We’ve recently returned from a 14 day Mediterranean cruise with P&O on their newest ship Arvia. As I was putting a cruise review together, I realised I had A LOT to say about food and drink. As usual. So instead I’ve put my thoughts on drinking and dining onboard Arvia in a blog post all of its own!

We sailed on a two week Mediterranean cruise departing from Southampton in May/June 2024. I’ll post more about each destination over the coming weeks but our itinerary included cruise stops in La Coruña, Palma de Mallorca, La Spezia, Marseille, Barcelona and Cádiz.

Dining onboard P&O Arvia

P&O’s largest ship Arvia has 30 places to eat and drink onboard, so you’ll never be short of options. Venues range from casual cafes and the ubiquitous cruise buffet, to speciality dining with world-class menus. I was impressed with the variety of food available, and particularly the casual dining options. The buffet was a little more hit and miss. Or maybe that was just the clientele.

Included Dining

Once you’re on board, you don’t have to pay a penny for food unless you want to. Arvia has two main dining rooms (aka MDR); Meridian, and Zenith. All meals here are included in the cruise price and you can dine here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We only ate here for dinner, but Ma and Pa Lee took breakfast on a couple of sea days.

The menus are on rotation but are the same in Meridian and Zenith so we chose whichever virtual queue was smaller. On the evenings we dined in the MDR I did see a lot of repeat items on the menu. If you choose to eat there all the time I think the menu would soon get a little boring. Unless you’re Ma Lee and opt for the tomato soup every night.

There is a specially curated menu on gala nights, available in both MDRs, and also in The Olive Grove. Whilst the Olive Grove remains smart casual on gala nights, you will be expected to adhere to a formal dress code in Meridian and Zenith.

Virtual Dining Queues onboard P&O Arvia

Unless you pre-book an early dining slot prior to boarding, there is “Freedom Dining” onboard Arvia between 6:30pm-9:30pm. You can either join a waitlist in person at the venue, or you can use the My Holiday App (no wi-fi required) to join a virtual queue for your desired restaurant. When you join a virtual queue you’re asked how many will be dining, whether wheelchair access is required and if you want to share a table with other diners outside of your party.

Most evenings our wait was between 30-45 minutes. You get a notification when your table is ready, and a 15 minute period to get to your chosen restaurant. This worked much better than our fixed dining time on Celebrity Silhouette. It meant that we could plan our dining onboard Arvia around shows in the 710 Club or the theatre. We got into the habit of joining a virtual dining queue as soon as they opened at 6:30pm, grabbing a drink at the nearest bar, and awaiting our slot.

The Virtual Queue “mostly” worked well for dining onboard Arvia but there were a couple of niggles. It’s far too easy to accidentally leave a queue, with no “are you sure?” prompt. As Mr Fletche found out. The notification is within the app, so you have to keep refreshing your screen without accidentally leaving the queue. Sometimes the queue numbers just don’t seem to come down. We took to joining multiple queues on multiple devices, and then leaving the queue once one of us got the notification.

Other included dining onboard Arvia

There are two other included restaurants which give a wider variety of options for dining onboard Arvia. The 6th Street Diner offers all-American style cuisine and is an excellent alternative to the MDR for breakfast or brunch. I heartily recommend the fried chicken and waffles. The venue commits enthusiastically to its 1950s theme, with period decor and an upbeat soundtrack. 6th Street Diner opens a little later than the other venues at 10am, so is perfect for a sea day breakfast after a lie in.

The Olive Grove is a Mediterranean restaurant, with grazing boards, sharing platters and regional cuisine, open for breakfast and dinner. Our meals here were on a par with anything served in the speciality restaurants. It’s designed in the style of an Italian trattoria, with trailing greenery and candles suspended from the ceiling.

Both 6th Street Diner and The Olive Grove can be booked on the My Holiday App for evening meals. Breakfast (both) and lunch (6th Street Diner only) is walk-in only. Menus rotate on Week 2 of a 14 day cruise.

Also included in your cruise fee is the Horizon Buffet, and The Quays. The Quays is a vibrant food hall with a choice of counters. There’s a fish and chip shop (“Hook, Line and Vinegar”) and Asian-inspired street food from “Fusion”. You can even get a traditional British roast in a jumbo Yorkshire pudding (from, er, the aptly named “Roast”). You can also get breakfast at The Quays, with each counter offering a different option. There’s also a small continental selection, with cereals and fruit. Sadly, The Quays didn’t offer dairy alternatives to its milk offering, unlike the Horizon buffet.

