After we returned from our recent P&O cruise I felt that somethings on board could be improved so I wrote a quite lengthy email to their customer service. The main issues were:
- Not enough room in the accommodation corridors to manoeuvre a wheelchair or walker around housekeeping trolleys without scrapping wheels along walls or damaging your knuckles. To ask a cabin steward to move his trolley into an alcove was like talking to a brick wall, apart from one or two that were extremely helpful.
- Lack of information for passengers who had registered a disability with regard to gangways at ports, emergency procedures and access to the sports deck via a lift on deck 17.
- The Cookery Club is not accessible to anyone who is disabled as they do not have an adapted workspace.
When you contact P&O customer service you have to give them up to 28 days to reply and I just knew that they would take that time to get back to me especially as I had requested that I spoke with someone. As I foretold their customer service contacted me on 27th day. The chap that I spoke with was very polite and we discussed my issues to which he has given me proposals of how the issues will be tackled.
The issue of cabin stewards not manoeuvring their housekeeping trolleys so that people can pass is going to be addressed by giving the stewards some awareness training. I was a bit astounded to be told they are the only crew members who do not receive this. Being as they are the ones who have day to day contact with passengers I found this a bit odd?
Lack of information for passengers who have registered a disability will be looked into and the proposal is that P&O will produce a pre-cruise information pack for passengers.
The issues with The Cookery Club were still being looked into so this was not really discussed but was happy to leave that there for the moment.
The main surprise was that as the call was ending the chap said that he would like to give me some on board credit which would be added to my next cruise and I accepted the £100 credit. I was promised that a confirmation email would be sent detailing our conversation and I was more than happy to leave it there. That was on 16th June and by the 20th June I had still not received a confirmation email and so I sent an email asking in a polite but firm manner for confirmation of the OBC offer and details of what we had discussed. I did receive an email on the 26th June as promised and some more information regarding TheT
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| The Cookery Club |
Cookery Club, my comments and concerns have been passed onto the Disability and Mobility Management Team for further investigation as P&O who are fully committed to providing all their passengers with equal facilities and opportunities. The email states that they will be able to take action with regard to this.
On so many occasions I am told something will change and it never does, but with this I am determined to get it changed. I have the chaps direct email and will be contacting him again shortly if I don't receive an undate. For far too long disabled people have been happy with their lot but I am not and I will continue to fight for equality.
I may be wrong but studying the deck plans for P&O's Britannia indicates that the Sports Deck has the promenade running around the edge and it appears not to be accessible for disabled or mobility challenged cruisers. I hope I am wrong but I fear I may be right. For a few weeks now I have done my usual research that I do before every cruise, some people say that I am a bit OTT but I have found you need to do a hell of a lot of research if you are disabled because the information is simply not there.
I emailed my cruise agent to see if she knew if there was a "platform lift" from the sun deck up to the sports deck but from what she can remember from her visit to Britannia there isn't. If this is the case I am disappointed with P&O, after all they have a "platform lift" on the Azura from the aqua deck to the sun deck and on Ventura from the sun deck to the sports deck. The other thing I have noticed that neither of the lifts are shown on the deck plans. I remember finding out about these "secret" lifts from a forum and again it might be nice to have been told of there existence by P&O.
As disabled cruisers we are expected to comply with certain rules and restrictions set out by cruise lines. For me it was completing a questionnaire and giving detailed measurements of my wheelchair and any aids that I will be bringing. Once complete I emailed it to P&O and I received a reply saying that if I didn't hear from them within two weeks everything was OK and that was it. That was 4 months ago. I had the disabled excursions come through in February and that is another topic to tackle at another time. It would be nice to have more information from P&O as I feel I have been forgotten. I am a partial wheelchair user but can manage a shower in a non-accessible cabin leaving accessible cabins for my fellow travellers who need the space. Once you have registered your disability, condition or illness with P&O I think they should keep in contact with you for updates etc. I am on Britannia at the beginning of May for a fortnight and I have list of things that I will be checking out. So please keep checking back.
