Britannia Review
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We are very young and active seniors. The ship was wonderful (our first P&O). All staff were extremely polite, helpful, friendly and with a good sense of humour (the latter when applicable). Very easy to find your way around the ship with the signage. Embarkation was a bit haphazard, the check in ladies coming and going for some time before passengers started being called forward. Disembarkation was very good. The food (restaurants and self serve) was excellent at all times with much variety and always hot, plenty of veg which we love. Service in the bars again very good, the waiters always attentive and obliging, but not "in your face".
Didn't like the purchased coffee in one of the lounges, so we opted for the Costa Coffee bar which was much better.
Entertainment left a lot to be desired, the best nights being with the ship's own crew who were very good and their shows well rehearsed. Activities were arranged and these were sufficient for our needs and enjoyment. Shopping was adequate. We are ex-competition ballroom dancers and still love to dance both ballroom and latin American at a high standard. However, the band did not appear to understand how to arrange the dances. We preferred just having the band play on their own, but when the singer appeared, the songs were spoiled - all in all we didn't like her voice. The instructors didn't have a very good repertoire of music which was very frustrating for us because when they announced sequence dances (which we detest) the music was absolutely wonderful. It was always being stressed to request tunes, and we did request a song by a well known group (no name dropping....) as a cha cha and it was played for us once, then "stolen" to use for the sequence dancers! Very annoying because the instructors hadn't even heard of the group or the song when we requested it. That said, although the floor was fairly small, we did get used to that and it was a good quality floor, and we did enjoy dancing every evening. We love cruises because of the dancing (not always much of it though) - we live in rural France and there is no dancing available.
Cabin Review
Overall my husband and I were delighted with the ship, staff and food and also the activities offered. However, although the cabin was extremely comfortable and clean, my hair straightener "blew" the first time I plugged it in. At first I thought maybe a loose connection in the wall or something, but after trying it in the other 3 sockets it would not even switch on in any of those. To coin a phrase it was "as dead as a dodo". Neither would my husband's razor or the mobile phone charge in any of them. The only place these latter 2 items could be charged was in the bathroom. Because my straightener was completely damaged I bought a new one (expensive at £136 although the assistant and another passenger told me it is one of the best makes available - GHD - and used by many professional hairdressers). I used it once and then that one was damaged - I knew this was so because the red warning light came on and even though I followed the instructions in the booklet which said to turn it off, wait for the required time, and then try again, it was to no avail. I was extremely disappointed and annoyed and the assistant told us there was a problem on board with the electrics. The housekeeping supervisor subsequently said he had the supply checked but insisted that there was no problem. We were not satisfied with this and I asked for some amount of compensation (my first straightener cost £59.99). So no problem with the electricity? Well we beg to differ as, when we returned to the shop to have the new one replaced, there was only one left, and most of the other models were also sold. We can only assume that other passengers have had the same problem, otherwise we cannot believe people would buy very expensive hair appliances just for the sake of it. Come on P&O, there MUST be a problem somewhere along the line but I guess it will never come to light. Something needs to be done. We were also told that although the ship is British made, the electrics are not! How bizarre and unbelievable. We would love to sail on Britannia at some future date, but we cannot afford to replace items that either do not work or are damaged through no fault of our own. Quite a coincidence, I would say, that all 3 of our items that we took with us would not work in the cabin sockets,