P&O Azura Cruise Review - 7 Nights in the Canary Islands 

My wife and I were in the exact same cruise you report on and was totally shocked at how you said you enjoyed the cruise yet pulled it apart. I found the cruise absolutely brilliant. Staff friendly, Cabin stewards attentive and the ship welcoming and comfortable. Good was brilliant in the Buffet and I ate in the Glass house. Lots of choice and very good quality. I found all the ports nice to wonder round and the weather was brilliant. Can I pick a fault ...None whatsoever. Captain Turnbull is a great guy always willing to chat to passengers and share a story or two....yes he is Human and does a great job...so I don't agree with your comments and TBF there is nothing in your video that backs up anything you said.... Very strange Vlog / review

Your experience on Azura was exactly the same as we encountered on their new ship Iona. Cost cutting, less staff and a general watered down experience. Been on many P&O cruises and this was the first where we noticed the reduced standards. Yes we understand the industry have billions to find following the covid years, but we definitely noticed the cuts. Great video.

My overriding thought with so many of these vlogs is that no matter how low the price is and how affordable cruising has become, people still expect bells and whistles as if they are entitled to 5 star service all the way. You answered your own question about why there couldn’t possibly be a ‘welcome aboard’ party with such strung out embarkation but the second gripe about lack of turn down and towel animals strikes me as a prime example of the highest expectations on the lowest budget, I mean does it REALLY matter that you turn down your own bed minus a chocolate? I’ve seen the advertised price for this coming January and it starts at £595 including return flights and what P&O STILL manage to provide is astounding ( especially as there are no service charges which add up to a lot on other lines, and the price you see is the price you pay). Silver Seas and Oceana provide every luxurious touch you can imagine but a typical week will set you back £3000 not £600. I did enjoy the presentation though and, having sailed P&O twice in a year, we are giving Cunard a go in November. We enjoyed Arvia in March and met some great people but others who not only were uncouth, they moaned loud and long. Cruising used to be for the elite (a time when I certainly couldn’t afford it) and it’s now for the masses and boy do some of those masses love to complain.

Great video Matt! Enjoyed it. Very analytical. We were on an almost identical itinerary!

Hi Matt, We cruised with P&O on Ventura - Azura's sister ship - last year in July. I had a great time too, but would agree, those ships are old, clunky, and the buffet is not fit for purpose. Can't remember the service being bad, though two of the 4 speciality restaurants were closed through the voyage. Can't say I've sailed with them before, and wouldn't bother again except for their newer ships, though I'm not one to pick a British cruise experience as it is. Having recently given MSC Virtuosa a try, we were both mainly delighted with the offering and will book with them again. One excellent thing on P&0 though was the Shanty/Irish folk band The Trawlermen, who were legends! I hear they do Princess ships too though. Thanks for your excellent videos!

Hi Matt...love your video's and opinion. We have travelled twice with p&o, on the iona and brittania.. I think you are correct in thinking that the service is better on there newer ships..a waiter walking off with your cruise card is very bad.. We have booked to go to the fjords on the iona in May, it will be colder than the canaries. Hopefully better service than you had.

I did this trip in December when the cutbacks were rolled out.. like yourselves really missed the afternoon tea service.. the low price meant that I used some of the premium restaurants which were excellent... There were only 1600 on board, too... I also had select dining and had no hesitation in having two main courses instead of a starter and main!!! I paid £795 balcony cabin and felt very happy at that price point...

Thanks Matt. Explanation understood😊👍🇿🇦

We did Azura from Malta in September and absolutely agree with your comments. We have done PandO previously and the difference was stark. Yes general we enjoyed it, yes it was cheap but the buffet was only half open, there were no waiters on the decks to bring drinks and the entertainment was amateur. We have booked a special 40th wedding anniversary cruise with them to the fiords in June. This was booked 18 months ago along with the excursions. Yesterday we got an email telling us that 3 of the main ports had changed and excursions cancelled due to berth availability issue. Visiting a rock with 4 lighthouses now! Got a £200on board credit for the rubbish entertainment on Azura. Just litteraly got back off 7 nights on MSC Virtuosa, wow what a difference! Fantastic experience except for getting covid tested positive this morning!. Thanks for the review concurs exactly with the experience in September.

