On Iona now

[HiddenMickey35]

Any photos please?

[Princess Alison]

Can you get officially married on this ship?

[Andrea1]

Originally Posted by HiddenMickey35

Any photos please?

See more...

I may have a couple, I'll try and put them up.
I also have some of the menus and drinks prices.

[Smilesonfaces]

Originally Posted by Princess Alison

Can you get officially married on this ship?

See more...

I believe you can only have a blessing on a U.K. cruise ship. A wedding can’t take place because Iona/ Britannia are U.K. registered and in the U.K. a wedding has to be in a public place and a cruise ship doesn’t qualify.

We have just returned from Iona today. It was fabulous !

[pinkbelle]

Originally Posted by Smilesonfaces

I believe you can only have a blessing on a U.K. cruise ship. A wedding can’t take place because Iona/ Britannia are U.K. registered and in the U.K. a wedding has to be in a public place and a cruise ship doesn’t qualify.

We have just returned from Iona today. It was fabulous !

See more...

So glad you had a great time did you try the drink in the Flamingo cup?

Having to travel a few days later means I still have half my cruise to go I ordered a flamingo martini in a regular glass last night,it was far too sweet for me, midori, apple schnapps and cranberry juice.
I hope Iona offering was better.

Planning on trying some new cocktails tonight.

[Smilesonfaces]

Originally Posted by pinkbelle

So glad you had a great time did you try the drink in the Flamingo cup?

Having to travel a few days later means I still have half my cruise to go I ordered a flamingo martini in a regular glass last night,it was far too sweet for me, midori, apple schnapps and cranberry juice.
I hope Iona offering was better.

Planning on trying some new cocktails tonight.

See more...

Thank you, we had a fabulous time. I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see anyone with the flamingo cocktail and I forgot I’m so sorry !
I’m really glad you are having a great time and am very envious because I am now doing the washing and husband has already gone back to work for night shift.

The house didn’t burn down, there were no wild parties that I know of, the cat was fed and the house was strangely tidy ! We will be going on holiday and leaving son and daughter again. I have been looking at cruises all morning.

Iona was beautiful, everything so new and clean. The food, entertainment, everything was wonderful. We even had glorious weather. I actually loved the being at sea for the full week and wish they would do more of these cruises.
I had been really disappointed being allocated a Deck 5 cabin and honestly it was great, such a private balcony and so close to the sea. If we sail on Iona again I will be booking deck 5 !

Hope you enjoy your cruise especially after the disappointment of cancelling and would love to hear about it when you are back. You will have to try all those cocktails until you find just the right one !

[kevbrydon]

Hi we were on this cruise and P&O for the 1st time...

agree about the lifts opening & closing quick and was a bit of a pain only 4 in a lift at a time ...but think they would be overcrowded as it stated no more than 17 persons at a time lol

we had a great time and loved the food and service did Coral & Pearl restaurant Epicurean and the Quay fast food section and of course the Horizon buffets also meal at the Limelights Club with fantastic entertainment from Lee Mead and the Limelight band including Laura who was a fabulous singer.

other entertainment was the resident band in the Clubhouse Pulse who did 80's 90's and Disco music though sometimes struggled with vocals..

we did theatre shows of Neil Lockwood? from ELO who was fantastic and a talk with "Marlene" from Only fools & Horse's Sue Holdeness and later on in the cruise a Q&A session with her.. "Festival" done by the resident Iona stage production team was good but felt the "Centre Stage" production was poor..

Loved the Limelight Club for the last night and meal and wished I discovered early on in the cruise that it was open to anyone after the private event from 10.30pm

lovely Ship and every member of Staff was helpful and professional and agree that some didn't engage as much but we put that down to Covid restrictions/attitudes

we also had a balcony on Deck 5 forward 5320 and great location for decks 6,7,8

liked the Skydome for a drink and setting but the acoustics for the Singers & Music shows was bad...like being in a Football Ground and when you cannot quite make out the announcement lol

Most Passengers were friendly too and again felt that some passengers were very cautious about Covid and took extreme measures to avoid you..

couldn't get away with Brodies and don't really do quizzes but plenty of areas to read our books/magazines and to relax and people watch lol

got to say in a kind and courteous way but we loved the Britishness of the cruise as it suited our era of 80's/90's music and the British Comedians ..British Food.. British Entertainment and of course the Ship..

having done DCL 6 times MSC 2 and NCL & Carnival 1 each we enjoyed P&O better
and have actually booked again for next Oct 14 days around Spain & Portugal in a Aft Balcony as tried for a Suite but all Sold out for the next 14 months as you apparently need to book a suite as soon as the Cruise is released

hope this helps anyone considering their next cruise as everything was professional including the Covid test centre (results in 20 minutes too) CPS Parking and the Staff at Check-in

[Smilesonfaces]

Glad you had a good time ! We didn’t go in Limelight club but enjoyed meals in Epicurean and Sindhu and the late night kebab in Horizon ! We enjoyed our meals in Olive Grove although it was too difficult to get a table and we ate at odd times.
The comedian we saw in the Club House was a bit naughty but he was funny 😁 😁
It was a shame about the skydome, the young artists they had on were really good but the acoustics were terrible and I did feel sorry for them. I didn’t think the trapeze act worked very well either. I’m sure these issues will be addressed. I had never heard of Neil Lockwood but he was great and went to see both shows. He was very talented and put on a good show.
I do think the daytime entertainment was a bit lacking. The talks were just sales pitches and there wasn’t much on offer in the daytime. We had such fantastic weather though it wasn’t a problem. The highlight for me was seeing the dolphins on Thursday afternoon.

