Aurora Reviews

the overall holiday from start to finish went like a dream.

Returned Southampton 10:5:17 after the best holiday ever.booking again for this year , later booking for next year . From the time I handed my keys to the car park staff our holiday begun. Ease of booking in, the relaxed atmosphere of the whole cruise made it for us . Dining fantastic, entertainment very good, bars good but could trim the prices but however it's a cruise not a pub crawl. Fantastic ports lots to do and see. This was our first cruise and certainly not the last with p&o . Thank you P&O mr and Mrs p harding

Excellent in every way!

Returned 6 June 2016 from P&O Baltic Cruise. This was our first Cruise with P&O and the last. Briefly: Food, disgusting. We were on "Freedom Dining" so tried different times to see if we could get hot food, we did not succeed. The quality of the meats & cheeses were poor. A Lancashire Hotpot contained 2 pieces of grey lamb joined with gristle mixed in Bisto gravy and topped with flabby white sliced potatoes. The only decent food was in the restaurants you had to pay extra for. The Horizon buffet restaurant, plastic topped tables & all was a cross between a service station & a works canteen. The late buffet? Dried pizza slices & cold chips. Staff: Over friendly, invaded your personal space and a few minutes after the purchase of a drink they would start to enquirer if you would like another. Trip/port information: Misleading and poor. Cabin: Dated, balcony filthy, bed uncomfortable. 1 bottle of complementary water on arrival, wow! Ship: Smaller than we are used to. Confusing to get around. To dine in Medina we had to navigate a long corridor between cabins. The Beach House Restaurant is an extension of the Horizon Transport cafe. Lots of lights out, never replaced in 15 days. We dined in The Glass House and the slatted blinds could not hide the view of filthy lifeboats. Many windows were "blown" including one in the Crows Nest bar and dirty.

Fantastic trip to Norway, ship great value, good food and plenty of it. The shows were great, the down side was the ice cream has to be paid for.

Lovely ship. Very relaxing cruise to Northern Cape 2016 .We wish this cruise was on offer every year, it was amazing. We have cruised a lot but this was by far our best.

What do you get for £50 per day? You get to go to San Fran via Caribbean, Panama Canal and Mexico.(part of a world cruise as we discovered when on board ) The Panama transit was the most expensive ever! $399k , due to a 10% surcharge which I reckon was due to getting the perfect transit time of day.  Two nights on board the original Q Mary (Longbeach) which had a passenger list available to all in its sea days and one in the Millenium Biltmore Hotel(Downtown ). This was the original 'Oscar's' venue The Aurora's £26m refurb is spectacular and the art deco theme which we saw on the Q Mary (1936 ) great. We were comparing against a recently refurbished Q Victoria ( 2013 The Baltics ). The newest livery(first for P&O) is great and I normally do not like our flag. So being proud of 'your' ship is the first requirement. There were 4 main venues for entertainment (the Q Vic only two). The theatre entertainment was quite good, the classical musicians very good but the films were very poorly chosen for our age group. Food was good but how couldn't they do a decent curry.....big lumps of cubed chicken with a sauce poured over. Soups were sent back each time for reheating except of course for self serve from the pot at lunchtimes. Waiting for a course was a bit long. We didnt have Freedom Dining but that enabled us to get closer to our chosen companions. Generally I can see that cruising has become an activity not just for the well heeled/posh people but it is nice to see/find them by chance or by selection. We were surrounded by good eggs not just at our table but surrounding ones. We didn't hear any negative comments about the Aurora and most people on board were frequent cruisers. Having read a few negative comments about the recent Britannia we have to say we were overall delighted with our experience, have made some nice friends and give it top marks. Many had examples of poor service but I put this down to individuals rather than culture eg It took a week of my badgering to discover that my lost jacket in Southampton was in fact sitting in a drawer on board! The reception desk manager's first comment was that I should not have lost it.(!) She thought they had a 'system'... but they don't! When the wine spilled off the tables during a rough Bay of Biscay transit the waiters seemed reluctant to refill ! On the other hand most at our table were being served two starters and two desserts. Our waiter sang for us on a few occasions but on other occasions would need to be nurtured out of an unsmiling start. We found it fun that the customer was no more right than the supplier.

Cruised on Aurora from the 11th Oct- 28th Oct we were in an inside cabin on deck 11 it was spacious and comfortable with plenty of space for clothes, staff were excellent our cabin Steward Nicolau went out of his way to make the bed more comfortable for my wife who was experiencing back pain, top man. really couldn't find fault with staff or ship or food, will definitely go on her again .

As a first time cruiser this was an excellent trip. Ship not too big and one was able to get into the cruise habit quite quickly. The service was excellent and staff members courteous and extremely helpful. A very enjoyable week.

100% from start to finish we can't find any faults at all with this fantastic cruise it was our first and definitely will not be our last .