Honestly came back last Thursday from the repositioning and felt like any other cruise. Portions do seem a bit smaller, Menu's a little repetitive but overall a good cruise like pre Covid. If you want more portions waiters were more than happy, could also have a joke with them. Staff went above and beyond. Maybe the staff were having a bad week for some unknown reason. Especially when they spend so long away from home. If they have just joined the ship.... Some people laughed a long queue formed for the coaches in Tenerife at the airport and one person said "I've never experienced a fly cruise like this a long queue never doing this again, before they even knew the reason not many buses had showed up" An accident on the Motorway had happened. Entertainment was also brilliant. Can't wait for October and the year after.

Review! Nah, sounds more like a deliberate winge to me. My experience of Azura, was very good, staff were always attentive, food as you say was very good, yes, I met P & O veterans who said "P & O have lost it, things have gone downhill?" but I must say, I as a new P & O customer did not have any problems. Yes things were dated? but at 10 yrs old, not outrageous. Ok, I agree, portion sizes were small, but every meal was 3 courses, so I am glad I did not end up looking like a pudding, and we were seated as a couple about 90% of the time,. your comments about the buffet are accurate, but all in all, this is a complaint video, not meant to be a review, unless you are deliberetly putting people off,and that will not do, as it is the best value for money cruise out there.

Interesting, will be on this ship in three months time not having sailed on it before and my previous P&O cruise was January 2019 so that 56 month gap should enable me to see if the company have made any specific cost cuts

I suspect most of the cruise lines are cutting back. We've just come back from our 6th cruise with Celebrity. A fab cruise around NZ and we had a wonderful time but we noticed lots of cuts - no welcome drink. Main dining room seems to have less choice, up cost items on some nights, and very poor quality steak. Speciality restaurants keep going up in price (I remember when it was $25) - they seem to be in the $60-$70 range now and again have up cost items. Buffet at lunch was great but in the evening it mainly focused on low quality grill items and burgers and hot dogs. Breakfast buffet seemed pretty good but had no variation at all that I could see throughout the cruise. We also felt the cabin attendants were rushed, our cabin had no loo paper on day 1, a draw full of toiletries in the bathroom belonging to the previous occupant (presumably) and a pair of old socks down by the corner of the bed. I had the Premium drinks package (my wife just the regular one - as she doesn't drink and it was included) and I regularly found that they would just give you the cheap zero brand stuff even if you asked for a branded drink or wine, I even asked for the better stuff off the Premium list to be told several times "don't have it". If you don't have a drinks package on Celebrity prices are incredibly expensive now -a bottle of Peroni running to $12 inc service. If you don't have a deal on the drinks package and want to buy the drinks package its $89 a day + 20% service ($109++ for the premium). Crazily high prices in the "Duty Free" shop. When I queried the high prices in the perfume shop I was told - "oh we will match UK high street prices if you can show us the price". I pointed out UK high street are not duty free and if their best is to match the high street (not a discounter) I might as well buy there. Good to sea that they no longer use plastic bottles for water, but disappointing to see that the tinned water was shipped in all the way from Midwest America. If you basing a ship in NZ and Australia for 8 months I would have thought they would have sourced locally - good water in Australia and NZ! We will probably cruise again with Celebrity but we did come away thinking it would be nice to try another line and maybe its time to go for a better one.

Very honest comments. I'm taking my first P&O trip on the Ventura on a bargain price for a solo, after years of sailing with Marella. Your comments about the service standards seem to echo what's being said on the Facebook groups, so I'm not really expecting much from the trip!

Did you load the flight video?

I think the ships do vary with p&o. We went on Venura last year for a 4 night cruise and it was just ok -quite dated. We went on Britannia in April though for a 12 nighter and thought it was brilliant, especially as it was under £600 each. Service was extremely good, and only a shade below our trip on Cunard which clearly more premium/expensive. Menu in the MDR was small as were the portions, but good quality and I’d rather that then piles poor quality. Based on your review I’ll stick with Britannia for next one. Great review though and appreciate your humorous commentary too.

Just off the iona to Norway and p and o was disappointing. We were on ventura a few years back and everyone was made special but this time it was really disappointing. Agree with everything you said.

Haven't travelled on P&O yet, but have certainly been looking at them. Their newer, larger, 'party boats' don't appeal, so was looking at Aurora and Azura. Now I'm left wondering if I should steer clear of the line.

Done many P&O cruises, Med, Caribbean and to be honest cannot find fault with any of them, Any holiday you can nit pick but for what you pay aad what you get is in my view a very good cruising experience.

