"Very Disappointing and expensive!"
My husband, 6 year old son and I were recently on-board the European Highlander and European Causeway for our return trip (travelling at 1:30pm each way) to Northern Ireland to visit family. Firstly, the cost of having to pay £280 return for the privilege of taking our car with us is, we felt, a little extreme. As we had paid quite a lot of money we were hoping to have a nice experience, especially as we had been told about all the great stuff that was available on board i.e. good food, kids club etc. sadly, however, this was not the case. On our arrival at the port, we were told by the adolescent at the ticket point in a surely voice, to “drive round the side” and that was it. As this was our first trip using this port we were unsure exactly what he meant by “drive round the side” so we stopped as we just saw what looked like a closed area with a fence and assumed that was the wrong direction. So we stopped the car and went back to clarify exactly where we should go and what to do, we eventually were told that we would need to pull up to the gate and wait for security to check us through. So not a great first impression it has to be said.
We then boarded the ferry and proceeded up to the lounge area at the bow of the vessel only to find virtually no spare seats at all. We did manage to find 3 seats, then we made the mistake of trying to buy some food. The queues were ridiculous and there were no staff members attending to those in the queue as they were taking orders out to other customers already seated. I am a coeliac and am therefore gluten intolerant - there were no gluten free options or indeed any information pertaining to menu items that were gluten free. I was informed that the wait for a panini would be 15-20 minutes as there were no free staff and so i therefore purchased a plate of cooked frozen chips - not very appetising to say the least, I was able to get a wrap for my son although this was the only sandwich available on the shelves. Having been frustrated by the lack of choice and service I then decided I would go and get some Starbucks coffee from the bar in the lounge. The service there was, again, not the best. There was no direction as to queuing which resulted in my standing there at the bar waiting to be served and the staff members ignoring me and serving people who were coming up for service at other areas of the bar. I waited at least 15 minutes. Also even though it was busy the staff behind the bar felt it necessary to wait until the coffee had actually been poured from the machine before taking the drink to the customer and then taking the money going to the till and making payment - surely it would be easier and quicker to take the order and put the name and drink on the cup, then take payment in order for a faster service??? Also with quite a number of people waiting to be served staff "having a chat" amongst themselves and not communicating with the customers isn't really appropriate either. We had a group of men behind us who were cursing, swearing and drinking heavily - thank fully we had noise cancelling headphones that my son could wear to drown out the noise. No member of staff seemed to think there was anything wrong with this. We were not the only family sitting in this area I might add.
On our return trip we hoped for a better experience sadly it was not. Although we had learnt our lesson with the food and brought our own lunch it was interrupted by a passenger who had sprawled out over one whole seat (one of the curved ones) taking up the space of 4 people who then commenced to snore incredibly loudly drowning out the sound of the not so loud TV. Thankfully the tennis was on so at least we could watch the women's finals even if it was without the best of commentary due to the snoring!!!
So to sum things up we did not have a pleasurable trip with P&O Ferries, we will not be using you again if we can help it as although we would not be able to take our own car it is cheaper for us to
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Overall Rating:
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General:
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Catering:
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Cleanliness:
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Staff:
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Punctuality:
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Recommended?
No
Reviewed by Lia Mcleod who travelled with P&O Irish Sea on European Causeway
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