Caribbean cruise that was wonderful
Caribbean cruise that was wonderful. Everything was better than I hoped. Food was excellent including the never closing buffets to the black tie dinners. Crew did their job with a smile and a laugh.Everywhere was clean and tidy. All the trips we booked were very good with excellent local guides. Britannia is a lovely size, not too big.I wish the internet packages were cheaper, but it did work well considering we were at sea when I used it.
Solent Charters
Find a Better Cruise company.
Follow up to my previous review on our NewYear Cruise with overnight St Lucia , Antigua and Aruba, which we did not visit these portsdue to Engine failure which P&O lied about called it a Technical Issues at first denied it and lied , Engine failure is a Mechanical Issue .We were told to claim off our holiday insurance , holiday Insurance does not cover Technical Issues but do cover Mechanical.We spent 4 nights in Barbados, I did not book a cruise and stay , reason for booking cruise was to visit St Lucia and Antigua, due to not docking at St Lucia , we run out of bottled water lack of Fresh Fruit and various other items, we asked to have bed changed after 5 days we were told restriction on using laundry,P&O have admitted the cruise fell short , with additional sea days due to lack of power to get back to Barbados, we were offered 25% onboard credit if you booked another cruise,I would never book P&O cruises again , against my solicitor’s advice, she feels a 40% refund would be appropriate,I have asked for a 20% refund, this has been ignored so my next step small claims court , they don’t deserve even 1 star .
R.Walker
Have called P&O customer services have…
Have called P&O customer services have been on hold almost 2hours, I have also emailed them over a week ago with no response, don’t trust P&O they couldn’t care less about customers that much is obvious
Mrs N Laidler
No response to emails about cruise…
No response to emails about cruise complaints disgusting bath. The bath was black as finish was gone . Cruise was full so no alternative cabin . We have sent 2 emails & no acknowledgement
Terry Davison
What an absolute disgrace of a company
What an absolute disgrace of a company. Avoid at all costs if you don't want to risk having your holiday ruined.I shall try to summarise my experience on the Ventura on the 10th May 2025, it was my 2nd cruise with P&O and the first was pretty decent. This cruise was a 2 week cruise to the canary islands, the first week was wonderful, but then I had one day where I ate some food then started to feel really unwell and just unsettled about 6 hours later. That evening I was vomiting, reported it to the medical team as there was lots of announcements about a stomach bug going around, so I was concerned it could be that. I was confined to my cabin until I was 24 hours clear of vomit or diarrhoea, meaning I missed a trip I had booked.I will skip over the disaster that was confinement and simply say it took about 3 hours to get some bottles of water (since the tap water was disgusting), the "food" being soup which was ok and a piece of chicken so dry I'd rather of ate sand, thankfully I had my mother get some light bits of food out of the buffet for me.I stopped vomiting after that first night and just felt incredibly unwell for around 3 or 4 days after, I was out of confinement but was still sleeping the majority of the time as I was just very unwell. They refunded the trip I had missed out of, but then tried to charge more as a "late booking" for just my mother to be able to go, instead of just refunding half the price.I met a few others who had also been vomiting and it started after they ate at the same place I last ate at before getting sick, and I'm very convinced after talking to those who had Norovirus that what I had wasn't that, so I'm extremely confident that it was food poisoning. A long story short of making a complaint (mostly because I paid for the drinks package which works out to around £45 a day, and I didn't drink any alcohol for about 5 days after so I lost out on a lot of money) the response was initially "here's an offer £150 but sign this NDA and don't tell anyone", which considering the drinks package, trip I missed out on and the meals I wasn't eating for so long after was worth more than £150 I argued back.Today I have decided not to accept their hush money but to spread the word about how bad they can be, as today I got told some great highlights from their complains team:"Whilst you believe that your illness was caused by consuming chicken burgers on board the ship, no stool sample was taken identifying a bacterial pathogen"Make sure you have proof of any health issue that happens on board"Your feedback in relation to information provided to you on board by crew is not correct and in terms of service of food at the Poolside Grill"I was clearly very wrong in what my eyes and ears told me while I was on board"In reviewing your medical records, neither the onset of illness, the symptoms or the longevity of illness are representative of bacterial food poisoning."They say I have no proof of it being food poisoning but they say they have medial records to show it wasn't food poisoning, which is amusing since the only record they have is me calling their health department to say I was vomiting and feeling really unwell.There's a lot more info I could write, but honestly do yourself a favour and use any other cruise company or risk having a really bad time.
