Once you have sailed with a particular cruise line a couple of times you begin to know the standards of that cruise line, and know what to expect whilst on board and the level of service and cleanliness should be. I have sailed with P&O 4 times now – so although not as many as a lot of the regular P&O Customers its enough to have got me to the next tier level of the Peninsula club and to start receiving the on board benefits. This week I have just disembarked from the Oriana on a 2 night mini cruise for myself and my mother, and for me I was disappointed with not only the ship (as for me there was no wow factor about it), but also by the service on board.
Walking on board normally on most ships you are greeted with the grand atrium with a beautiful staircase, or the Royal promenade if you are on Royal Caribbean, or on Regent a glass of champagne as you enter – however on Oriana the first thing you see is the lady from Marco Pierre White Restaurant trying to get you to make a reservation, and then by the side of her was a staircase with a cascading waterfall which to be honest wasn’t that grand (might have been nice at night if it had lights behind it to make it change colour at least it might have looked nice then)
On this sailing we had booked for an Inside cabin with an automatic upgrade to an Outside cabin on the Saver fare, and was allocated a JB grade cabin, number E162. The location was perfect by the midship, by the shops and the not so grand staircase, and also we didn’t have far to go to the gangway as these was set up two doors down from where we were. The cabin was made as a twin and had a corner sofa unit which was nice – usually its just a single chair on its own, plenty of wardrobe space although the hangers were rattling a lot during the overnight sailing. We had been allocated freedom dining so the Peninsula Restaurant was a very short walk down the corridor from us.
The first night was formal night and after looking at the Main Dining room menu and not seeing anything on there that either of us would want to eat, we decided to book for the Ocean Grill – Marco Pierre White’s restaurant. The food was fantastic as was the service, the only gripe I have is as this venue was a black tie venue (the main dining room, Andersons and the Crows nest were also where the dress code for the evening was to be adhered to) why the staff were allowing people to dine in there inappropriately dressed and didn’t even ask the gentleman to get a jacket and tie on as per the dress code, and then tell him he could then enter – other cruise ships do this. We paid £22.95 per person for our meal and then drinks on top – my mother sailed in March on the Oriana and dined in the Ocean Grill 4 times during her cruise and each time paying £44 total including a bottle of Prosecco – so had the prices gone up for this mini cruise? The bottle of Prosecco wasn’t on the wine list in the Ocean Grill anymore either. I was also disappointed with the level of the food produced in The Conservatory, which is the buffet restaurant on board, the food was cold and not a great deal of choice, was also laid out in a peculiar way and then you had to search both sides of the restaurant as they had different things despite being told that this was not the case.
The evenings entertainment was the Emperors of Soul who were a 4 man group who sang soul classics and had apparently got to the semi-final of BBC 1’s “Your Country Needs You” (did people ever watch that?) They were quite good and had the audience (although only a half full theatre) singing and clapping along. then you could join in Karaoke in the pub, dance the night away in Harlequins or head up to the Crows Nest. The second night we had the headliners with their Queen tribute and also a lady called Niki Evans – who had appeared in X Factor in 2007.
The next day the ship had to undergo essential maintenance and so turned the hot water and air conditioning off from the whole ship from 9am to 2pm – not good if you planned on sleeping in and wanted a shower mid morning. There also seem to lots of the toilets around the ship all with out of order signs on them (I do try to use my own cabin where possible). I was also quite shocked at how dirty the chairs in the theatre were as you will see from the below photo.
With regards to the service on board – I appreciate as this is a short cruise so the staff have to work longer and harder, however there was no need to be grumpy, or to leave empty bottles/glasses on tables for 55 minutes despite at least 4 members of staff constantly walking past them. The second evening in the Lord Tavern (the English pub on board) people were having to either wave a waiter down (wasn’t overly busy in there) or go to the bar themselves – to then be intercepted by one of the waiters as he wanted your order to appear under his name.
The shuttle bus transfers to Blankenberge were complimentary on this sailing however trying to find out information about them was scarce and was clear P&O didn’t want to give out that information so you would book one of their excursions, the Belgian lady in charge of the buses wasn’t prepared to send a bus at 7.40 ship time so us and others could get the 08:10 train – she thought it was most strange we would want to go so early (the local time was an hour ahead – the ship decided not to change its time) she advised the buses would run every 20 minutes and suggested we either get in a taxi to Blankenberge which would cost us 50 Euros, or a taxi to Bruges also for 50 Euros or to sit at the train station for over 50 minutes. We went back to the warmth of our cabin which overlooked the buses and the bus she wouldn’t allow to depart then didn’t leave for another half an hour. We got on the shuttle bus at 8.20 and he left not long after so we had about 30 mins to wait for the hourly train. Leaving the ship they had two gangways a short slope or one that zigzagged down, on the return you were only allowed up the zigzagged one which was not good for people with mobility issues and despite asking to go up the shorter slop for my mother security refused as the x-ray machine had been set up at the other gangway.
There was a couple of my colleagues also on board so was nice to meet up with them at the sailaway from Southampton.
Talking to a couple whilst waiting to disembark and they said this had been their first cruise with P&O (sailed on Royal Caribbean a couple of times previously) and this cruise had put them off sailing on P&O. They felt there had been no information given re shuttle buses, what to do with your luggage on the 2nd night, they also hadn’t received an Horizon guide (P&O daily paper) at check-in (which i hadn’t either but went and asked at reception for one) so they didn’t know it was formal night on the first night or what was happening around the ship etc. I did advise this wasn’t normal for P&O (I hope its not this way now) and to maybe try a 7 night cruise.
Once the Britannia launches next year and the Aurora has had its refit later this year – this ship will be very much left behind in the fleet and will need some work to bring it up to the standard of the other ships in the fleet. I am sailing on Azura next week for 10 nights so am hoping the experience and the ship will be a lot better than this one on Oriana.
Have you sailed on Oriana before? Have the standards slipped or was this just because it was a mini cruise? I would love to hear your thoughts on Oriana.