United Kingdom Cruise Reviews

The size of the ship is nice as you have no long lines and the service was wonderful. Food was well prepared and presented. Balconies to the rooms were very disappointing but the cabin size was good. Activities were poor and excursions excessively expensive but the ports of call were just fabulous.

Dartmouth was our favorite port.  I highly recommend the River Ferry and Steam Train shore excursion in Dartmouth!

Overall, the itinerary was excellent!  The Explorer was the most beautiful ship I have ever been on! Great restaurants and great staff!

Tender service was not good.  They only use 3 small tenders from the ship and do not hire any extras from the port authority.  This results in up to one hour plus waits for tender service.  This is especially bad when it is raining!

We missed the port of Cobh, Ireland because the captain did not order enough tugs to get us away from the dock in Liverpool, England.  This resulted in an extra sea day.  Disappointing!

I should begin by saying we have cruised on the various upscale lines.  This was our fouth in a row with Oceania and second time on Nautica.  We are sold on Oceania because we like the size and feeling of their ships.  No mega cruises with thousands of passengers.  Oceania must do a great job in hiring their staff because once again they were exceptional in friendliness and service throughout the ship.  Our penthouse suite gave us plenty of extra room and we had a great time interacting with our Butler and cabin stewards.  Dining on Oceania is like going to a fine restaurant at whatever time suited us.  I am not going to write abook here -- we again had a great time on Oceania & Nautica as did many of our 672 fellow travelers -- most of whom have the same loyal feeling for Oceania and are repeat cruisers.  On-board, we booked a Caribbean cruise for February to escape our midwest winter.

Oceania had good entertainment in the evenings.  On a mid-size ship, you do not get the big Broadway productions of some of the mega cruises we have been on. I  am happy to make this trade-off.  The singers on Nautica were far and away the best of our 4 cruises.  We'd been to England many times and London; still, we did 5 days on our own in London and I am kicking myself for not doing 3-4 more.

Quick efficient check in and the cabin was excellent. The food was also of a high standard but that is all I can say about this cruise. We have never cruised before and after this experience, we never will again. I do not want to be serenaded by yellow or blue coats singing "Sailing" as we leave port. It was all so Butlins. I was almost expecting staff to say Hi di Hi to us. Truly awful.The buffet was like a scrum down with greedy people piling up their plates with food they couldn't possibly eat.

we decided to have our breakfast served to us, which was far more civilised that walking round with a tray of food trying to find somewhere to sit.

water in the cabins should be free and not charged. For what we paid, it should be free and is very mean of P&O.

like many people, we asked for a refund immediately as we thought that we will decided who and when to tip and not be dictated to. We weren't even told that my credit card had been debited. Cheek!

the entertainment was sub standard and more akin to a holiday camp. The daytime activities were a joke and thoroughly boring.

Our first and our last ever cruise! Never again!

Good itinerary, allocated flexible dining which suited us.

Weather not too bad though very little sun until Bilbao.

Nice ship, though lacks a little character perhaps because of its size.

All facilities good though seemed to be somewhat understaffed in open deck areas. All round though a very good cruise.

Somewhat disappointed with cabin allocations as we booked two cabins & were allocated C100 & C101, which we assumed to be adjacent, in fact one is port & the other on the starboard side of the ship - miles away! Not useful when looking after elderly relatives.

great cruise, lovely staff who are all very helpful and friendly. good food and entertainment. Itinerary good with good tours. The best location was Bordeaux as the ship was right in the centre of the city. My cabin was noisy, but I had no alternative because it was the last available single. Very high cost for a single traveller. I would recommend this cruise.

Overall the cruise was better than we expected. After reading poor reviews we were a bit put off but we did get good value for money as it wasn’t an expensive holiday. The ship was clean, the food good and we found things to do if we wanted and we saw he northern lights, Hurray!

a bit late in the year, with rain a regular occurance during excursions, but did mean than many ports especially St. Petersburg were quiet

It was a brilliant cruise, I enjoyed visiting some places I love coming back to and finding out about new places. As well as going off exploring, it was so nice to be able to have some much needed rest and relaxation time with games, jigsaws, dancing classes, sitting reading or chatting and a massage. It was lovely to meet people and make new friends and experience other things such as watching beautiful sunsets, starry night skies and the seals who swam about in the harbours as we left the Scottish coasts. The whole cruise was brilliant, the food delicious, the ship clean, comfortable and all the staff friendly and welcoming.

I hope Cunard does not add stops to all transatlantic crossings but this one was very unique and probably the only time we would go to Reykjavik Iceland, Really happy we did visit there.

