Baltics July 2019

We had a very enjoyable time on our Britannia cruise to the Baltics. Our embarkation time at Southampton was 3pm, however, we received an email from P & O to delay it for 6 hours because of problems Britannia encountered on the way back from the Norwegian Fiords. That was disappointing. We tracked Britannia’s progress online and discovered that she had made up for lost time and would be docking earlier than initially expected. We expected P&O to contact us with an update on embarkation time. Family members who were on the coach from Wales arrived at the dock about 2pm and went straight to check-in. They messaged us about this (we were at the Premier Inn, Southampton) so we booked a taxi to take us to the dock where we went straight to check in. We were onboard at 3pm. Without these family members, we would have hung around Southampton until our embarkation time of 9pm because we had had no further communication from P & O.

However, there were no further hiccups throughout the cruise and everyone was given extra onboard spend for the inconvenience.

Our balcony cabin was good. Disappointed that during the next few days we had to ask our cabin steward for a bath mat, shower cap, shampoo, conditioner and milk. We did ask him to empty the contents of the fridge which he failed to do. Other than that he kept our cabin clean and was very polite.

We liked Britannia and soon found our way around quite easily. There were quite a lot of wheelchair and motorised wheelchair users. We appreciated their need for the lifts more pressing than ours so we tried to use the stairs as often as we could, which are at each end of the ship. A staircase in the middle of the ship is needed.

We ate mostly dinner in the Meridian, breakfast and lunch in the Peninsular and did use the buffet a few times. The food and service was of a very good standard.

We ate the Sindu which was good and had booked the Limelight to see Gareth Gates and he was very good.

We had booked a two day tour of St Petersburg with P & O. and this turned out to be a good choice. There were 12 of us in a minibus with a very good driver and Lady guide who spoke perfect english. The two days visiting the palaces, churches, gardens etc was very smooth and efficient with no waiting around. Highly recommended.

On visiting the other ports of call we used the shuttle buses and wandered around sightseeing. We particularly liked Tallin, Skagen and Copenhagen.

Onboard, on sea days we really enjoyed the morning and afternoon dance classes with Penny and Ian as well dancing each evening in the Crystal Room. We think Penny and Ian are the best dance instructors we have come across while cruising.

We like the daily reports from the bridge by Captain Wesley Dunlop. He has a lovely sense of humour that made us smile.

Overall, a very good, enjoyable.

P & O as usual are so efficient at embarkation and disembarkation.