Fairly similar experience for me, Michael. I ordered on 3rd November but received the confirmation email immediately. It was then in the "being prepared" status for several days, so I emailed them on the 9th (Tuesday) to find out what was causing the delay and when I could expect delivery. No reply until the next day and it had amazingly changed to "despatched" and it arrived on Wednesday. They responded to my email on Wednesday to tell me it was now ready to be despatched, but it had already arrived by then.
Overall, Waitrose have a lot to do to even provide an adequate customer service. During lockdown we got some home deliveries of groceries and it was almost impossible to book a delivery slot (and we had an additional week allocated as I was on the Covid shielding list). In one delivery my wife had ordered a bottle of Grand Marnier and it arrived with the security tag still attached. Obviously we returned it with the delivery driver, but my wife phoned the delivery store to complain and was told that we could have just broken the neck of the bottle (because her boyfriend had done that)!!! An alternative suggestion was to use a screwdriver to remove it.
Anyway, I shouldn't complain as, technically, I shouldn't be enjoying these multi-buy wine discounts as I live in Scotland, but it works if I order through the Cellar, rather than locally