I am not sure if I will use P&O again as the officers/ captain was economical with the truth. Different information was given to passengers, no announcements about the hot water system failing, dirty water in cabins and totally wrong information given about the reason for not going to Dublin. Told it was berthing issues as so many ships were in Port , yet on boat watch you could see there was one cruise ship and a couple of other small ships near by. Why not say we have engine trouble? The vibrating was so bad on coming into Southampton that plates fell off the table

Weather was very good to us. Sea was very still. All this helps to make a good cruise. Type

A very pleasant and different way to spend the weekend.

A short party cruise which delivered exactly as expected. Lots of people celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, hen parties and stag parties. Good atmosphere and entertainment. Probably not everyone’s choice but we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Dated ship. Enthusiastic crew. , packages designed to maximise income. Ryanair style , out of 7 days. In Norway destinations Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. Rest at sea or not nice Dundee

Any ship with cabins that small for two isnt a luxury ship, especially with such limited activities for those who werent golfers. If it had been stated that emphasis would be on golfing activities only, I might not have expected so much.

The cruise was disappointing in that all but two of the port stops where by Tender and as I need to use a walking stick and have difficulty going down steps and have a problem with stability getting to and from the Tender.

There was also a considerable number of tour cancellations apparently due to a lack of numbers.

On one of the port calls (Invergordon) the tour was in two parts which did not allow sufficient time a either to enjoy the experience.

The last port of call was cancelled due to the weather which prevented the use of the Tender.

Apart from the above the size of the boat (880 pax) which was only partially utilised (540 pax) and enabled one to establish many friendships. The crew was also excellent and are a credit to Fred Olsen Cruises.

This was a weekend cruise from Southampton to Zeebrugge then back. As such, the demographic was heavily weighted towards groups of friends or work colleagues or hen parties so for us as a couple used to mostly couples-based, longer trips it was a bit of a change but we pretty much expected it to be this way. The ship was a Grand-class ship, similar in layout to several of the Princess line that we'd been on before so the layout was familiar although the darker decor made the ship feel a little more claustrophobic and more like a floating hotel. Service was distinctly hands-off; things we were used to such as being served tea/juice at breakfast or having food cooked for you at the poolside were replaced with already prepared, help yourself offerings instead which disappointed us as we expected a little more than just a floating hotel with some entertainment for the price we were paying. Food quality was average and the service in the dining room across the two nights couldn't have been more different; on the first night it felt like we couldn't be shifted out of our seats fast enough whereas the second night dragged. Bar service was generally good, if just a little too impersonal (with one exception). The pub, Brodie's, had a good range of beers although a lot from the menu wasn't available which I'd understand if picking up the ship in the Caribbean but found more disappointing since it had been berthed in its home port. Loved the wall displays in the Planet Bar. We felt the cruise line deserved another chance to see what it would be like on a longer trip, away from school holidays, away from the sunshine, just to see how an older, more couples-based cruise would pan out so will be trying them again but even if it was exactly the same it would be okay if taken with the attitude that it was to be a cruising experience at the lower end of the refinements scale.

We went on this cruise 5th March 2016(not coming up on list to choose from) purely for the destination.  It is an excellent cruise line for the walking dead/barley living but I would urge anyone who wants more to do than read and nap during the day to avoid at all cost.  The bars all close pretty early and do not stay open even if there are customers there.  The staff really are very nice and go above and beyond to please and do remember your name..  One woman more my age (40's) we met broke out in tears after boarding and told us she asked herself what have we done, meaning by coming onto this very old dated ship full of elderly people.  Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with being old as I hope to be one day and then maybe I would enjoy Fred Olsen more however, in my opinion they should operate more like Saga (who use FredOlsen by the way) and only sell to 50 or even 60+ rather than conning younger people on board to be bored out their brains on sea days.

Went on a mini cruise to Belgium 5th August 2016, the ships public areas were lovely but I felt the service was lack luster.  As it was a mini cruise we only stayed in an inside cabin which unfortunately smelled strongly of urine in the bathroom.  I did complain about the smell both on the ship and after the cruise but felt P&O simply did not care. We did an excision to see villages of Bruges and a chocolate factory, what a rip off.  The so called chocolate factory was a shop not a factory at all and as for the tour of the villages, no comment.    I wish P&O's sailaway music was not so cheesy and they at least varied it every now and then.  I had booked a weeks cruise for September  2017 with them but decided we would rather lose the deposit and booked a week on RC's Navigator of the seas instead. We will not be sailing with P&O again.