We didn’t use it, but Taste 360 on the lido deck offers fast food favourites: burgers, hot dogs and pizzas. It’s perfect for those spending the day around the pool or if you want a quick takeaway snack.

Thoughts on the buffet

The Horizon Buffet was more than a little chaotic at times. Polite passenger etiquette seems to go out the window when people are allowed to pile their plates with three courses at the same time. I saw one woman stuffing a ridiculous amount of fruit into a bag underneath her child’s pushchair. At times, finding clean cutlery was like trying to find hen’s teeth. Tables would go uncleared, whilst guests wandered around with trays piled high. Staff would close off sections of the buffet area and seating areas seemingly without warning.

The choice and quality was miles behind any of the other dining options on Arvia. It did do full English breakfast items very well. I couldn’t get a decent sausage or baked beans on Celebrity Silhouette for love nor money. But lunchtimes seemed to revolve mainly around roasts (Brits love a roast!) and curries, with very little diversity. Even the salads were lacklustre, and desserts largely tasteless. We popped there for a quick breakfast on shore days but tried to avoid at all other times.

Speciality Dining onboard Arvia

As well as the included restaurants, Arvia has a number of speciality dining options which attract an additional charge. Some could be booked in advance of sailing; others were available on a virtual queue basis. There were regular pop-up helpdesks on the first few days of the trip, and there was always the option to book in-person (subject to availability) at each venue. The speciality dining options on Arvia include:

• Keel & Cow – gastropub
• Green & Co/Mizuhana – plant-based and sushi
• The Beach House – Caribbean and American fare *
• Sindhu – Indian Restaurant *
• The Epicurean – fine dining and afternoon tea *
• The Glass House – wine bar and small plates
• Limelight Club – dinner and cabaret *

(* Book in advance of your cruise to guarantee a spot)

Ma and Pa Lee booked to dine at Sindhu in the second week. Sadly it didn’t meet expectations and the dishes were underwhelming. Those going expecting a curry – or a Brit’s idea of a curry – may be disappointed. The Beach House on the other hand wowed us all. We picked this restaurant on the middle Saturday of our cruise, a pivotal point on which to celebrate Ma and Pa Lee’s birthdays.

Epicurean is the fine dining eatery on Arvia. We decided to sample their afternoon tea rather than the evening menu. If the desserts in the buffet were lacklustre, this is clearly where they focus all their pudding energy. We come away clutching half of our bounty. The scones make perfect elevenses the following morning but we leave the other cakes behind in the cabin fridge.

Pa Lee and I tested out the promise of the “Best Burger at Sea” at Keel and Cow. I’m not sure if I’ve had a burger at sea before, so this was definitely top of a chart of one. Ma Lee’s gourmet fishfinger sandwich was a sight to behold, accompanied by chips and curry sauce. This was well worth the supplementary charge.

There’s an ice cream parlour (Ripples, on Deck 8 and also Deck 16 in the Skydome) and a patisserie and coffee bar (Vistas, Deck 6).

With two weeks on board we had plenty of opportunity to dine around. All in the name of blog research, naturally. Between us we ate at all of the speciality restaurants apart from Green & Co/Mizuhana. Mr Fletche and I did intend to go for sushi at some point but it never seemed to happen.

P&O Arvia Dining Options – Final Thoughts

Apart from the hit and miss buffet, we didn’t have a bad meal on Arvia. The variety of dining options far exceeded those on Celebrity Silhouette. The cost of dining at the speciality restaurants within the reach of even the most budget-conscious cruiser. The most expensive meal was The Limelight Club, which was £25pp for a three course meal and West End standard cabaret. This was probably the “fanciest” meal we had, but even Ma Lee – who likes a menu on the simple side – was wowed.

Mr Fletche and I particularly enjoyed our small plate selection from the Glass House – naturally accompanied by a bottle of wine. Olives stuffed with orange segments? Give me more. Even the trio of sugar-free desserts were deceivingly decadent. Of the included restaurants, I particularly liked the vibe of 6th Street Diner. Lots of neon, pastel pinks and blues, even a Wurlitzer jukebox (ask the staff about tokens) with an awesome rock n roll soundtrack. The only thing missing was roller-skating servers.

