Britannia Reviews

Returned from cruising on the Britannia ship 19/12/15. We all had a fabulous time and cant fault the ship, staff, food and service which was 5 star. Our only negative comment is people placing towels on beds early morning and not returning for a good 4+ hours. This angered passengers and caused bad feeling. May be p&o could place signs around the pool areas to remind passengers not to reserve beds. My final complaint is no soft drinks available at meal times especially for children and people who dont like hot drinks. Britannia is a beautiful big ship with plenty to do if you wish. I would definetly recommend it to family and friends.

To quote the Beach Boys – Sloop John B “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on”. My wife and I were on the Caribbean Cruise B526 21 November 2015 – 5 December, we are both in our late 60s and before the cruise quite fit, my wife goes to the gym 5 times a week and I mountain bike regularly. We were interested to see we had been allocated a disabled cabin, this was good, a reasonable size and wet room although the balcony was much smaller than those on Azura and Ventura. Having been on 4 previous P & O cruises and with Celebrity we were looking forward to our Britannia trip. We thought that a larger ship would be even more spacious – how wrong we were! They have shoehorned so many more people into the extra space it felt crowded. After 3 days both of us were in agony with our backs, it can only have been the very soft beds that gave no support, to get any sleep I had to request extra duvets to make a bed on the floor. We were so bad we visited the Oasis Spa to seek help. There was no osteopath but an acupuncturist who claimed that 4 treatments each would result in a long-term cure. The first treatment was £93 each (beware, they added a 10% automatic service charge without telling us), it was excruciatingly painful for both of us, helped my wife very slightly but not me at all. After 3 treatments I was even worse and my wife no better. A trip to the doctor for a muscle relaxing injection and pain-killers (another £92) helped a bit. Our cabin was midship close to the lifts without a stairway. We’d read the reviews and thought ‘what is the problem?. We were so wrong, the frustration of waiting a long time for lifts that were either full or didn’t even stop was apparent from the majority of people in that part of the ship. The rumour was that the ship was designed by hotel designers not cruise ship specialists, this was apparent throughout the ship. The atrium lacks the WOW factor no glass lifts, no glitzy staircase (it’s more like a glorified fire escape), no dance floor just another bar. The predominately black/brown colour scheme throughout the ship is so depressing. Menus in the Peninsular restaurant were fairly boring, the portion size was small (5 chips with a steak), the soup was integrated into starters (you could have both if you asked) and the waiters didn’t offer cheese unless asked. The restaurant service left a lot to be desired – our desert, cheese and coffee were all served at the same time during one meal and it wasn’t late in the evening. Such a shame, the meals used to be a high point, are P & O trying to steer passengers towards their speciality restaurants? The entertainment. The Live Lounge was always crowded; if you arrived early people stood in front of you, if you arrived later there was nowhere to sit, not worth the effort. Brodies had the atmosphere of a basic pub or ‘working men’s club’. The Headliners Theatre productions were very poor, a comedian would have been more suited to a children’s party, and despite the costumes and the skill of the dancers one production was more like a pantomime and another so loud as to be painful. On previous cruises we went to shows every night, this was so poor we just couldn’t be bothered. The Shuffleboard and Deck Quoits courts were added to Britannia as an afterthought and are frankly both in dangerous positions for other passengers. A final straw was the Oasis Spa adding a £240 charge to my account without permission and no signature, when queried I was told it was a mistake and removed but I wasn’t told how this error could happen. There were two outstandingly good members of the crew, our cabin steward Honorato and Redhill a waiter in the Peninsular restaurant. The staff just isn’t working as a team and Britannia lacks that hard to define ‘soul’. We won’t be cruising on this ship again unless we see that major changes have been made, is there really going to be a refit in 2016?

I am a P&O fan. Been on 6 cruises with them. Booked on Britannia For 27/3/16 and and we were all really looking forward to this cruise she out of the blue P&O made "corporate decision" to change the Itinerary by having The ANT&DEC. SAT. TAKEAWAY on board.We then lost 2ports of call and the main swimming pool area for at least 4 days while a TV crew erects Scaffolding and a stage. A Major disruption to our cruise, my75th birthday & 25th wedding anniversary celebrations. P&Os Customer Service dept .on being contacted were off hand, uncaring arrogant & condescending. Anyone booking this RE-marketed cruise should read the small print. Oh,by the way they have put the price up by £3-400 to see a show you can get free tickets for @ home.