Julian
P & O Pricey and Overated
P & O Pricey and Overated
lana th
Why on earth are P&O introducing family…
Why on earth are P&O introducing family cruises on Arcadia and Aurora? These 2 ships have always been adults only. There are at least 4 amazing large ships in the fleet designed specifically for families and children. Apparently it's the Christmas cruises that are being targeted. I love my children and granddaughter but just ocassionally I want time with just adults. All that will happen is people will migrate to SAGA cruises who in turn will increase their prices. Oh and P&O these so called passengers who gave feed back about wanting their families to join them should have been told that's fine...Arvia and Iona do great cruises. I did a Christmas cruise 2024 on Arcadia. The captain had his 3 children on board ( no other member of staff were allowed to) and most of the passengers felt it was inappropriate. P&O will loose good faithful passengers not that they will care.
Clarke
Impossible to contact
Ive already booked a cruise due to sail in December. P and O are great at taking your money but after that....useless. I've got more chance of standing alongside the King and Donald Trump than getting any answers. I've called by phone...nothing. Pressed 1 for a call back...nothing. Chat function...Nothing. E mail...nothing. On line messaging...Nothing. I thought I'd try pressing to upgrade so they thought I might be spending more money and guarantee a call back...nothing. I now reckon P & O stands for "Passive and Obstructive". My advice...book with Marella. Its cheaper and better. Well done P and O for driving away a 4 time previous customer. Never again.
Peter Saunders
Great Cruise, But Accessibility Failures Were Deeply Distressing
I travelled with P&O Cruises on Azura (Cruise A532, 21–28 August 2025) and while the cruise itself was fantastic and I felt well catered for onboard, the pre-travel care and accessibility arrangements were shockingly poor.Despite submitting detailed requests nearly a year in advance, including seating with my essential carer and support for my autistic son, P&O failed to pass this information to the airline (Jet2). This led to distress and disruption on both outbound and return flights. Repeated emails and follow-ups were ignored, and my travel agent was falsely assured that arrangements were in place. P&O later blamed “staff shortages,” which is not a valid excuse for breaching their own accessibility policy or the Equality Act 2010.This experience caused significant emotional stress for my family and undermined our trust in P&O’s commitment to disabled passengers. I’ve submitted a formal complaint including requesting a review of their processes to prevent this happening to others.Companies must learn that they cannot cut corners on their legal obligations, especially when it comes to accessibility and the wellbeing of vulnerable passengers.
Mr S
Onboard Booking at so called Loyalty Desk.
Don’t get taken in by the onboard spiel about getting the best deal and rewarding loyalty when booking onboard. I did and it’s cost me £1000. I booked last November when onboard for this December, today the exact same cruise, flight and cabin is £1k cheaper. When I finally got through to customer services, it’s all down to do with “fluid pricing”My 15 cruises and loyalty count for nothing. Do yourself a favour, learn from my mistake and book closer to the time you want to travel and NOT onboard.
David
P&O Azura definitely not for us
We were a family of 5 on the P&O Azura for two weeks. We had poor food quality in the Oriental MDR and in presentation. Bad smell of sewage in second week. Our Superior deluxe cabins in the aft of the ship get severe rattling, loud noise and shaking, particularly when docking early morning. We did complain and were told that we should have been told before we booked! P&O aren’t even telling customer who book direct. The entertainment wasn’t the best with an off tune pianist and repetitive music and sets. Finally service in the main was poor, staff looked totally fed up and were even quite rude sometimes. There were a few who were nice but were looking at other ships to move to. Something is definitely wrong with this ship it’s too old and the senior staff are no where to be seen. The only good thing for us was the itinerary. Some people love it but just because it’s lower priced than some other cruise lines you should still get a good service and decent food.
Janet
Been trying to call customer services…
Been trying to call customer services for 3 days now to link bookings on a cruise. Impossible to get through. I was told there's a callback option but we're certainly not getting it. Just tells you they're too busy and hangs up.
