Worst experience from any cruise,( 21). Mostly the food was terrible. I only had hot food once the whole time, (7th of August, 2010) and that was after I complained bittterly to the Catering Officer. The portians were small, unappetising and cold. It started of that way from my 1st meal and after several days, I complained and the Officer in Charge, did promise to improve the food. Wll that night I did get hot food, and so did the whole table, one person said that they wanted to sit with me from now on, BUT the next day it was the same again, small cold and tasteless. From then on i just pit up with it, and said, "Never again!!", Since then whenever I have cruised , I always mention the Pacific Jewel, and every single person,( except 1) I have spoken to, said the same thing, the one person that did like the food said, that it was her first cruise! I vowed never to go with P&O again. But then I did end up doing 2 more on the Pacific Pearl, one to Tahiti for 28 days, on the 1st of July, 2011 and another one, can't remember the date, only because it was newly renovated,but they were fine and the food was hot and tasty every meal. So I am sorry, but I will never cruise with the Jewel again!
P.S. The year was 2010, but there was no indicator to tick that!

my husband an i went on a cruise the jewel for the first time for our anniversary an it was awesome they made us so welcome i even got to meet the captain an have a pic taken with him he put his hat on my head i miss the jewel xx

I've been on many P&O Australia cruises, never once before have I complained.

1. Cruise Card Spending Limits for children
Based on the hassles I've had on previous cruises about setting spending limits for children on their cruise cards (usually being told what the shore based staff say is completely wrong), before this cruise we rang and triple checked with customer service onshore. The first lady we spoke to said we only had 2 choices: 1 - prepay $300 cash on each childs card, or 2 - link it to our credit card with no spending limit. When we asked if P&O think it acceptable to basically give children unlimited access to spend on our credit card she thought it perfectly ok! The second time we rang, we spoke with a supervisor, who said they dont normally do it, but in the case of 2, would make a special case for us and set a spending limit of $100 for each child.

When we got on the ship we were told all this information is WRONG. In fact the person on reception said the shore staff DONT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING, and have no idea how it actually works on board. They went further and said this is a constant problem for them with parents being told the wrong information, and someone from shore staff should come for a cruise and find out how it actually.

For anyone else goolging this issue, the on board solution is the simple one, you CAN set a cash limit of ANY amount, on anyones cruise card. Which is NOT what customer service tell you.

2. P&O Double dip your credit card
When we got off and checked our credit card, we noticed the available balance had been reduced by TWICE what we spent on board. I rang P&O and the terse response I got from the customer service person was 'its in the terms and conditions what we do', and, 'yes it is confusing. some customers actually cancel their cards thinking they are being defrauded'. The snotty customer service guy I spoke to then sarcastically said, 'well if you are suffering financial hardship I can fax the bank to get it released right now'.

It turns out they take an AUTHORISATION for the growing amount you owe as the cruise progresses. At the end they take a PAYMENT for the final amount. But the AUTHORISATION doesnt cancel off your credit card for another 5-10 business days after you disembark. Which begs the question.... if I had a credit card with a $20,000 limit, and spent $15,000 on my cruise, the AUTHORISATION would grow to $15,000, but when they came to take the actual $15,000 PAYMENT there would only be $5,000 left on my card ?

3. The $2,000 Onboard Spending Limit
When our on board spending passed $2,000, I was summoned to the reception, and was told EVERY time you pass spending $2,000, you have to actually make the payment and clear your account. I was also told its a new thing and customer service onshore should be telling passengers, but arent. So if you spend over $10,000 you are going to get dragged down to pay the balance 5 times during your cruise! I was told someone onboard had already passed $8,000, and that was how it now worked to prevent P&O having any hassles with passengers not being able to pay their bill on disembarking. The thing that doesnt add up, is I stood there at reception onboard while someone rang my credit card company and took the $2,000 payment, and was told my balance was now zero. Yet when I got off there was no $2,000 payment on my statement, and it conflicts with 2 above. It is so confusing I have no idea what they are playing at.

couple of other things we experienced....

4. In the La Luna restaurant we had a LIVE caterpillar crawling across one of our chinese dishes.

5. There is only 1 main outside deck to sunbath on and the music is so loud (and btw I grew up on heavy metal), we could hear it inside in our cabin 2 decks below. So dont expect a peaceful sunbath on deck around the pool.

6. They confiscate ALL alcohol you take on board. We thought we'd be ok with 1 bottle of expensive French Champagne for a special occasion, but no, they took it off us. Even when we explained it was to celebrate our son beating Leukemia, who is a ship fanatic, and autistic, and was with us, and 3 years ago when he had been in a wheelchair for 3 years never thought he would actually get to go on a ship. P&O still said no way, it wasnt their fault it was 'Australian Law', even though the bottle was onboard, we were in international waters. Absolute B.S. It was all about not losing one extra sale onboard.

7. So in view of 6 above, on the FIRST DAY we rang room service to order a bottle of white wine, and of the 4 on the room service list was told 3 of them were out of stock.

8. We had 2 other adults with us in our cabin to watch us leave a port and rang up room service to order some drinks, they refused us, saying we had already had 1 bottle of wine, and 2 beers that day, and thats the limit per cabin.

Its the first time I've ever got off a P&O Australia cruise with NO INTENTION of ever going again with P&O.

crew where so helpful shows world class food excellent