first impressions of Arcadia were good, with quick embarkation although cabins were not ready until mid afternoon. Cabin was clean and as expected with all fittings operational. The clientelle on board were mainly in the 50-80 age group with a lot of electric chairs around. Consequently after dinner a lot of passengers retired to their cabins and not sen until next day. Food was for most part excellent, especially in the Meridian Dining Room. The food in the Belvedere restaurant (Breakfast and Lunch) not quite so. Some hot items were cold, but the biggest difficulty is finding a seat, as most passengers seemed to think if you sat at their table you were invading personal space, whilst others seemed content to just sit and chat denying others opportunity to sit. This resulted in some fraying of tempers. We sailed from Southampton not Dover as stated - for some reason Southampton is not shown as an embarkation point. The first 2 days we encountered poor weather with a moderate swell causing the ship to roll a fair bit, although this did not affect my wife or myself quite a few passengers were not well. The weather improved on day 3 and stayed fine during all of our Canary port visits. Entertainment on board was excellent for the first week but too specialised in the second week. Week one we had a singer and a singer comedian whilst week two we had a classical violinist and a magician.

All parts of the ship were in good repair and we had lots of day time activities which we took advantage of. The ship talks were very well received.

My main gripe about this ship is the lack of personal hygiene in disinfection of hands. Most passengers ignored the hand gels despite a number of personal protests by myself, but what I found even more disgusting is that staff on boarding the ship also disregarded quayside disinfection and the gangway supervisors failed to stop them. This is unbelievable and in my personal opinion a dereliction of duty and for crew should become a disciplinary matter. I will express this opinion directly to P&O. On our journey home we were unable to visit Oporto owing to rough sea states and swell and because even worse weather was closing in behind us, so we continued north for a short stop over in Vigo.