January 6 – 20 2023, P&0 Avia’s maiden voyage to Caribbean).
On the positive side, boarding Avia and getting to our cabins was quick and efficient.
The cabin itself was fine, clean, quiet, plenty of hot water, whatever time of day.
All the staff on the ship were extremely kind and helpful.
Unfortunately we found the cruise to be very stressful, you are required to use an app to allow you to book the restaurants and theatre, a number of people were unable to do this, which led to frustrations.
The Horizon restaurant, was a free for all, or should I say fight for all, too many people trying access food at the same time, bumping into each other,long queues for tea and coffee at times.
I found the food to be of canteen standard, bland and tasteless; As a vegetarian, I found the choice very poor.
I can honestly say, I did not enjoy one meal in the whole of the two weeks I was on board, and I am not that fussy.
I cannot speak for the specialist restaurants, as we did not try them, but the feedback on the ship from other passengers I talked to was very positive.
Apart from a group called Phoenix, who were brilliant, and the lady who impersonated Paloma Faith, I thought the entertainment onboard was dire, I’ve been on four cruises, three with P&0, and this was the worst yet in regard to entertainment.
There was the age old problem of guests getting up at 5am to put their towels on the sunbeds; certainly by 8am, no sunbeds on the sunny side of the ship were available.
No library on ship.
I have never seen such small swimming pools considering the size of the ship, I did not swim once in the two weeks I was aboard.
Very few quiet areas onboard.
You don’t always want to hear loud music.
Agreed the ship was lovely and new, however the cruise itself was very disappointing, standards have dropped, and the food in the freedom restaurants needs to be improved.
Hopefully things will get better for future guests, however I will not be cruising on Avia again, it was far too big and in my opinion unable to cater for the number of guests onboard.