I have never cruised with P&O before and I'm not certain I'd ever go back! The whole experience on board Britannia was shambolic from start to finish.

I decided to book this trip over Easter with my two elderly Parents (both in their 80's) and my family of 5, 4 adults and a 17 year old. Firstly I was unable to book cabins close together as the price to do this was more than triple the price we actually paid. I booked direct with P&O via telephone and they managed to misspell my mothers first name which led to no end of problems and stress during the online check-in process. The agent assured me that the cabins would be located as close as possible together. When we received notification we had two insides on deck 9 (or as P&O like to confuse everybody Deck F) and although my wife and I were on the same category as my parents they allocated us cabins on deck 12 (Deck C) but consecutive numbers - you guessed it they were Port side we were Starboard exactly opposite each other! This cruise seemed to be full of multi-generational families and they had spilt everybody across multiple decks and sides - cue lots of walking around between cabins.

All 4 cabins had different embarkation times so we worked to the earliest. This worked for us but there awe a lot of people at Southampton who had arrived early and were being corralled outside the terminal. Embarkation was quick an relatively efficient. Read more