Arvia Caribbean cruise

Got off to a bad start at the airport with TUI flight delayed by 2 hrs because they said they couldn’t get cleaners to the plane and eventually the cabin crew supposedly did it. To further add misery to the holiday start we were held on the plane once it landed for a further 1hr because allegedly they didn’t have a set of steps to bring to the plane. This was despite sets of steps being littered around the area where the plane was stood! I believe the real reason was apparent we were held because the cruise terminal wasn’t able to handle the numbers of passengers as when we eventually arrived there was a big queue through security and all the way to the ship and up the gangway. The resulting late departure was repeated at Antigua for a similar reason. As this was the first time in Barbados for P & O with their largest ship I think the were overwhelmed and were holding passengers to spread the numbers. A similar system was repeated at the airport 3 plane loads were bussed off the ship only to be held on the busses on the airport approach road for again about 1hr and the queue outside the airport into security was ridiculous and was again obvious why they held busses just too many passengers at a time it overwhelmed the airport area used for cruise passengers. P & O need to re think flight schedules and ship departure times. As for the ship yes she’s new shiny and got a few gimmicks to attract guests however the gimmicks cannot accommodate the amount of passengers she carries ie if you want to do sky walk pretty much booked up every day! Mission Control booked up most days ! 710 club only holds 65 people at a time so 3 shows a night over a 14 night cruise will accommodate around 2,730 out of the possible 6,000 guests on board. The my holiday booking system was ok but didn’t work for all the guests some hadn’t a clue how it worked or how to use it to book a show or table for dinner. There were a few issues with smells on the deck we were on deck 14 midship. Our cabins had a horrendous smell of sewage/ drain coming from the air conditioning the strange thing was there wasn’t any smell in the bathrooms just the cabin area’s. Every time the cabins were left closed up the air when we got back was disgusting. We had to have the balcony door and cabin door open for around 10 mins to let fresh air blow through. We had the deck manager have the cabin sprayed with a fragrance on the carpet that did nothing after an hour or so . The deck manager apologised the smell was so bad and they couldn’t find out where it was coming from so they would have to move us to new cabins. Unfortunately the only two cabins they had side by side were on deck 8 and on paper were an upgrade to conservatory suite. So after 4 days we packed and moved, now it may seem ungrateful but the cabins were identical with the extra conservatory room which looked pretty but wasn’t particularly useful plus the balcony was noisy with guests on chairs the other side of our balcony glass and along with the sun loungers and noise from people in the spar pool got pretty fed up with other people’s conversations and chatter. The cabins had a poor view other than guests walking past and trying to take a peak over the balcony. The food was ok but do miss the always available items on the main dining rooms, ie prawn cocktail and chicken breast as I’m a plain eater steak got a bit boring for me. I know the other members of our party enjoyed the food so just a personal thing. The islands visited where great with the exception of Dominican Republic whist the port area is good don’t venture into the town didn’t feel safe and nothing there. P&O advise onboard was if you go out of port don’t look like a tourist ! Really. There were a few other things I personally didn’t like but believe it’s up to each guest to make their own mind up for me it was too big and busy never bothered with a sun bed as couldn’t be bothered to get up at the crack of dawn to reserve a bed that was that close to each other you can’t walk between them. Talk about love thy neighbour. Hardly anyone used hand washing before buffet restaurants until after a week there was a gastrointestinal disease outbreak that then brought out staff at the entrance stopping guests to wash hands and table cleaning was started that hadn’t been evident prior to the outbreak. 2days before leaving ship it was announced by the captain the outbreak was now under control so immediately the staff telling us to wash hands disappeared and majority of guests returned to just walking straight in which we found very poor.