Arcadia – British Isles 6 July 2023 We’ve been on many cruises with P&O but this was the first since the Pandemic and decided a UK cruise was a way to ease ourselves back in.
Embarkation was fairly easy but why not give out our cruise cards then as before? Once onboard we had no information on where or when we’d receive the cards, a while later we were informed that we could go to our cabins and there outside were our cruise cards.
We were then told that we had to wait for announcement to be told to go to a muster station to have our cards scanned and after the announcement off we went to be told we didn’t need to have them scanned but to await another announcement about life jackets/muster station.
At the allotted time we depart for our muster station with life jackets to be told we don’t need to take the jackets just present ourselves to the muster station (the Palladium Theatre).
There we were shown how to put on the life jacket! We were booked on Freedom Dining which we’d not used before but had no choice about this but we’re happy to try.
First night was chaotic as was breakfast but gave them the benefit of doubt.
We found the tables too close together, noisy and waiters not always polite and the queues!! After two nights we paid extra for the Ocean Grill but next day asked if we could change to late sitting dining.
This was arranged and after that we had no problem in the upper deck restaurant, it felt more like going out for a meal rather than going to a canteen in Freedom dining.
The buffet was not what we’ve been used to, we loved the selection of salads, meats, fish etc on previous cruises but only used it once , a very poor salad selection and as previously said a lack of trays was not helpful.
We did use Sindhu one evening for a special occasion but it did not live up to its reputation, we’ve used Sindhu on other ships but we were very disappointed this time especially as it was an a la carte menu so more expensive than the Ocean Grill and not as good.
As in other reviews we feel P&O have cut back on lots of things We were disappointed with lack of information on places we were visiting, we’ve used to having this on our TV screens, maybe they wanted us to use their trips every time (too costly) as the only time we enjoyed our independent trips ashore was in Belfast where there was a shuttle bus into the city which dropped us off and picked us up right outside the tourist office and we then did a City Bus Tour which was a really good experience.
We didn’the ships Loch Ness Tour which was just ok and the Anglesey Island tour but the weather was not good on that day & difficult to see out of the coach because of the rain.
Trying to do an independent visit to the other places we visited was not easy, the first day we had to go by tender, very long queues and some people waited much longer than us, some up to 4 hours so only had a very short time ashore.
Other shore trips were not too successful as we weren’t t sure how to get there, no shuttle bus or information on what to see when there.
My sister and I decided to try to get to Glasgow when we docked at Greenock.
We asked at reception how we could do that to be informed he didn’t really now, just that we should walk for about 10 minutes, more like 20-30 minutes for us (both of us have mobility issues but can walk short distances) to the station then get a train.
We since found out that there was a mini bus to take people from the ship to the station & we could have taken a fast train into Glasgow.
Had we had this information we would have gone into Glasgow and do what we had in Belfast, a City Bus Tour.
We feel that there was a lack of information all round about everything, if we’d been first time cruisers we’d have been lost.
We did have a De-Luxe Balcony Cabin but would hate to have a bog standard one.
Not enough room, even with a sofa in although everywhere was very clean.
Not sure if we will be cruising again, it has spoilt it for us and to top it off I tested positive for COVID once home!!