10 reasons to cruise with P&O

Hey guys, I have never been on a cruise with P&O but I am verrrry tempted. I’ve heard good things about the ships (brilliant solo balcony cabins) and they cruise a lot from Southampton which is my closest cruise port. Gav and Luke from CruiseMonkeys have taken up the challenge of trying to convince me that I should be cruising with P&O. Let’s see how this goes!

Intro to Gavin and Luke

Anyone who follows our blog will know we are big P&O fans, we have nearly worked our way through the fleet, next May we will be joining Oceana for our 9^th P&O cruise.

I’d noticed Emma has hinted she would like to try a P&O UK cruise a few times on Twitter and her Facebook group, I thought I’d write up this article to try and help convince her to try it!

Easy I thought… but after seeing her enjoying the crazy things like the Flow Rider on her recent cruise I soon realised that this may take a bit of work as P&O doesn’t have fun things like water slides, rope courses and the like.

Gav and Luke

If you’ve previously cruised with Royal Caribbean and are wondering how P&O cruises compare you’ll find everything you need to know here, including which has better food:

7 HUGE Differences Between P&O Cruises and Royal Caribbean

Sea Screen onboard Azura:

Watch movies outside on deck on Azura’s Sea Screen. You can snuggle up under a blanket and watch some of the latest movies on a giant TV screen.

Carry on alcohol and soft drinks

P&O allow you to carry on your own alcohol and soft drinks. There are some changes coming which I have previously blogged about, but even after these changes are implemented, you can still take 1 litre of alcohol per adult which is better than many cruise lines. (More about that here)

British sail away

A sail away party is quite common, but on the British Sail Away P&O go all out. Dancing around the pool to some classic sing-along songs with everyone waving a union jack flag. This is so cheesy its great.

Lots of Southampton sailings

P&O have loads of sailings from Southampton, so if it’s a sneaky weekend getaway, a week-long fjords cruise or a nice couple of weeks to the Med, you don’t have to worry about flying. The best bit with no flying is that there are no luggage restrictions (though, I have seen how Emma pack’s her luggage may not be an issue!). If you live nearby, a weekend break may be cheaper than a weekend in London Town!

**Click here to see how Emma packed for two weeks in a cabin bag!**

Azura in Southampton photo by CruiseMarsh! 🙂

No multilanguage announcements

All announcements are in English only, so you don’t have to listen to the same thing being said 4 times in different languages.

Less formal than Cunard

P&O have a rather relaxed policy on evening wear, smart jeans are fine on a casual night, with formal nights seeing people go out in their tuxes or smart dresses. You only get 2 on these on a 7-night cruise, it’s like having the best of both!

Chocolates at bedtime

Who doesn’t love chocolate? Coming back to your room turned down with a chocolate on your pillow before bed is a really sweet way to end the night!

Room Service

A free breakfast menu is available so that you can wake up in your room with a nice Coffee and Croissant – and then if still hungry hit the buffet or main dining room and fill yourself up ready for the day ahead.

It’s all in £’s

You won’t need a maths degree to work out how much something is costing you, as it is all charged in Great British Pounds!

Reasonable prices

We have found P&O to offer some of the best value cruises, with insides sometimes coming in at under £50 per night. The daily service charge is just £6 per person per day. Cocktails are under £6 with no service charge added per drink and professional photos are about £10.

And loads more!

As well as all the above, you also have afternoon tea, amazing speciality restaurants, a disco onboard so you can dance the night away (and they play current music too!) and shows which don’t require any pre-booking.

Still not convinced? I think there is one more thing that may do it for you…

Freedom dining

Passengers booking Select or Early saver can choose freedom dining. This means you can turn up whenever you want and request a table to your liking, so you don’t have to share with strangers. If there is no table, you get a pager. We always get this, even when we book last minute and don’t get to choose our preference.

Emma says:
Wow! Thank you Gav + Luke. You have convinced me (not that I needed much more convincing). I would love to try P&O. The prices, itineraries and sail away parties are so tempting.

I would love to try P&O to compare the afternoon tea to Cunards… I did enjoy cruising with Cunard but I did find it to be a bit too formal for me. Maybe P&O is a happy medium? Watch this space!

About Gavin and Luke:

We’re Gav and Luke, both in our early 30’s and started cruising 3 years ago! We wish we’d started sooner. On our first cruise onboard P&O Aurora we officially got engaged (the drunken proposal on the back of the Irish ferry didn’t count). We have cruised with Cunard, P&O and now MSC – we think ships are the destination, so we’re happy to revisit ports if it’s on a different ship. We started making videos of our cruises for us to look back on but they seem to have grown in popularity and this started our own blog. Looking ahead, one thing is for sure – we will carry on cruising!

You can find the boys here: CruiseMonkeys and on Twitter here.