Top 10 Reasons Why We Will Not Be Cruising With P&O Cruises In 2025 or 2026
We love to cruise, are based in the United Kingdom, will sail on all ships, from the biggest to the smallest and from the newest to the oldest and are interested in many of the destinations on offer from P&O, so as the cruise line with the most ships sailing out of the UK, they should probably are go to cruise line- right?
That just isn’t the case and when we look at some of the great cruise ships the line are investing in, it is a sad fact that for us, there are just too many issues that the really need to overcome before we will choose them.
Our Top 10 Reasons Why We Will Not Be Cruising With P&O Cruises In 2025 or 2026
Lack of Entertainment
Going back to pre-shutdown days, this was something the line was cutting back on but since then, it has got to the point where it is one of the biggest turn offs for us when thinking of sailing with the line.
Seeing high quality shows and listening to high quality musicians is a big part of cruising for me and my wife but all we hear from friends and families is what is missing on their cruises with P&O.
A big bug bearer of ours is not having live musicians playing in the theatre for productions shows and whilst the line is not the only one to use a recording instead of live performers, it for us is one of the big indicators of where the line is at the moment.
Another indicator is the lack of guest performers, with only a couple doing a show each on the last 2 week cruise my mum took with them and few performances in areas like the foyer and lounges.
Oddly, it seems there newer and bigger ships are the worst for this which are the ships that are the biggest attractions for us to sail with them.
Changing of the Guards
The line finds themselves in a period of change and some bits just aren’t keeping up with other bits which is leading to a big juxtaposition between those who have sailed with the lines for a number of years and those who are new to the line, and maybe even cruising.
Not too long ago, the line were a relatively up market one and there was an expectation to be smartly dressed on a night in the restaurants and theatre and to dress up for formal nights.
That was all well and good as the line made all of that clear and those onboard either agreed to it or it was something they enjoyed doing.
Over the past few years, the line has tried to entice new customers and new cruisers by offering low fares and marketing towards those who usually head to a Spanish Costa for some fun in the sun.
If a holiday for you is about relaxing, enjoying yourself and getting away from the stresses of work whilst been on a tight budget, you don’t want to spend a lot of money buying suits and formalwear and you don’t really want to wearing it anyway.
With plenty on the ship still from the old days and getting dressed up and with the line still expecting it, there has been many incidents of conflict between the two groups and for us all of that is just not of interest to us on holiday.
Lack of Imagination For Itineraries
To be fair to the line, P&O do offer some interesting itineraries, including some that we consider amongst the best to sail out of Southampton in both 2025 and 2026, but the problem is that those are amongst the most expensive and tend to be for 30 or more nights and therefore out of the reach for most cruisers.
For this list, we are focusing on their more ‘regular’ cruises of between 7-14 nights and it is with those cruisers that we feel the line tends to just go through the motions.
The line almost solely focusses their regular length itineraries on the most popular cruise regions available from the UK such as the Canaries, the Western Mediterranean. Northern Europe and Norwegian Fjords.
Whilst all great locations and well worth visiting, to make thing worse, the lien also tends to focus on the same ports in those regions with little variance in their own itineraries and when compared to over lines.
Limited Dining Options
When we travel, we love to try the different food of the countries we visit and that is the same when we cruise.
On our favoured lines, they offer dishes from the countries that we visit and whilst they may not always be the most authentic, at least the effort was there but unfortunately that is something P&O just aren’t interested in.
Many of those who sail with them love the fact that they have all of their home comforts onboard, and that’s great, but it just doesn’t work for me and my wife.
Lack of New Technology Usage
When it comes to implementing new technology, there are two different areas that are really of interest for me and that is technology to improve the environmental impact a cruise ship has on where they visit and technology that can make your experience on the ship better.
There are lots of things that can be done for both of those things and with new technologies coming along every time a new family of ships are designed, it is fascinating to see what the next new ship can offer.
Sadly, P&O tend to only do the bare minimum needed when it comes to technology for environmental reasons and much less than that when it comes to improvement the onboard experience.
Constant Delays
There is a popular YouTube channel, hello captain, for cruise fans in the UK where they can watch cruise ships arrive and depart the port of Southampton and anyone who has watched that will know, the schedule time for P&O ships is a guide at best.
It has become a bit of a running joke of us to try and guess the set sail time for ships that our friends and family are cruising on and whether they will still be up to see their sail away.
In many ways, watching you pull away from your departure port and setting off on your adventure is a when a cruise holiday really starts and we love to watch it happen but with delays often meaning P&O don’t get going until the early hours, we would opt for some kip instead.
Constant Itinerary Changes
If you just love to cruise and don’t really care where you are visiting, this one won’t matter too much to you but for me, the destinations that we visit is the most important part of our getaway.
Me and my wife put in quite a bit of effort before choosing an itinerary to choose a getaway that visits only ports we want to visit, that offer plenty of time in those ports to do what we want to do and often we try and pick itineraries that will see us be the only ship in the port.
It is frustrating with all of that in mind when we get the dreaded email shortly before setting sail that a change in port has happened and whilst there are good reasons for that to happen, it can often be about saving money for the line.
When you are told in advance, you can at least research the new port to make sure you can make the most of your time onshore, but the worst thing is when you are only told about a change once you’ve set sail, or even the day before you are due to visit a port.
Thankfully, that is something that is especially rare and has never happened to us, but it is something that seems to happen fairly regularly for P&O.
Whatever the reasons for that, it really shouldn’t be something that keeps happening and the line really need to improve their communication with it as the worst case we know of is someone we know were due to arrive in Marseille but they were told the day before that due to ‘operational reasons’ they wouldn’t be going there and would have an extra day at sea.
Upon a quick check of the port schedule, we found out that the port was full that day and that is of course something P&O would have known months in advance, so it just puts us off sailing with them.
Poor Layouts
This is more of a problem for the newer ships in the line but there has been a weird thing where their ships are designed with corridors that just end and parts of the deck that cannot be reached from other parts of the same deck.
This is something that is happening with other lines, including Norwegian, but P&O seem to be taking poor design to the extremes.
Another big issue that has made their newest ships become a bit of a joke is the infamous ‘balconies’ that are on the promenade deck.
Not only does that mean that you can have people constantly walking past your balcony but some even have sunlounges or hot tubs outside of them.
Tired Ships
P&O as a brand have one of the longest histories of any line and even as the modern day version where they are just another brand of the Carnival Corporation, they still have a long history.
It is probably not too surprising that some of their ships are on the older side but whilst most other lines in a similar situation have taken the opportunity over the past few years to take their older ships out of service and totally redeveloped them, P&O just seemingly want to do it on the cheap.
Instead of taking the chance to bring them up to modern standards and to make their older ships feel like you are on a new one when onboard, some of their ships feel tired.
Lack Of Feeling Like You Are Holiday
Despite been American owned and their ships sailing up the flag of convenience of different countries, they still try to offer a British cruise experience.
For some that is great but for us who like different experiences, it just doesn’t work and does nothing for us, especially with some of the issues it has led to in recent times, with non-Brits been targeted by drunken yobs.
