We were lucky enough to be one of the first onboard new P&O vessel Britannia, the largest ever British cruise ship. The stats are awesome – it weighs in at 141,000 tons with capacity for over 3600 passengers, 1398 officers and crew and, at 1,082 ft, it’s longer than The Shard.
It’s immense and beautiful.
It’s modern luxury cruising with the emphasis on food with the help of celebrity chefs Marco Pierre White, Atul Kochhar, James Martin, wine guru Olly Smith, patissiere Eric Lanlard and cheese expert Charlie Turnbull. There are 13 restaurants and 13 bars on board, four swimming pools – one for adults only, a huge theatre, nightclub and cabaret lounges, a cookery school, library, kids and teenagers’ decks and playrooms, full gym and fitness studio, a Medi-Spa with Elemis and hydrotherapy treatments and a £1 million art collection. It’s British style – nautical blues, greens and creams with some pizazz! Think Downton Abbey meets Las Vegas.
Inside the Atrium of Britannia:
Checking in at Southampton and sailing from March 2015
Views from onboard
There are 15 passenger decks with 1,819 passenger cabins of which 64 are suites, some deluxe balcony cabins, 27 single cabins and just 460 inside cabins.
Even the standard cabins are great with a separate dressing/wardrobe area as you come in with plenty of hanging space. All things you’d expect from an international hotel – flat screen TV, toiletries and linens from The White Company, tea & coffee-making, safe deposit box, air conditioning, a sofa bed and best of all an outside balcony (as with most of the cabins on the ship). That the hair dryer is a bit fiddly to plug in and the water from the taps isn’t that nice, are tiny niggles.
During her summer season, Britannia will sail to the Mediterranean, Norwegian fjords, the Baltic, Canary Islands and Atlantic Islands. In winter, the ship will sail 14-night Caribbean itineraries.
Rule Britannia – it really sets the standard of hotel luxury on the high seas.
Sign me up!