Arcadia was not for us. I am a wheelchair user and we had booked early in order to get an accessible room on Arcadia - A120 - a 'luxury' balcony. Embarkation and disembarkation went quickly and smoothly. Our room was small, not what we would call suitable for a wheelchair dependent person and it was in a poor state of repair. Some problems were; no lowered wardrobe rail, the safe was very low, the bathroom cabinet/vanity unit was too high for a wheelchair user (and there was no lowered shelf), I had to wheel through the shower to get to the toilet which didn't have a lift up/down transfer arm and there were problems with the steep, short slope to the balcony and keeping the outward opening balcony door open whilst I wheeled through. Our balcony had a lot of rust around its edges, there were bleach-like stains on the floor, there were remnants of decking type paint on the wooden slope and there were paint splashes on the recliners.

Some of the staff were very kind and helpful but most were sullen and unhelpful and on two separate occasions one of the ship's officers were quite rude in response to a polite question. Service in the restaurant was very slow and we waited 50 minutes between courses several times. Some of the crew were lovely and very helpful though. We took photographs of the room and balcony and on our return home I wrote a polite letter to the CEO and asked for a reply from him personally. I sent over 30 x A4 coloured pictures to support the letter. I said we didn't want vouchers or money, we requested straight answers to four questions:- 1. Why was the brochure so unrealistic, why doesn't it warn disabled passengers their mobility and accessibility needs might not be met on Arcadia? 2. Why were Arcadia staff so unwilling to assist or help disabled passengers? 3. Why are so called 'adapted' rooms so poorly accessible on Arcadia? 4. Why was this cabin in such poor repair? He did not reply himself, the Customer Service Executive did. She didn't answer any questions directly but said the decorative repair was below their normal standard and she said that some things 'concerned' her and some concerned her deeply. Not concerned enough to say she would do anything to remedy the situation though. I said we didn't want money or vouchers and she didn't offer any. She also didn't offer anything towards the cost of copying the large number of coloured pictures or the postage. Towards the end of the letter she asked us to let her know if we travelled with P&O again so she could ensure we received good treatment etc. Rightly or wrongly, we felt this was a brush-off and move on letter from P&O. We won't be travelling with P&O again.