Just back from Oceana, cruised from Southampton to Malta. The embarkation day started with a coach pick up from Manchester airport to Southampton as we would be flying back from Malta because the ship will be relocating and based there for the summer. The first obstacle we hit was to find out that you had to book in and get a number for the coach at the airport, none of this information was given to us prior; and a lot of people were wandering around not knowing what to do. When we did get allocated a coach it was a smooth transfer and quite an efficient process at the port and we were able to use the cabin as soon as we were onboard.

The cabin (A502) was clean and well presented though smaller than most other lines we have used at a similar price range. The shower room was very small as was the shower cubicle, when using the toilet your knees were up against the door; and when using the shower you had to dry off in the cabin as there was not enough room in the shower room. The bed in the room was very comfortable and there is enough space under it to store your cases. Space for clothes is adequate, though we have had better on other ships. The balcony area is quite small with two chairs that can only fit sideways and a small table, there is a bit of a overhang from the sun deck above and this does shade the balcony sometimes; but not a big problem. There is quite a lot of noise early morning from sun beds being dragged about on the deck above, and a lot of noise at sail away parties. Not sure why they need such heavy drum and base music for what are at that time of year mostly elderly people. The only real issues we had with the balcony was that the door is very hard to open, too hard for my wife to be able to manage. Ship wide there seems to be quite a serious problem with what looks like a ash tray has been emptied in the toilet, this seems to have been in every cabin where we had spoken to people and also in the public toilets. I reported the matter just in case it had just started and was given the following what I can only describe as a farfetched excuse " the black bits are coming from the ships funnels". Now I am not an expert on these things but if the ships exhaust system is connected to the water that flushed the toilet then they are in real trouble. A little mention about the drinking water on the ship, it took a full day before it was noticed that the desalination unit had broken down turning the water into raw sea water even though we had reported heavy salt content in the coffee during the morning. Though I am not one I feel having spoken to others that they should expect some heavy claims coming in.

The decor in the ship is brighter than most other P and O ships due to it being built for Princess before transferring and being re-named. Having said this the ship decor is a long way short of some other lines and though a lot of people still like the dark wood it is becoming out of place in hotels and newer ships. Most of the fittings and furnishings are now looking quite old, though she is going for a re-fit later this year it will probably consist of patching up the carpets and painting over the large amounts of rust that are conspicuous all around the ship. The shops on the ship are overpriced and not really worth other than browsing on a sea day. Read more