paul andrews
BEWARE
If I could give zero stars I would !!!We booked a cruise on Iona in June which included onboard spend of £80 and parking . The parking was booked by my husband prior to leaving and within the 35 day time frame they stipulate and was followed with a confirmation email . (We were particularly careful with the parking aspect as someone we knew had also had a bad experience with the parking side of the cruise . ) All done and good to go or so we thought !! ….On arrival at the port we were told our parking had been CANCELLED! CPS ( the car park owners ) stating that P and O had cancelled it . After nearly 2 hours of trying to sort it out ( CPS parking were not backing down ) totally exhausted and just wanting to start our holidays we had to concede and pay £152 or we weren’t parking on their car park . We were then told we had to take it up with P and O as they couldn’t contact them . Needless to say we weren’t happy but had no choice and had to accept the situation . Once on board we preceded to take this up with the reception staff , but after a full week of being passed from pillar to post ( our entire holiday ) we were told we needed to contact customer services on our return as they had limited information on board !!!We did this as well as contacting our travel agent and was told it could take up to 28 days to sort . We are now 8 weeks in and have just been told they are not refunding the £152 as we entered an incorrect reference number on booking !!! (What ??? and it’s took 2 months to tell us that ??) If that was the case then why did we receive a confirmation of booking if the reference number was incorrect and secondly why did we not receive an email /call to advise us of this so that we could have sorted out before it got to this stage ??Our Travel agents have spoken to them and said they do not contact people when they cancel bookings as they deal with so many !! What ??? This is BASIC customer service !!! How can a customer know there’s a problem if they are not told ??!!We are now in a situation whereby our travel agents are saying P and O aren’t ‘backing down ‘ so there’s nothing more they can do and we have to contact P and O directly !!! They put you on hold forever ( hoping you’ll give up no doubt ) and trying to speak to a manager is virtually impossible , so how we are meant to sort this I do not know ? We asked the travel agents to ask a manager to contact us , that was over a week ago and surprise surprise, still no phone call and I suspect there never will be ! This is nothing short of a SCAM !!!, charging people for something that’s supposed to be included in their holiday then saying because we’ve ‘supposedly ‘entered a wrong reference number we don’t get it . Then not sending any correspondence to advise us of this , it’s all very suspicious to me !!I for one will NEVER book with this company again or recommend them for that matter . They’ve ruined what should have been a special holiday and caused immense stress in the process and continue to do as we try to fight this injustice ! The cruise was very good so it’s an absolute shame that the customer service / aftercare is so appalling!!!PLEASE look at other cruise companies , they may get good reviews on the cruise itself but this company’s customer service is absolutely shocking and if you have a problem they just don’t want to know , so beware !!
Daisy
NON EXISTENT CUSTOMER SERVICE
NON EXISTENT CUSTOMER SERVICE - impossible to speak to on phone - they promise to hold position in queue but then guarantee to phone you back in 24 hours - a 24 hour queue, really !!But then guarantee to best way to contact is by live chat, but never available.It takes the pleasure away before the holiday starts. I will NEVER use P&O again. Absolutely awful.
Jeremy French
an improvement on Iona
The disembarkation was a dream,compared to the fiasco of Iona. still had problems .The waiters command of English was just as bad.They refused to loan me stapler to attatch my luggage label.Again the restaurant dress code was ignored by some and went unchallenged. same with black tie night. a waiter tried to remove my orange juice with a half full glasss.some people decided that the Meridian restaurant wasa good place to play cards.the ports were poor apart from Norway. They drop you miles from the town centres Im disabled and had to pay for expensive taxis. the cabin doors are dangerous and nearly took one of my fingers off.
test revival
We are currently on Arvia
We are currently on Arvia, what can I say? We are very disappointed. We have cruised a number of times with P & O but this by far the worst. Our cabin was not ok, the quilt cover was badly ripped in a couple of places, the carpet was heavily stained and the curtains were hanging off the curtain rail. I have mobility problems so I spend a little more time that the other guests on my balcony, but this seemed to be an issue for out cabin steward, he would not clean our room if I was on the balcony. It hasn’t been hoovered for over a week, and it does need doing. Room service is poor, every time I have ordered something they have forgotten something. The food in the horizon buffet is diabolical, inedible chicken, overcooked rice, undercooked vegetables and it’s all only lukewarm. The entertainment is poor, and not much of it. It makes sea days seem very long. Not sure I would book with them again.
Sammie
Very poor P&O Communication
P&OCommunication before during and after cruise is terrible. The worst I have ever experienced. Just phoned customer services waited for over an hour NO answer . The poor communication continues.
Chris
WISH THERE WAS 0 STARS
WISH THERE WAS 0 STARSP&O has gone right down the drain and their customer service is absolutely abysmal. If you want to be on hold for hour and hours then it’s your lucky day. Also you’d think booking in advance would give you the best rewards WRONG. We booked our holiday in advance only to find that closer to the time you got WAY more onboard spending credit even though they tell you when you book on board in advance that this is the best deal there will be it’s a SCAM. And oh nowadays loyalty doesn’t mean a lot. And don’t try and amend your booking closer to the time because the deal was better because they will politely tell you to shove it and that you would have to pay way more than that, why because they are a greedy company. They will be lucky if me AND all of my extended family ever sail with them again
Welsh Dragon
Trying to speak to someone at P&O is a…
Trying to speak to someone at P&O is a waste of time even at 8.30 when the call centre opens they tell you it could take more than 45mins for your call to be answered. You ask for a call back but they never do. I have waited over 1hr and given up. If they know there is a demand for personal contact why do they not employ more staff. If you fill out the online request it can take a week to get a reply which is no good if you have an urgent request. When the P&O name is dropped in the next year or so I hope things will improve but I won’t hold my breath.
customer JC
Terrible customer service
Terrible customer service. They treat customers with utter contempt. Cancelling a cruise booked for months with less than 24 hours notice. Sending a corporate ‘ cover our backside ‘ email advising us. Then with holding funds and reneging on promises.
Nathan’s Itunes
