Britannia Review
Rating by category
Additional details
Our 3rd cruise on Britannia and our 11th cruise with P&O. Britannia is a superb ship and provides the best facilities of any ship in the P&O fleet.
Cabins are more modern, with lovely bathrooms (including glass shower doors, not clingy curtains) and superb large screen HD fully interactive TV's with lots of free 'on demand' movies.
We find the Epicurean to be the best restaurant at sea and we also enjoy the food and experience of the Glasshouse (great food and superb wine flights) and Beach House (incredible steaks). Sindhu is much liked by the ladies in our family, but I am often a little underwhelmed by the food, which is a surprise as Asian food is my favourite. We had Freedom Dining and the service and food quality in both the Meridian Restaurant (dinner) and Peninsular Restaurant (lunch) was consistently excellent. We read lots of negative reviews about this and can't understand it. We are foodies and are happy to pay top dollar for great dining experiences, but cannot fault what P&O offers in the all inclusive restaurants. We like to experience the Select Dining restaurants, but if they weren't available or we couldn't afford them, we would still have a great experience, food wise.
Cabin Review
We would not book an aft cabin on Britannia again. The combination of constant vibration (and associated rattles), soot on the balcony (unique to Britannia problem) and noise from the Live Lounge collectively became a distraction and the huge balcony, whilst a great feature, doesn't adequately compensate for all the negatives. We much prefer the forward facing suites, even though the balconies are very poor.
Port Reviews
Lisbon
A great port. Superb transit in and out, under the Golden Gate Style Bridge and all along the scenic waterfront. Lovely city and an easy walk from the ship.
Seville
First visit here and very impressed. Lovely tropical parks along the side of the promenade. Lovely historic city centre. All within easy walk of the ship.
Marseille
Other than a nice harbour, this was a bit of a dump. The ship berthed many miles out of the city centre and the transfer was at least 20 minutes through grimy industrial port areas and unattractive outskirts. Will stay on the ship next time!
Monaco (Monte Carlo)
A fantastic port and a unique location, but this is nearly always a tender port and the sea often gets choppy. Combine that with P&O often making the tender transfer an ordeal (see review) I think we will stay on board the ship next time and just admire the view and sounds of the super cars flooring it through the tunnel!
La Spezia (Cinque Terre)
The usual stop for Florence and Pisa is dreary Livorno, so this was a welcome change. As the long standing HQ of the Italian Navy, this is a historic town with grand and colourful buildings, grand architecture and real character. Loved it.
Sardinia
We have been to Sardinia before and enjoyed it, but this was our first call in Cagliari, which has seen better days. Old buildings looked decayed, hardly any 'grand' vistas or statues etc and the pavements were very poor (heavily broken up in places, which made wheelchair pushing a challenge) with very wide multi-lane roads to cross between the ship and the town. Wouldn't be in a rush to return here, or would do an excursion next time and go elsewhere on the island.
Gibraltar
A bit fed up going here every time, but a necessity to qualify for duty free shopping on board! The town centre was heaving and not pleasurable to walk around. The plus here is that you almost always see dolphins around 30 minutes after leaving. And they arrived like clockwork!