Poor Peninsular Club Performance

Having just completed a very enjoyable cruise on the Ventura (Cruise No. N304A), which was our first as Baltic Tier members, I regret to say that they fell short on the level of service and benefits that the company claims to offer. These were:

a) – “An annual gift from P&O Cruises” — What gift? None was received.

b) -” Separate disembarkation baggage collection area” — Our bags were stacked with all of the other bags in deck order. There appeared to be no separate priority area.

c) – “Priority Embarkation” — Unlike our previous Caribbean cruise, when we were mere gold tier members and were passed through a priority channel at both ends, this time we were made to endure a long queue at Birmingham airport and again when boarding at Barbados.

d) – When we raised a query regarding our onboard allowance with the Loyalty manager she sent an email on 3 occasions, presumably to someone in P&O’s Customer Services department, but did not receive a single response throughout the 3 weeks.

e) – The Flight and Cruise E-Ticket stated that we would receive a complimentary drink (as in previous years) but in fact the only drink apart from a glass of wine with the meal was a cup of lukewarm coffee for which we were charged an excessive amount. This, combined with item(c), made one feel that we were on a Thompson or Thomas Cook package holiday rather than a P&O holiday.

Once onboard there was no welcome greeting or drink as there once was but instead we ran the gauntlet of staff trying to sell us Spa packages, Wine packages and special dining and it certainly did not feel like any of our previous P&O holidays until we were re-united with our luggage in our cabin. From that point on, we had a very enjoyable cruise and have nothing but praise for the crew and the programme onboard Ventura. However contrary to the claims that the new Peninsular Club would move forward and be an improvement over the Portunus Club, they appear to have taken a few steps back.

These comments offered here were repeated by a number of people onboard that had cruised with P&O before and whether or not they choose to write in as I have done, I can assure you that none of us want to see P&O’s previous high standards slipping in this way.

Len Morgan