Just come back from a cruise to the Caribbean on the Britannia with p and o,this is the second cruise we have taken with P &O and I must say it most definetly will be our last. The ship its self is beautiful though ultra modern but unfortunately whoever designed it did not put much thought into it. For instance though sofas, tables and chairs might look lovely to look at, but they takeaway much needed space for sun beds which is very unpractical and makes you feel like your in a sardine can.Sinks to wash hands may seem a good idea before entering eating areas but also cause unnecessary queues and obstruction when a simple hand sanitizer would suffice.E ntertainment is second rate and you'll certainly be sick of singers when you finally arrive home. There was supposed to be a no saving of sun beds rule, and when my husband made an officer aware of beds with towels on that had been vacant all morning,as we were struggling to find a sun bed, he would not remove the towels and basically didn't want to know. Worst experience was whilst on board we witnessed someone asking for urgent medical help,but none of the bar staff seemed to care and wouldn't ring for a doctor until the gentleman who was clearly very sick had given them his cabin number. So if your seriously ill onboard this ship make sure someone knows your cabin number else you'll end up taking yourself down to the medical centre which is exactly what this poor women's husband did. Did he survive sorry no idea, just a very sick man who couldn't seem to get the help he needed. Mix this with a lot of repeat dishes in fine dining, very slow service, and a lot of people onboard with colds and flu and plus the fact the port of margarita wasn't worth getting off the boat for,there are just a few reasons why my holiday wasn't the best and why I will always use another cruise line in future. To sum it up Britannia definetly doesn't rule the waves.......

My wife and I have recently returned from the Caribbean on cruise number B525 and we have to say how disappointed we were. When we finally got on board we were told to stand and have our customary embarkation pictures taken with no formal back drop as you would get on other cruise lines. Our cabin, G416 was tiny by comparison to Royal Caribbean cabins and the balcony also was tiny. The bathroom was a tight squeeze. We had to wait several hours waiting for our luggage to arrive so that we could shower and change in cleaner clothes. We had booked a table for four for the later 8.30pm sitting ( 2 friends also travelled on this cruise, and when we duly arrived at 8.30, the restauraunt manager told us in a very unpolite manner that he did not have notification of this and that we would have to have the 6.30 sitting. when we told him that this was not acceptable he arrogantly said `not my problem'. after the meal, which I have to say was excellent, we went to the reception to strongly complain about the managers manner and unwillingness to resolve this matter. Two days later we got the sitting that was originally booked. We also experienced long delays in being served in the bars. We found Broadies Bar to be the most popular of the bars on the ship with a great range of bottled beers available. though we did find that as in most bars, that the staff were not as enthusiastic as you would expect and what was quite alarming was several of the bar waiters needed to use deordorant! Most offputting. The Broadies Bar team leader was, again very rude when I returned a drink that to my mind was of incorrect measure as compared to other cruise lines. Generally speaking we found that some of the bar staff had little knowledge of certain drinks. The Captains night was another disappointment in that after queueing to have your photo taken with him at to be formally introduced, he hardly spoke nor shook hands, whereas the captain on the Thomson Dream was indeed a very pleasant and charming man, whilst the Britannias captain may as well as been a "cardboard cutout". The ship did not have any WOW factor at all. No buzz, no feel good factor. The entertainment on board was generally very good. The Headliners theatre was far too small for a ship of Britannias size being on only of one tier and the seating was fat too narrow for comfort and entry was again far too narrow. P & O also expected all guests to pay an extra £5 pppd in tips! This met with much anger from many passengers and the reception area being inundated by people wanting this charge removed. Moving about the ship was also a problem in that the ship was very badly designed. A lack of deck space on the main sun deck proved to be a problem. On at least one occasion there was brawling late at night on the sun deck with people using foul language and children running riot , jumping into the pools, but there was no security staff on hand to deal with this unruly behaviour. I was not allowed to use certain equipment in the gym and was told I would have to pay extra for it and to book a class. The one highlight of the whole cruise was meeting Marco Peirre White and he was a truly wonderful person who was willing to have his picture taken with and chatted with guests for some considerable time. Unlike the captain. Basically, my wife, our friends and myself and a great many of our fellow passengers were not at all impressed with the Britannia and will neither sail on it again nor recommend it to anyone. My wife and I will stick with Royal Caribbean and the older and smaller Thomson ship where the staff are very entertaining and always pleased to see you.

