On this cruise, there have been two days at sea to fill. The first one was easiest as it was the first day, and so there was a whole ship to explore. Also, the weather was great, and so many were frying themselves on the decks, leaving the lounge spaces inside free for those of us that don’t want to burn to a crisp. The second day at sea is the last day, making it more difficult to fill as now you know where everything is, and this time the weather was dry but chilly, so nobody was brave enough to venture out onto a sun lounger.
Views Revisited
On the first post of the cruise, I wrote about my initial impressions of this cruise and compared them to previous cruises we have been on with Tui, although I suspect that P&O might consider themselves to be a cut above their Teutonic rivals. Now I have had a few days to sample the delights of a P&O cruise more, and my views have tempered somewhat, but I still, on the whole, prefer the setup of Tui.
A good example of the differences is in the ratio of staff to guests. On this cruise, there are three guests to every member of staff. On the last Tui ship we were on, the ratio was 2.4 guests to staff. You wouldn’t think that such a seemingly small difference in numbers would have any noticeable impact, but it does. On Tui, staff are quick to clear away dinner plates and come and offer drinks (many are sold so make money for the cruise liner, so why wouldn’t you?), but here you are left searching for someone. This could be because P&O have taken a decision to place staff elsewhere, but it has been really noticeable to me this difference in service. I should say that this is not because I expect to be waited on hand and foot.
On the other hand the P&O ship feels more well appointed and ever so slightly more up market in its fixtures and fittings. For such a huge ship it is well presented and decked out.
It’s a Fjord!
When Helen suggested coming to Norway I was initially not keen as I felt that once you’ve seen one fjord you’ve seen them all. I still think that holds true but actually the one thing I don’t think I’ve seen much of on this trip are fjords. That’s because you sail overnight along said fjords arriving in the morning at your destination at the end of the fjord. We did spend some time on deck one evening as we sailed out and it was a wonderful view but I don’t feel I needed to see more than that.
That’s Norway done for now. I think we would like to come back and go further north and inland more but we might need to win the lottery before then!