Hi, I'm Tom and I've been cruising since the 90s. Over the years I've tried various cruise lines and all kinds of ships. Cruise Right is all about showing you what the different cruise lines offer and how the ships vary. This channel will help you pick the right cruise and make the right choices at every step.
Here you'll find ship tours, reviews, featured destinations and a variety of tips to get the most out of cruising whether you're a first-timer or a seasoned cruiser.
Many thanks for this. Reminded me how delighted i am with my cabin. I'm going on my first cruise solo to the Carribean next winter, and I'm hoping to miss the school rush! 😅 Any tips gratefully received.
Glad you found the video useful. I’ve sure you’ll have a great time. My main tip on Arvia would be to book any speciality restaurants you want to try (and regular restaurants) before the cruise (as I recall the pre-bookings open 2 weeks before sailing date). I say this because it makes it easier to go straight to your table every night rather than having to physically queue or join a virtual queue. It’s also worth booking any entertainment you’re keen to see in advance too. Having said that, some of the entertainment can only be booked once onboard, and for that I recommend booking on the app the day that you get onboard (or get the app support staff in the atrium to sort it for you). This is because some of the entertainment gets heavily booked up early in the cruise and therefore it’s best to book on day 1 to get what you’re keen to see. Hope this helps
We came iff the arvia just over a week ago... Good review but no sindu ? Sindu was outstanding, the starers we delicious, the main was "alot" but we were overwhelmed with flavours and smells, and the dessert was worth it... Overall an amazing place to eat.
Wish I had tried Sindhu but never got the chance - ran out of time trying all the other restaurants. Glad to hear it was good though. Next time I’ll make sure I book Sindhu too. Thanks for watching
Why the hell are the majority of rooms 2 single beds instead of a double? And considering how nice the ship's interiors ie bars restaurants are, why are the rooms utter shite?.
We will be sailing on Arvia on the 1 st Sept, I will be spending my 60 th birthday also hubbies birthday while onboard, Could on get an inside cabin but we had the same on the Iona which was fine x
Arvia crap, food rubbish, couldn't get a Guinness kept saying they was gonna pick some up at the next port, never did, half the breakfast was missing from the buffet, portions are tiny in the main dining restaurant.
Best cruise we've been on. We go outside of school holidays. Peaceful, quiet, no queus, Balcony room on deck 15. Fabulous holiday, beautiful weather. May 2024.
Show balcony cabin front (pointy end) tiny entrance door (kitchen cupboard size) balcony looks out onto Glass dirty wall on gangway side no view for you but plenty for people looking into your cabin. Worst on 30 cruises
Brittannia Buffet food is below par however I'm not fussy eater but resorted to having poppadoms and mango chutney one lunchtime as my main hot course.this says it all
I've just come back from Baltic with Britannia and I have to say the buffet and dinner food is probably below standards and I'm. Ot s fussy eater.i have been on over 25 cruises with marella p and I Cunard MSc Costa Fred Olsen RC .food on thr p and o ie a rvia Ventura is ok but it's as if noone tastes food before service.
They should've added a "Quays" to Brittania during her refit. Green & Co on Arvia also serves sushi, which is excellent. Personally I prefer Brittania, Arvia/Iona are a bit council...
I thought exactly the same thing - Britannia’s refit would have been a perfect opportunity to add the Quays - it’s a big plus on Arvia. I suspect they wouldn’t be keen to add it to smaller ships though because it’s a free option rather than a paid premium restaurant. As such they’re probably only willing to put it on their largest ships that need more dining options to accommodate that many more guests. Still, I wish they’d have done something to boost the dining options on Britannia
I’ve only sailed with P&O once on Britannia but found the food strangely boring & uninspiring. The buffet was the best of the lot, we ended up eating there most nights. Sindhu was very good, the decor was nice but the newer ships are like floating office blocks. Celebrity much much better imo.
