Baltic splendour

Baltic cruise with P&O on Britannia 6 – 20 July 2019.

Booked with Bolsover Cruise Club, excellent service.

Despite a couple of hiccups at the start relating to Britannia’s late arrival at Southampton due to a medical emergency and engine trouble and the resulting potential for missing the first port of call, all was resolved, with no noticeable disruption and P&O compensated passengers more than adequately.

All of the Ports visited, Skagen, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Stockholm and Copenhagen were superb. The obvious highlight being St. Petersburg where history, architecture and opulence abound.

The ship’s company from Captain to catering, entertainment, and housekeeping staff were all excellent.

The food, entertainment, inside cabin and facilities were very good.

While all the above are very positive there were a couple of areas which in my opinion could be improved upon.

Firstly, being a victim of its own success, viewing the entertainment offered in the Live Lounge caused problems every night. A lack of control over the numbers entering the venue, resulted in passengers standing and blocking the views of seated passengers who had arrived in good time. Reluctant acceptance of the situation could easily have given way to heated exchanges and even violence.

Secondly, the ‘Guides to Tallinn etc. are a great idea and essential for the independent passenger. However, the maps on a couple of them were next to useless due to there being no numerical identification of places of interest and the print sizes of the street names etc being far too small to make out.

Overall a brilliant cruise.