We had a very similar experience Oct 22. We sailed from Southampton to Spain and Portugal. But overall we enjoyed it. It was a very cheap cruise.

Sad to hear your feelings on Azura but can understand up to a point as my first cruise many years ago before pandemic was on Britannia of which I did 8 all of which were exceptional. Then since getting back to cruising all has changed for the worse but understandable under the health and safety they have had to employ on ships and my 4 on Iona were lacking on what my experiences on Britannia had been as you say no fanfare or pictures taken on arrival no turning down of the beds and imagine having to wear masks all the time for the staff so sad. Time has ticked on and having just come off Arvia apart from most of it enduring a cold and cough ( not Covid) I loved every minute with excellent food options outside MDR which I don’t like doing as I am on my own and hate shared tables, freedom dining times but mdr as per comments from others was a bit stressful , good entertainment and some lovely waiting staff even though you came across a few grumpy ones. My main gripe was with my fellow passengers hogging sun beds and seats and being very selfish but it was a big ship and fully booked so a lot of people together on a 6 day crossing of the Atlantic is not something I will be doing again . Hope you get a good experience with p and o in the future 👍

Another excellent video, travelled with P & O a few times, one good, two ok and one poor with a similar experience to yours on Brittania. Never had that on any other line, very odd. I doubt we will travel with them again.

Well thats me well put off booking a cruise

More and more mainstream cruiselines skip the evening cabin service. Most cruiselines are downsizing portions at the MDR. Lobster night contains one lobstertail. Like to have another one....you have to pay an extra charge. Thanks for the vid. Unfortunally i see to many bad reviews of P&O.

Agree with nearly all your comments Matt. We started our cruising journey with P&O 20 years ago on Aurora and have travelled with them a few times since. (But have also tried other lines: Celebrity, Cunard, Princess, RCI, so are by no means blindly loyal to one line). Last summer we did a similar 1 week fly-cruise on Azura (from Malta, which is it's summer base) and like you we were mainly attracted by the price (£95 pppn including flights & tips really was a bargain) and so were prepared to overlook several shortcomings. But the ship was only at 60% capacity which I think made the lack of staff in some areas less noticeable. But it's indisputable that service standards have gone done since we first sailed with P&O, and it just isn't the "premium" experience it used to be. The lack of evening turn down service may be considered minor (do you really need that chocolate on the pillow?!) but I've read reports that where for example you have more than 2 passengers in a cabin the chore of having to make up the extra beds yourselves each evening is really not something you would be expecting to do. And it's smaller things too - like being able to get the restaurants to store the unused half drunk bottles of wine for you to have the next night, that is no longer available. You suggest that P&O are concentrating all their efforts on their new mega ships (Iona & Arvia) and to some extent that may be true. (We tried out Iona on a post Covid "cruise to nowhere" in 2021 and it was lovely, all shiny & new, but then it was only a third full... The reports I've read since seem to show that those ships too are suffering serious staffing issues with severe over crowding in many areas and 2 hour waits to get into dinner!) So to sum up I don't think we'll be going with P&O any time again soon. The 5000+ capacity ships are not really for us, and there are plenty of other lines & ships we've yet to try (Viking & Holland America have their attractions, and we also still have a soft spot for Cunard. And if you thought P&O was formal you should try them!)

I wonder if the viewers realise they get small lessons in maths and statistics as well as excellent reviews every time they watch a Matt Video?!

We have just done the Azura Greek cruise from Malta and agree 100% with everything you've said. As a veggie it was diabolical food. Staff lazy and unattractive. Entertainment at times dire. We WONT be doing another p&o cruise.

I’ve just come off Azura after 12 night transition cruise and I had a good time ! Oh what a shame not a fan fair when you got on !!!! Get a life and watch the muster video or be prepared to stand for an hour to say you’ve done it Yes there were cutbacks but not enough to say I had a bad time especially when the problems faced with what is going on in the world at present ! Yes food items were smaller but I just ordered large and not a problem, you find it a problem I didn’t entertainment was good apart from one act ! Would I after 10 cruises pre pandemic sail with P&O again? Definitely as I enjoyed my time on board as did most people Sorry but you need to get real and face up to the problems that all cruising companies face and alot of what you say has been on our previous cruise on Celebrity so what do you say to that Well done P&O considering you need to recoup 2+ years on no money See you in June 👍😂

sorry, but this "cruise" looks more like a glorified long haul Ferry service.