6th Street Diner on P&O Arvia - is it worth it? My Review… (Including Photos and Menus)
It’s time to talk about a dining venue that’s exclusive to P&O Cruises’ newest ship, Arvia. That’s right - we’re looking at 6th Street Diner today, which you can find towards the back of the ship on Deck 6. In this post, I’m going to share with you my experience of dining in here, I’ll show you the menu, and I’ll also share my food photos with you.
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Anyway, let’s get back to talking about Arvia, and more specifically about 6th Street Diner.
This place is themed as an American Diner, and it’s totally included in your cruise fare! In other words, you won’t pay anything extra to dine in here. Personally, I think this is great - P&O are clearly trying to relieve stress on other areas of the ship (for example, the buffet and the Main Dining Rooms) by offering alternative FREE dining venues. This is something that I’d like to see more cruise lines offering on the new ships - gone are the days where passengers are happy to crush into the standard venues with no other choices on offer!
6th Street Diner is open daily for breakfast and brunch from 10am - 2pm (10am - 12pm for breakfast, and 12pm - 2pm for brunch), and then for dinner from 5.30pm - 9.30pm. On this point, if you’re coming here for brunch, you should expect a queue to form before the 12pm service starts, but it should move pretty quickly once they start bringing tables into the restaurant to start serving brunch. There will probably be a slight pause in service while they change over, so don’t worry if you feel as though the line isn’t going anywhere!
If you’re planning to eat dinner here, then you should be aware that this venue does comply with P&O’s ‘evening casual’ dress code each evening. However, this also applies on the more formal evenings - don’t worry about being required to get fully dressed up to eat in here - this place offers you a more casual alternative, with the ‘evening casual’ dress code applying every night of your cruise!
During my cruise, I was able to join the ‘virtual queue’ (via my phone) to have dinner here, but wasn’t to eat here for breakfast/brunch. Instead, I just turned up at the venue, was given a pager, and made myself at home along in the main atrium waiting for it to buzz. After waiting for about 40 minutes, it was time to head along for breakfast!
It’s worth highlighting now that this review is going to cover the breakfast offering at 6th Street Diner. Brunch is pretty similar, but dinner does operate from a different menu. Nonetheless, this post should help give you an idea of what to expect, regardless of which meal you’re hoping to enjoy in here!
As soon as you walk into this venue, the effort that P&O Cruises have gone to on the theming is clear - it’s so strong! Here’s some photos of the venue to allow you to have a look around and familiarise yourself…
Before we go any further, how great is the theming in this restaurant? This place could really be ‘on land’ as a diner along Route 66 in the US - I really liked what’s been done in here. The theme doesn’t end with the physical design of the room. There’s also a jukebox in here, and every diner in the morning will have a great 6th Street Diner mug on the table, ready to be filled with coffee. I really loved these mugs, and was really disappointed to find that they weren’t available to purchase in any of the onboard shops!
Anyway, let’s move on now to look at the menu, and then the food. The breakfast menu at 6th Street Diner is really easy to digest - it’s on one page, so don’t worry about being totally spoiled for choice.
I was really undecided between two options on this menu, and so I thought I’d be able to order both of the items that I was torn between. However, my server informed me that it’s policy in here that each passenger is permitted to order one item only - this could be worth noting, as it’s rare for a cruise line to have such a policy.
I really appreciated the fact that you were able to have bottomless coffee in here - another thing that made it feel like a ‘real’ diner in the USA!
Between us (I was cruising with two others this time, rather than solo as I often am), we ordered 2 portions of the ‘Fried Chicken & Waffles’ and one of the ‘6th Street Hash’ - here’s what arrived at the table…
We found all of our food to be really tasty and I’d say that, in hindsight, I was totally satisfied with just one serving - I really didn’t need another meal (especially considering that I’d be eating lunch soon enough, anyway!).
So, would I recommend 6th Street Diner to you for your upcoming cruise on Arvia? In a word, yes! Okay, you’re probably going to have to wait for a table rather than eating straight away if you dine upstairs at the buffet, but I do think it’s worth it to have something a little different in here.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s really great to see P&O Cruises trying to launch new dining venues on this ship, and I’m impressed to see multiple of these come with no additional charge.
If you’d like to check out more posts from my time onboard various P&O Cruises ships, just click here or use the drop down at the top of the page.