P&O Arvia Food Review - Ultimate Restaurant Guide 

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Have a great cruise

This is great to hear. Many thanks

Thank you, that’s great to hear. Have a fantastic cruise!

Many thanks. Glad you found it useful

Thanks, glad you found it useful.

Glad you found it helpful. I didn’t try Sindhu unfortunately so can’t say much about it other than a couple of other passengers I spoke to had tried it and told me it was good

I’ve been twice on 2 different boats, it’s been outstanding on both occasions, highly recommend 🥰

unfortunately, we have been to Sindhu twice, as well, and both occasions have been underwhelming, starting with the popadom crips from a packet posturing as something different to the frankly odd 'de-contructions' of classics. We call it Sindon't

Hi, yes a couple of the restaurants only let you book once onboard eg Glass House, Keel & Cow. These restaurants can be booked on the P&O My Holiday website once onboard (you would literally just put yourself in the virtual queue when you want to eat on your smartphone and it tells you when a table is ready - it’s not usually a long wait - say 10-20 mins). But with the Glass House and Keel & Cow because they are open much of the day and evening it was never difficult to get a table. If you want peak time in the evening (7.30-9pm) then maybe you’ll wait in the virtual queue a bit longer, but other times of day I found you can just show up and get a table straight away without joining the virtual queue - lunch was not usually that busy. The only restaurant that I found got very booked up early was the Epicurean. With that one I booked it before the cruise and I heard people saying onboard that after the first day it was almost fully booked for the whole cruise. Hope this helps. Have a nice cruise

@@CruiseRight thank you, that’s very helpful. When you say about using the website, would I be right in assuming to access this you’d have to have bought the wifi package for this? Just thinking as I wasn’t planning on getting this as it was pretty pricey! We’ve booked on for the Epicurean twice, once for afternoon tea on one of the ‘at sea’ days and once in the evening. Really looking forward to both of those meals. Thanks once again 😊

You don’t have to buy a WiFi package to access the P&O website when onboard- it works for everyone on board. It’s the easiest way to make reservations and put yourself in virtual queues. I didn’t cover it in this video but you’ll also be able to book certain entertainment with it like the theatre - although as I recall you can book some of the theatre nights before the cruise (but not all nights). I’d recommend getting onto the P&O website as quickly as you can when you get onboard (you’ll find a note in your cabin when you arrive about how to access it) and then book as many of the entertainment shows as you might be interested in as if you leave it just a day or two these can become heavily booked up. By entertainment I specifically mean booking any theatre shows you might be interested in (once onboard the website will show you a calendar of the entertainment for every day of the cruise and you can then reserve seats as required). The other entertainment worth mentioning if you like live music is the 710 Club. It’s a very small venue just off the atrium that has a live band that plays for about 45 mins across 3-4 sessions every evening. I though it was excellent - they have a different theme every night like 90s pop, supergroups etc but it’s not just simple covers of songs, they put a major spin on each song so it doesn’t sound anything like what you’d expect - they were a talented band (piano, bass guitar, guitar, and drums). I only mention it because this is one of the toughest things to reserve onboard because it only holds about 80 people per session. So if you’re interested then use the P&O website to view the entertainment calendar and book the 710 Club too for any particular nights you want on the day of boarding the ship (as if you leave it later in the cruise you can usually only find seats in the session after midnight)

@@CruiseRightahh gotcha! Thank you so much, that makes sense! Also great tip on the live music bar, sounds brilliant I will definitely look into that 😊

