Pacific Pearl Review
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Additional details
We booked a 14 night cruise on the Pacific Pearl visiting Noumea, Vila and Fiji. We boarded on Friday the 9th of November. The ship departed from Barrangaroo which has a temporary terminal and is fairly basic, something like a huge tent. The boarding process was smooth and we were on the ship in under 30 minutes. Once on board it took 10 metres of walking before P&O's first attempt to sell us something. This first attempt is a lanyard to hang your card from. Why ships don't provide these as part of the cruise package escapes me. If you book through some non P&O agents they give you one of these as part of your sailing package. We proceeded to the lifts which came quickly. Later during the cruise one of the lifts broke down, it was out of order for the remainder of the cruise.
We reached our deck 11 cabin very easily. First impressions were a bit disappointing. The cabin looks like a throwback to the 80's. The cabins are a reasonable size. They seem dark as there is lots of dark wood. Our balcony had an obscured view due to some form of superstructure on one side. There is plenty of storage space, both drawers and hanging.
I should say that this is our second cruise this year. The first was on the Allure of the Seas in February. This is the newest and largest cruise ship around today and a very impressive ship so the comparison was always going to be unfair.
Cabin Review
We had a balcony cabin on the Pacific Pearl, one of the few that exist on this ship. The room was dark as there was a lot of dark wood panelling. The bed was hard and we acquired a doona to put under our sheet to soften the feeling. The bathroom was simply substandard. The was a shower curtain on the shower which blew against you while showering which then push you against the cold wall. There was rust on parts of the shower recess. The toilet was uncomfortable low.
There is a knob in each cabin to adjust the temperature of the room. We found this didn't work. When we arrived the room was very warm. We played with the knob for a day and then asked the crew to have engineering have a look. They did and then we had an ice box for a couple of days. It was too cold to stay in the room except when we were sleeping. We had to keep the doors to the corridor and balcony open to create a breeze to warm up the cabin. After more adjustments we finally ended up with a reasonable temperature after 5 days.