Plated Meals – Are You Yolking?

After revealing not so long back that they would be rolling out plated meals on their fleet, P&O have come under some real flack online from bloggers, cruise agents and most importantly, customers.

My inspiration for this blog was given to me by my own parents having recently returned from their retirement cruise (ouch, outing the age online there).

Seriously though, they took almost a months cruise aboard P&O’s pioneering and previous flagship, Arcadia.

Having booked the cruise over a year in advance and knowing that they would be giving up seeing the family over Christmas and New Year ,  they were looking forward to the cruise like a pair of kids going to Disneyland.

When the time came they could barely contain their excitement, and I dished out instructions to my Dad to take plenty of photos and videos so I could show them to all my lovely followers, which by the way Dad, I am still waiting for!

Anyway I was expecting them to have the time of their lives………….and………well…………..you guessed it………….THEY DID!

Of course they had a great time! How could you possibly not have a great time cruising round one of the most awe inspiring places on the planet, a place of outstanding natural beauty, with some of the friendliest folk to walk the Earth. Yes they hit the sandy shores of the Caribbean. Nearly a month. Yes, I was jealous too.

Once I have photos I will post them, but for now rest assured that they thoroughly enjoyed the entire cruise. However there was a massive negative for them in the shape of this ‘Plated Meals’ Saga.

Now with a line like P&O, a line that has culture, history, credibility and more importantly a loyal following. I could not help but fall on the floor with disbelief  when I heard they were rolling this plated meals across the fleet. I mean this is a line that once prided itself on serving some of the best food at sea, with a great variety of dishes and side accompaniments to feast on. But now with the plated meals in full swing there is uproar amongst  P&Os higher tiered members.

Of course when a new ship is being constructed we always see corners cut or changes being made. For example Royal Caribbean moving to complete E-Documents and E-Tags which you have to print yourself rather than having a nice glossy set of tickets with laminated luggage tags to match. My best guess was that this was done in order to cut paper and postage cost in order to help fund the construction of Oasis of the Seas. Fair enough, Email is the future no? This is a change that some may not like but is somewhat of an inevitability. But it does not change the fundamental quality that RCCL deliver on-board ship cruise after cruise.

When it comes to food on a cruise ship, I expect quality. Food, service and presentation go hand in glove on a cruise ship, or so they should at least.

Do you know what the customers were served virtually every night on the Arcadia Christmas & New Year cruise……………..?

Peas and Carrots.

Yes according to my parents and various disgruntled guests who took the cruise, peas and carrots were the vegetable of choice. Not bad for a few nights, but for 20 plus? Come on P&O you have to do better than that! These customers are your bread and butter and cannot be expected to endure mediocre food once a once in a lifetime cruise that costs thousands and thousands of pounds. Not good.

P&O will know they have mucked things up, all you have to do is visit a few forums and you will see plenty of people, quite rightly, moaning about the poor quality cuisine on board many a cruise.

Something must be done. It is topics like this that could directly affect sales of the forthcoming ship, Britannia which there is a huge hype about. I just hope P&O do something to rectify the problem and go back to the traditional service ways that they have completely phased out. It would be a shame to see numbers suffer because of such a basic thing as food.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions on this matter.

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Have a great day!