Drinking onboard Arvia

As with dining, Arvia is not short on drinking options. Starting at the Grand Atrium, The Amber Lounge on Deck 6 is the perfect pre-dinner meeting spot with regular entertainment on its stage. They did seem a little too fond of flamenco though. (“Oh, listen, Spanish guitar and castanets. AGAIN”). Also overlooking the Grand Atrium, on Decks 7 and 8 respectively are the relaxing bars of The Glass House and Keel and Cow.

Don’t forget you can take your drinks from bar to bar, or even to a restaurant! Mr Fletche and I shared a bottle of white wine from The Glass House, and it came with us to the 710 Club afterwards! You can also bring tea and coffee from the Horizon Buffet or the Quays rather than purchasing a costly Costa Coffee 😉

In the Crows Nest a pianist gently tinkles the ivories in this sophisticated bar with panoramic sea views. And sometimes he plays songs you might recognise. In fact, guess the song became one of our favourite pastimes. His version of Hotel California had to be heard to be believed. How someone can sing just one in every three words astonished us.

Anderson’s Bar is a serene place to relax, with plenty of cosy nooks to hide in on sea days when you just don’t want to be found. It even has a book swap and games cupboard set up at the front of the bar. Close to the Deck 6 restaurants, it’s perfect for an aperitif, and it has a wide gin menu. Mr Fletche would not let me start a new jigsaw. After all, there’s been an unfinished one living on our dining table for 6 months now.

P&O distils its own Marabelle Gin in collaboration with Salcombe Gin, and also has it’s own Golden Tide rum! You can order both in all bars, and also purchase a bottle in the onboard duty free shop.

Brodie’s is Arvia’s pub and sports bar, with big screens and fruit machines. It’s also the go-to place for (the very popular) quizzes – good luck getting a seat – and karaoke. We were treated to a rendition of Bring Him Home from Les Miserables that Colm Wilkinson would have been proud of. Honestly, I thought we’d stumbled on some random musical theatre soundtrack. After all the playlist in Brodies could be a bit eclectic to say the least. I can’t remember the last time I heard Nick Kamen’s “Each Time You Break My Heart“.

The Beachcomber Bar on Deck 18 is adult-only, and also has an excellent pool with built-in (dry) seating areas. We avoided the swim-up Infinity Bar, preferring to stay on the drier side. Something about a packed swim-up bar gives me the ick. Are all those beer-swilling guests REALLY getting out the pool to pee?

P&O – Drinks Package or Pay-As-You-Go?

On this occasion we didn’t opt for a drinks package. We crunched the numbers and it seemed an awful lot to pay on top when individual drinks costs seemed quite reasonable – certainly cheaper than they were on Celebrity Silhouette. A classic drinks package is £49 per person, per day. Almost £1400 for two people is quite the additional spend. Most days we barely reached this between us. Especially on shore days, when we would eat and drink ashore and contribute to the local economy. Our final drinks bill came to £600 for two of us. That’s less than the cost of a classic drinks package for one person.

Bar drinks were comparable to British pub prices. There were some standard drinks on each bar menu, but others were specific to certain venues. The beers were pretty generic but we could get a decent Adnams Ghost Ship or Broadside from the Keel and Cow bar, or a “Jolly Olly” IPA from Olly Smith’s The Glass House.

Onboard Arvia, a standard pint price was £5.25; a 175ml glass of wine was £5.75-£7.15, with large glasses rising to a tenner. With all four of us drinking wine at dinner, it made sense to buy a bottle for around £22. Cocktails were around £7.50, with mocktails coming in at around £4. Spirits were £4-£4.50 for a single, with posh mixers or coke adding up to £3.00.

There’s tea, coffee and water freely available at the buffet, and fruit juice at breakfast; you can also get free glasses of iced water at any bar or restaurant. In a recent change to the policy, you can no longer take bottles of spirits onto a P&O cruise ship, although you can bring up to a litre of wine or Champagne per passenger. You can bring aboard unlimited soft drinks. We preferred to save space for clothes.

I hope this gives you a little taste (pardon the pun) of the drinking and dining options onboard Arvia! You can find my full Arvia Cruise Ship Review here.