P&O Cruises, Aurora, Northern Europe Review

Aurora, Northern Europe

P & O Aurora awful
This is very hard to write, considering our last cruise to Norway on Iona I gave 5 Stars as it was an amazing experience. We both had such high hopes and were so happy to be returning to P&O. However reality did not match expectations.
Our trip to Germany and Belgium started going bad on the first night, when we discovered we were sleeping next door to a Rhino. Her snoring was so bad it actually vibrated our bed. Not P&Os fault, our bad luck, so we moved our bed to the other side of the room, which stopped the vibration, not the noise.
Then we were allocated Medina Restaurant as our eating place. On Iona there were 3 restaurants to choose from, on Aurora its either Medina or the free for all at Horizon. Now my wife is hard of hearing, due to back ground noise she felt awkward as could not hear a thing anyone said to her, even I could not talk to her as the tables were so big, so that left us with just the Horizon for the whole trip.
Day two we discovered that the pools and the spas were freezing cold. This did not change for the hole trip, in fact on one day one of the pools was closed off due to the temperature. So basically no pools or spas except for the extremely brave. We tried table tennis but our table became water logged from the leaking roof. We were starting to get an impression that the Aurora was not living up to expectations. Then came the night we were in Germany, omg how can I describe that night apart from disgusting. In the morning I informed reception that our toilet was not flushing. The receptionist replied saying he had a number of complaints of a similar nature. This continued through the day, more and more people coming out of there rooms with similar complaints, escalating to such an extent that the whole ships toilet system had failed, even the public toilets were effected. Complaints after complaints but nothing done culminated in 40 of us in reception at 1130pm which became extremely heated. The poor girl In reception, who was superb, finally asked for assistance after we demanded the chief engineer to update us. Someone came down and informed us all we could leave the ship into port to use the toilets, I just pictured people in their underwear at 3am going into port for a pee. More and more people joined in the heated discussion until finally some stroppy woman in an officers outfit came to update us all. By that time people were saying their toilets, including ours were over topping, some cabins were becoming flooded with effluent. We asked where were the announcements, where were the updates, nothing was forthcoming, only the receptionist telling everyone who complained, not to flush anything. Then to add insult to injury the stroppy woman lied to everyones face by saying this issue only started two hours prior, this caused further uproar as apparently I was not the only one who had complained by now 13 hours before hand. There was no response from anyone, the captain who conspicuous by his absence, no one, and no public announcements because apparently people were asleep, little did they know they would wake up to pee soaked carpets. By the time some cabins were cleaned it was 3am. An absolute nightmare with everyone trying to find a toilet that wasnt overflowing.
So bed time, wife went to take her heart tablets, lovely black water flowed from the taps. Again called P&O reception who said they were selling cans of water. I went ballistic as enough was enough. In the end the poor girl who brought up two cans of water asked me to sign for them which I refused, saying I would see P&O in court rather than pay for water that wasnt black.
The following day, things started to clam down, cabins were being cleaned even though a few people still had problems, P&O insulted everyone on board by printing a one liner saying there had been a small issue with toilets and that nothing apart from paper should be put down the loo. Of course its the customers fault that the whole ships sanitary system failed, silly me.
Ok so it wasnt all bad, lets talk about the good bits, being restricted to Horizon for our food, thankfully there was plenty to choose from. However there was next to nothing to do apart from eat so it was heavily used by loads of people. Also the theatre shows, the 4tunes were good and Josh Adams was superb, he was the highlight of the whole trip. But thats it. The catering and cleaning staff were a credit to the company, totally undervalued, the officers/managers etc, did they have any on board? Surly must have had one to steer the ship, the so called captain Russell Robson, was he onboard? No doubt he was far to important to talk to any of his passengers, especially those who were swimming in effluent in their cabins. So at the end of the trip we could not wait to get home, Would we return to P&O, sadly not, as there must be other companies that treat customers better and provide superior service, especially when such holidays are so expensive. As for Aurora, sell her, scrap her, get rid, she is not fit for purpose. I feel so sorry for the 1800 people just about to board, if no clue as to whats been going on. Finally this is just one from the flood (excuse the pun) you will no doubt receive. So 0/10 must do better.
Peter