Arvia cruise April 2023

First time on Arvia for us. Cruised with P&O many times before. Stunning ship, lovely decor, good layout, lots of venues to choose from to eat both casual dining or formal dining. Food OK but not as good as it should be including the specialty pay for restaurants. The main dining room menu was repetitive with 1 meal of lamb served exactly the same way but with beef the following day. Inside cabin was smaller than on other ships and only 1 wardrobe for two people for 14 nights proved inadequate for our needs. Lovely bathroom with shower cubicle and plenty of storage in there. The biggest downside was queuing for everything. The ‘My holiday’ website constantly failed and has been like this since its introduction on the Iona maiden voyage in 2021, it simply does not work efficiently. The other downside is the Skydome acoustics and the volume of music or live entertainment was deafening so therefore we did not use the Skydome at all. We did two ship’s tours which where both very good although the ‘Gaudi tour’ was very time constrained due to major roadworks in Barcelona and our time was cut short in both the venues included which were the Sagrada Familia and Guell Park. More time should have been allocated for this tour as the roadworks have been going on for some time and therefore extra time should have been added. It took over an hour to get to the Sagrada Familia area and the coach driver was struggling to find a place to stop, the guide informed us this was usual and that P&O were aware. We also did a shop’s tour to Santiago de Compostela which was a really great trip, we had a very knowledgeable guide and plenty of time to visit the cathedral and surrounding area. We would definitely recommend this trip. The entertainment was disappointing as it repeated over two days, the alternative entertainment was either in the ‘Clubhouse’ which was always full after 8pm so no seats if you ate after 7pm. The 710 club fully booked for the whole cruise. The comedian ‘Tucker’ on board whom we have seen before used exactly the same performance he has had for years. Magician, sorry but useless. The rock show by ‘Rock On’ was really good and they had well-deserved standing ovations on both shows. The Headliners theatre company were as always amazing and put on some good shows. We were disappointed however that the Take that ‘greatest show’ was cancelled on both nights due to cast member being injured so we did not get to see that show, hopefully they have made a full recovery.
The staff on Arvia were all very good, we received great service in every aspect of any requirements on board.