Totally agree, Celebrity is a big improvement. The areas I’d say P&O are competing on are prices and occasionally itinerary. The last two P&O cruises I went on had dramatic discounts a few weeks before the cruise (from £799 for 2 weeks) and I booked both very late so for me the low price meant I was more willing to live with the shortfalls. For itineraries, I find for transatlantics they offer the best option as they actually stop in a few Caribbean islands as part of the cruise. Most competitors tend to stop on the Mediterranean side more and often skip the Caribbean altogether, just going straight to Miami, Fort Lauderdale etc (for me that’s a shame as I love the Caribbean)
@@CruiseRight I’m not really a transatlantic cruiser as such …I base my cruises in Mediterranean or Northern Europe itineraries. I agree P&O are very competitive on price but tbh I’d rather pay that little bit extra and get exactly the experience I’m looking for. If they’re offering deep discounts you have to ask why. A good friend of mine has done loads of cruises across all ships and found P&O Aurora to be very very disappointing, poor quality food, miserable staff & skimping on towels etc and long lines at buffet. She’s not one for moaning and is normally very positive, so her opinion counts. On Britannia it was seemingly slewed towards pub quizzes, karaoke & ball room dancing - lovely pastimes which people will love, but it’s not for me. Celebrity vibe is spot on - but that’s just my opinion! 🙂
I was on Arvia last week, the only part of your comparison I'd disagree with is the scores for entertainment. Arvia is very much quantity over quality, on other P&O ships the acts have been significantly better - perhaps we were unlucky, but the busker, atrium entertainment and two comedians were the worst acts I've seen on a ship. People were actively avoiding the atrium because you can't escape the noise coming from the acts. On all other P&O cruises the standard of entertainment has been much higher.
That’s interesting to hear. I think the tricky thing with entertainment that can cause some variance is when these acts/performers are doing a circuit around the different ships in the fleet and so there might be times when you get a number of disappointing ones all showing up on one cruise. That said, it doesn’t change the fact that they should be maintaining a decent overall standard of entertainment, so it’s a shame to hear that Arvia didn’t deliver a better standard on your cruise - especially as it’s the newest ship in the fleet with such a large passenger capacity. They ought to be making more effort on that ship so there is some consistency of standard across the fleet. Thanks for watching the video
Arvia balcony cabins have slightly more spacious bathrooms than Britannia’s. But if it’s a standard inside cabin then Arvia has a much smaller bathroom - it was shocking. Deluxe balconies on Britannia add a bathtub whereas Conservatory Mini Suites on Arvia (the closest equivalent cabin) don’t add the bathtub (they’re identical bathrooms to a balcony) so it all depends on what cabin grade you have as to which is bigger
Know how you feel our room on the iona was not very clean ,had to get them to change the bedding ,on britania next year and going to take cleaning stuff and our own sheets 😂
Cruised on Arvia in May 23. Not impressed. It's like the ship is too big for P&0's systems to cope with. Terrible queues for every meal. Excursions overbooked. Cabin cleaning missed. Insufficient busses to get back to the ship (departure delayed). Ship too big to use certain ports.
I have been on over 70 cruises with most of the cruise lines. I started off with P&O about 25 years ago and over a period of 10 years the standard of food on P&O got progressively worse. So I left P&O because I felt having 3 bad meals in a 14 day cruise was unacceptable. Basically it is as you have highlighted inconsistent standards.
A disgrace that you have to pay extra for food in some restaurants. Rip off and food does not look great and desserts looked bought in and fries frozen.
Im on Arvia just now and going on Britannia in July. Arvia is full and just too busy, too many people and youre bumping into them everywhere. Hopefully Britannia will be less busy and better.
That definitely sounds familiar. I went on Arvia twice - once on a transatlantic when it was about 1000 guests short of being full and once when it was pretty much full. I remember the busy cruise had far more queueing and hassle getting sunbeds etc. I can’t really judge how Britannia compares on that front because I was on a cruise that was nowhere near full, so everything was easy. If it’s not full, it’s going to be all the better for it! Whatever happens, have a great rest of your current cruise and an even better one in July
Booked in January this year for June 2025, been watching loads of Britannia and P & O vids to get myself well prepared for what will be my first cruise
Thank you for pointing this out. It was an oversight on my part, but I’ll remedy that in the future. Ultimately, it all depends on what rooms are free for me to film at the time but I’ll make sure I attempt to find accessible ones too going forward
Hi , great video it looks like you have covered just about every part of the ship . We have just booked for the Caribbean in January 2025 . It will be our first time on Britannia , we have just got off of Arvia to the Caribbean and wanted to experience a different ship .👋
Hi, that’s pretty much exactly what I did too. I went on the Arvia transatlantic last year then wanted to try Britannia too. The Caribbean in January is a great choice. Have a brilliant trip!
I have been reviewing sever; P&O Britannia food reviews by different people and find the food rather uninteresting compared to my favorite, Cunard. The choices in the buffet are remarkably similar to the local Chinese buffet in Concord, California. USA. Okay but kind of eh! for a cruise ship.