Just returned from transatlantic cruise to the Caribbean. I am reluctant to put it into words, but I feel a duty to future passengers,to let them know what to expect.So here goes. Firstly,the cabins are fine. We had a balcony cabin. It had a big double bed, tv, with films and live TV and sport, great. Now for the bad news. The ship is massively overcrowded for shows and live bars. We never managed to get a seat, despite being a half an hour early at venues. So we gave up on the entertainment. The outdoors areas were full of reserved towels despite there apparently a rule not allowing this, so we gave up on the pools. Surcharges on the restaurants apart from the basic four of up to £30a head, so we gave up eating apart from basics. Outrageous rip off prices at the spa including £127 for a foot instep insert. The list goes on. there is not much for you on this ship unless you are willing to pay out continuously .You have been warned. What was included at Base price compared with other ships we have travelled on was not much. We therefore, despite it being a new ship, can only give it two stars.

Recently came back form the Britannia Cruise from Southampton to Barbados port, I was very excited to travel the new ship having in mind that I have not travelled via ship before. I travelled alongside my nan, who has experienced the brilliant Celebrity Exclipse before, this caused high expectations with our travel on Britannia. However, we were very disappointed in the quality of service that was provided. Bad Points: -The Britannia was travelling the Caribbean and the entertainment and activities on the cruise had no Caribbean atmosphere. After requesting songs or ideas, there was only one handful of songs played, which had to be played at midnight. There was only one day/night dedicated to Caribbean theme, which played music not to do with Caribbean such as Robbie Williams. The food was almost the same every day- the breakfast, lunch and dinner lacked variety. The Caribbean night* only had one dish with very very little effort. -The receptionist staff were very rude and one member had very poor training. She had an attitude and expressed confidential information in public. After writing a complaint, there was no action until a few days later. - The payment method system on ship was complicated and included £70 tip costs, which didn't have to be paid. Members cards were blocked after spending a small threshold, no written letter before the action, which we found outrageous. - The age target was primarily for the elderly. I am 25 years old and was bored. - There was too many days on sea (8days)- depression. Besides the individual staff members within the Peninsular restaurant that provided excellent service and our room cabin service member- there was a lot complaints amongst other members that experienced other high quality cruises.

I have just returned from the trans Atlantic crossing from Southampton to Barbados, only our second cruise so was so excited as new ship and making history. The ship is lovely the staff in the bars and restaurants very polite, Food good and the Sindu very good indeed. Cabins fair space bright and clean. Now the negative points The ship is quite dark in places and the centre nothing spectacular, Few shops Lido Bar fall of drinkers and was shocked at the roughness of some Language to be frank felt like that part of ship let the rest of it down. Some tables looked dirty because of the smokers i felt like I was becoming a snob, i thought cruisers we're going to be smarter and take some pride certainly not the case. Pool during day had kids jumping in yet signs up saying not allowed so i blame parents for this one. The lifts are confusing but we got used to that. I would go on it again but not during kids holidays as obviously they want the pools so don't get much chance to go in them.

We have recently returned from a two week holiday round the med. Absolutely wonderful. Food, entertainment, service and staff, were all exceptional. We would thoroughly recommend this ship, it is beautiful. We have only one gripe, and that is the lack of mid-ship stairs, which causes problems, especially from deck 16.

Very disappointing food poor in main dining rooms, although buffet good. Staff very poor attitude infact seemed very unhappy. This was my 15th cruise first with P&O and probably the last. Entertainment mediocre at best. Cabins clean .....no individual reading light. Appeared not to be enough staff anywhere. Long wait for reception attention. Long wait for room service. Back to royal carribean line for me