New Years with a family member before spending two nights in Southampton.

We had booked a balcony cabin on C deck near the aft, it was very comfortable although was showing some signs of wear, the bathrooms definitely need updating. However we had a great Cabin Steward who went out of his way to make sure we enjoyed our cruise. The cabin was kept spotless and as I say it was very comfortable. The location does tend to allow for more movement during rougher seas, but it did not bother us.

Overall the service we received on board was excellent throughout form food and drink servers to other personnel at reception etc.

We dined in both specialty restaurants and enjoyed most meals, although on occasion service was a little stressed, yes there were times food did disappoint but once again overall it was a pleasant experience for the duration of 45 days. We found Captain Cook a delight, always friendly and ready for a chat, he had a great deal to deal with on this cruise with deaths, illness and storms, but he handled it all extremely well.

Most fellow passengers were friendly and yes there were the habitual complainers, thank goodness we tend to keep to ourselves and the lovely group of fellow passengers we shared drinks and dinner with sometimes.

The ship is older and the outside looks quite beaten up, salty seas take their toll for sure, but interior wise she is kept immaculately clean. On occasion we did see the odd bucket to collect a drip, but hardly anything to worry about.

Dining in the Buffet was very good and a good variety for all meals served, the dining room was also very good and service did vary from time to time. Is the food very English, one could say yes, but there were plenty of options, besides it was great to try different things.

Drinks can be pricey along with laundry, we gave up on the self service laundry, very cramped and always busy...We did not have prepaid gratuities on the ship, so we tipped our individuals accordingly and they were happy with that. We don't mind tipping for good service and it goes in the right pockets...

Disembarkation in Sydney was a bit shambolic as we were supposed to disembark in Brisbane, but a cyclone ended that. we opted to drive ourselves back to Queensland as flights offered by Carnival were not appealing and no excess baggage allowance! They put us up overnight in Sydney, sadly we had a disgraceful hotel allocated, old, tired and dirty, cockroaches in the room!

Would we chose to cruise on Arcadia again, yes but we did find 45 days a little long, I am sure some shorter sectors may appeal in the future.

As comfortable as you can get...

This was to be our holiday of our lifetime and had spent many years saving up for it. We had previously sailed with Princes cruises for several weeks at a time and it was marvellous and could not fault it, from the crew to the entertainment as well as the food. As soon as we went on board, we were disappointed, it looked so drab and unwelcoming, whereas on Princess, when you enter the ship, you immediately stop and say “wow”. The shear oppulance of it takes your breath away. No such thing withthe the old rust bucket that Arcadia is. When it rains you have to negotiate around all the buckets that are placed everywhere around the place to catch the water. At any one time there were only 2 of the lifts working, the staff On the reception desk,with the exception of 2 members, were extremely unhelpful and rude to people when anyone had a complaint, of which there were many, but the rest of the staff were very pleasant. The entertainment was absolutely dire and We have seen and heard better in working men’s clubs, with the exception of a couple  of acts. The cleanliness of the ship was very poor and the carpets were only vacuumed 4 times during the 99 nights we were on board. Really all in all, the only thing going for it was some of the destinations that we went to, which were very enjoyable, but I would definitely not sail on the Arcadia again and I felt it was a waste of a lot of money, which if we had gone with another cruise line such as Princess, it would not have been, but the reason we did not go with them was we would have had to fly to the US and then back again.

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