We have cruised with P&O on an number of occasions and have always regarded cruising to be a sophisticated type of holiday. We knew the Azura was going to be a big ship, and expected that the level of service, food and entertainment would be on a scale to satisfy the variety of passengers on board. We were very quickly disappointed by ALL of these expectations. The "entertainment" can only be described as "home grown" such as endless quizzes like the "Battle of the Sexes" and the showing of football matches and films on a giant screen around the pool. We went to one of the speciality restaurants, Seventeen, one night and both ordered the halibut. When it arrived, the plates were red hot and the halibut was tough, chewy and obviously over cooked. Both plates were sent back to be replaced by a second offering which was again, inedible. The quality of the food in the Peninsular Restaurant became something that we started to dread as we were given the lunch and dinner menus a day in advance. The food in the Peninsular was tasteless, the salads were straight out of a freezer, watery tomatoes, cheap pate, strange soups (scotch broth with no barley, just a brown liquid with a few carrots), stale bread and a Tiramusi which was two dry sponge fingers piped over with a sickly beige coloured cream. They can't even cook the vegetables properly. Waiters will take your food order and then they all scarper off, so you might be lucky to get a glass of wine by the time you finish your starter. They are having to deal with a new IPad ordering system, so the number of waiters seem fewer on this ship, compared to other P&O ships where the waiters always seemed to take a pride in looking after diners.

The crew and staff are so busy talking themselves up, even part of the entertainment is the captain and the cast of Headliners, the dance group, being interviewed (separately) by the entertainments manager on stage, which passengers can "enjoy" again on the TVs in the comfort of their cabins!! Venues were too small but, given the quality of the acts, there was no incentive to fight for a seat. The captain's welcome address on the first black tie night was patronising to the passengers and purely a self promotion exercise underlying the need to reassure passengers about how good the ship is, rather than a welcoming, reassuring message to the most important people on the ship - the passengers, NOT the P&O brand.

We were fortunate to have had a suite which meant we could escape the lager swilling, tattooed, loud mouthed "Butlins on Sea", sardine packed top deck but we still forked out £9k for the worst holiday, on land and sea, we have ever experienced. Read more