Glad you liked the production. I’d have liked to try both of those restaurants too but time just didn’t allow us to get to every single restaurant onboard for dinner, partly because we felt we needed to eat in the main dining room at least a few times to get an idea of how consistent the quality of food was. Although, in the interests of full disclosure, I always had Green & Co lower on the list as I’m not much of a healthy eater and so me reviewing Green & Co would be about as useful as a vegetarian reviewing a steak house. Seriously though, I do take your point but this was only the first food review video I’ve made, so I always knew there was going to be room for improvement….and I guarantee it will only get better going forward.
Been on Britannia twice and Arvia once. All cruises were two week Caribbean.Really enjoyed both ships but will never go again whilst they are using Maleth airline.
Britannia for me and the wife all day long . Arvia is far too big and disorganised. The only thing I didn’t like about Britannia was no prom deck ,I know there was the upper deck for walking but in the fjords it was far too cold up there .Another little issue on Britannia was too much clutter in gangways ,( Dirty plates and glasses ) and the cleanliness of the cabin wasn’t great . Food on Arvia for us wasn’t great,except keel and cow ,and trying to get booked in MDR was none existent,due to that rubbish app .
This video was very interesting. Recently we've been on Iona. The Arvia is just a 'newer' Iona really. We thoroughly enjoyed our Iona Cruise, and for us it's Iona or Arvia or nothing. We only cruise from Southampton to Southampton, as, being exiled Sotonians, but still living in Hampshire, Southampton is so convenient for us. We've decided to never Fly again. We've only done a couple of cruises with P & O, both on Aurora, pre its upgrade. Southampton to Sydney, part World Cruise, 2012, and Norwegian Fjords in 2014. We've never been interested in Britannia, and this video did nothing to change our minds. Iona in November to the Canaries, and 2025 we'll book a Southampton departure on the Arvia.
I have cruised on both and much preferred Arvia , Britannia is poorly laid out, no proper promenade, no central stairs, lots of up and downing. tiny balconies. MDR food was pretty awful on both but because Arvia has more options, especially the Quays, Olive Grove etc. I would never choose Britannia again.
So true about Britannia’s layout. I mostly prefer using the stairs and could never understand why they didn’t have them in the centre of the ship. There were central stairs at the atrium levels only and that was it! Very strange. And getting to the Oriental Restaurant was strange too as you could only access it by dropping down from the rear stairs/lifts. Totally agree on Arvia’s advantage with numerous other dining options too - for me the Quays and Keel & Cow were massive pluses.
So true about Britannia’s layout. I mostly prefer using the stairs and could never understand why they didn’t have them in the centre of the ship. There were central stairs at the atrium levels only and that was it! Very strange. And getting to the Oriental Restaurant was strange too as you could only access it by dropping down from the rear stairs/lifts. Totally agree on Arvia’s advantage with numerous other dining options too - for me the Quays and Keel & Cow were massive pluses.
Really enjoyed this video! I've cruised on Britannia before, but never the much newer ships - I've always been keen to see exactly how they compared. Thanks so much for putting this one together!
Think you missed a trick not eating at Green & co. I’m by no means a veggie & neither is the hubby. It was by far the best meal we had on Arvia, eating there twice .
I wish I hadn’t missed out on this restaurant now because others had told me a similar thing onboard, but it was later in the cruise and I’d already booked other restaurants by then so couldn’t fit it in. If I’m on there again then I definitely won’t overlook it next time.
Agree with you in any aspect. A lot of good things on Arvia, but the staff is not as well trained as on other ships I was on. Some members of the staff were even quite rude. No Good morning, no smile, no readiness to please the customer, and no last day polite Goodbye. I was very disappointed. Never back again despite covered pool, long promenade dec and act.
Just done two weeks on Arvia, unfortunately during school holidays ( Scotland and Ireland) was like Butlins at sea and rammed to capacity, much better on Britannia as it didn't feel overcrowded and I could actually get in the pool , the numbers on this video of Arvia looked much better , bet the kids were in school, the pool at the back of Arvia ( beachcomber bar ) resembled a beer crate full of bottles, standing room only , the extra jacuzzis on Arvia meant we actually got in them .
It's amazing how you can watch something and disagree with most things said! Food was awful on Arvia. Less restaurants, but better quality on britannia
It’s good to get other people’s take on this - I have a friend that I was debating this with recently regarding these same two ships. But I think sometimes two tables in the same restaurant get a different experience because one had food cooked by someone else slightly differently, and periodically as they rotate staff on and off the ship it can all add up to a different experience across the year. For me, if they added Keel & Cow to Britannia or The Quays (for the fish and chips and carvery) then I’d love that
Regarding entertainment we'd give the nod to Britannia as we like the Headliners shows in the main theatre. Unfortunately Arvia repeats these on consecutive nights.