Hi, I wouldn’t worry too much. Yes the ship was full on this sailing but I didn’t choose special times to film so it was quieter (except in the Horizon buffet which gets pretty hectic at peak times). But there is a way to avoid any real queuing issues and that is to pre-book dinner in the restaurants before the actual cruise (using the same webpage that is used to access your online check-in, luggage tags, book shore excursions etc). You can make online reservations once you’re within two weeks of your sailing date. For the main dining rooms Zenith and Meridian as well as the 6th Street Diner and Olive Grove (which are all the included restaurants) they let you pre-book between 5.30pm and 6.30pm (if you want later dining times then you have to do it onboard and join the virtual queue on the P&O app every night, or you can just go to the restaurant and they’ll give you a buzzer when your table is ready). Speciality restaurants can be pre-booked for whatever time you like but if you pre-book before your cruise then they charge you in advance at a discounted rate (usually 20% off the onboard price). But this could be an issue if you have any cabin credit included in your fare as I believe this won’t be accessible to use until you get onboard (in which case I’d recommend booking speciality restaurants on the app the moment you get onboard as they get fully booked very quickly for the entire cruise - as does the Headliner Theatre and 710 Club so I recommend booking that as soon as you get onboard too). Strangely I found that whilst the speciality restaurants tended to always be fully booked on the cruise they never looked anywhere near full. I suspect that this is due to staffing shortages where they just can’t run those restaurants at full capacity. So when you mentioned that some of the restaurants didn’t look busy in the video it’s probably for two reasons: 1 because I tended to book fairly early dining around 6pm and 2 because they didn’t appear to run at capacity. Obviously everything I’ve mentioned above just applies to dinner but I never really had problems for breakfast or lunch. You can either go to the main dining rooms and physically queue or put yourself in the virtual queue on the P&O app (it was never a long wait, say 15 minutes at the most generally). Of course there’s walk-in places like the Horizon buffet, the Quays (fish and chips, Asian and Carvery - the Carvery also serves breakfast) or Taste 360 in the SkyDome for burgers, hotdogs and pizza from 11am onwards. In case you’re not familiar with it the P&O app onboard works pretty well. When you book a restaurant and your table is ready you get a notification on your smartphone or tablet and then you just have to show up at the restaurant within 15 minutes of getting that notification. Hope this helps and have a great cruise!

Arvia is a brilliant ship we were on it in February and everything was fine. You can book what restaurants you want everyone we tried was excellent. Entertainment every night it was our third cruise love it.

How can you overcrowd a ship it’s never over full. When cabins are sold that is it..

@@CruiseRight Really helpful response! Thanks very much. Subscribed :)

@@dg9015 No, the one after (20th Aug)

I absolutely wanted to try Sindhu but never got round to it. Ran out of time in the end. Next time for sure

Thanks. Absolutely, the diner was full every evening as I recall

I don’t remember there being one on Arvia. I recently went on Britannia and I don’t remember there being a soup of the day in Horizon on that cruise either. I could be mistaken but I don’t recall seeing it, so this could indeed be a cutback

Deck 7

Your experience very much echoes mine. It’s unfortunate with the cutbacks that have happened. Thanks for watching

Yes it is. It’s called Green & Co and you pay for the menu items you want. I didn’t try this one so can’t comment on the quality but here’s a link to the menu www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/marketing-assets/excel-class-ships---new/venue/green-co/GCO_MH_Menu.pdf

@@CruiseRight thank you

That’s a good point.

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.

Totally agree that cost cutting is the main factor at play here. I didn’t get to try Sindhu but that’s a shame to hear it was a let down

Just off Arvia food and quantity in restaurants poor. 2 slices cheese with cheese platter. Sauces minimal amount and some food pre cooked before ordering as I was served ravioli about 2 mins after ordering

Yes Sindhu was poor over heard or couldn't help hearing obnoxious guy saying best meal he's ever had. Obviously the sun and sherry had got to him

Very good point. Unfortunately I didn’t get to try their plant-based restaurant Green & Co but I’ve never heard a bad word about it

There’s one option with the Green & Co plant-based food restaurant but it’s a paid option. I didn’t try it though so don’t know how good it might be. Here’s a link to the menu on P&Os website if it helps www.pocruises.com/content/dam/po/marketing-assets/excel-class-ships---new/venue/green-co/GCO_MH_Menu.pdf

@@CruiseRight thanks for the info keep up the videos