I think we will book another cruise next year. Not sure if it will be P & O. I am having a good look around for September/ October and will go off itineraries and prices.

Glad you had a good time and you have your next one to look forward to now.

[katiec68]

We were on the same time as Kev and agree with most of what he's said.

This was a pretty much last minute trip for us. We were supposed to be going to Greece with the inlaws but I decided that I couldn't take the risk of being stuck out there and having seen lots of mentions of Blue Light Card discounts I made the call and 5 weeks here we were!

We had a check in time of 1145 so arrived around 1115 - there were already 50 or so cars ahead of us. They didnt check our arrival time but we did have to show our vaccine certificates a couple of times.
Testing went well and by the time we arrived at the terminal our results were back.
We were in a mini conservatory suite (thanks to the blue light card discount!) so got to wait with the suite guests.
While we were waiting DH managed to get on to the app and booked us into the Epicurian for the first 2 nights - both were half price.
We were really lucky to be about 10th on - fabulous. We had to make our way to our muster station, checked in there, then we were sent away having promised to watch the safety video later (which we did!)
We then went into the restaurant for the suite guests and those with 100s of nights under their belts - must say that the champers was lovely - not some cheap tat they dish out on celebration night!

The weather was fabulous - as long as you were on the "right side" - I fell asleep on the sunbed and when I woke up i was in the shade and frozen

We managed to sit out in the sun every day - either on deck or on the balcony. I ran some mornings and by 8-830 all the beds on the all 3 sun decks were reserved. This didnt bother us too much as we have one in the shade (DH) and one in the sun (me!). We found a little seating area just by the running track that suited us fine.

We cancelled both of the shows we had booked - we did poke our heads in and thought "thank god we did". We have rarely been impressed with any shows we have seen on any cruise ship - but unlike Kev we did like the arial acrobats in the sky dome.

However the acoustics in there are dreadful - although there was a singer one night who was great - he picked the right songs for the audience and everyone seemed to enjoy it. There was a girl band who DH had seen reahersing and said were ok - however they seemed really screechy on the night and half way through their show the place was deserted. We did feel for them but it was a combination of the wrong songs for the audience and the acoustics.

We didnt go to see "marlene" but people we spoke to said she was fabulous. We did see Neil Lockwood - I thought he was good but not great - at one stage I wondered how he had managed to get where he is but as the show went on I did warm to him.

We did a couple of the quizzes in Brodies - came second in one and have no idea how we did it! and saw the house band in the Club house on the last night.

Other than that as Kev says - lots of the activities seemed to be hard sells of various bits of rubbish jewellery.
We have previously sailed with P&O to the Baltics and the guest speaker did 2 talks on Alexander the Great and Catherine the great - and he was soo popular that you had to be there 1/2 hour early and then he did 2 more talks afterwards but nothing like that on thic cruise.
No choir or dancing.

Food - we were lucky enough to get our first 2 nights in the Epicurain - the food really cannot be faulted in there. (If it was a land restaurant it would be Michelin star but as they cannot guarantee the sourcing of the food it cannot qualify).
We had issues with our cabin so guest services managed to squeeze us in to the Olive Grove on our last night.
Not quite sure what was going on as there was never any availability on the app and never seemed to be any people in there either!
We ate at Keel an Cow on formal night - it was great seeing everyone dressed up and walking around and we had the large steak to share - fabulous!
We also found the food in the buffet (Horizon) to be limited but great quality - no complaints there.
We LOVED the Quays - you could get omelettes made to order, pancakes/waffles or a full English for breakfast and then from lunch onwards it was fish and chips burgers or asian food. WE had all 3 and DH said his burger was up there with the best. I loved the asian selections - really really tasty!
And dont forget if you are on there there is a salad and desert selection around the corner - as well as a free tea/coffee/juice counter too.
I really like that P&O have done away with the little teeny cups for self service and you can now have a decent sized mug of tea!
We were however VERY disappointed with the Beach House - the menu had changed from our last cruise and although they have removed items with charges the food was diabolical! I had the "Caribbean special" which turned out to be a plate of dry rice and 8 pieces of fried fish that looked like it had been cooked the week before - never mind the day before. I just could not eat it so we left and went to they Quays instead. I know we should probably have said something but I will do something on my P&O feed back abut it. There is no way that anything that bad should ever be served up.

We didnt go to any of the Main dining rooms - we would check the menus and nothing really stood out for us - nothing wrong with them but nothing that I wouldnt cook at home for something special.

Drinks - we're not great drinkers - had a lovely bottle of wine in epicurean , a couple of cocktails and a few cokes - but we did bring our own bottle of wine and had our own cans of coke too - but probably only had a couple of those.

Cabin - we were lucky enough to be allocated a conservatory mini suite on deck 9 - pot luck as to what cabin we got - however we were very unlucky for it to be right about the clubhouse. the first night we thought it was noisy as we were back in our cabin by about 1030pm - the other nights were were a bit late back so didnt notice it as much. On the Thursday night we were back about 10 and the noise was horrendous - cups were moving and you could feel the base through the floor DH complained - and we were offered another room.
We didnt go to the other room until the morning - just for a look as with only 1 night remaining it wasn't worth moving - just as our first night we thought we have just unpacked so couldn't be bothered to move. The customer service guy said that P&O are aware of the issue and have a "contingency room" in place - this however was one of the deck 8 conservatory mini suites where everyone can see right in! So they offered us £150 OBC and a bottle of champers in compensation. That just about cleared our bill and we took the champers home.

The room itself was fabulous - a little narrow but very well designed and having the extra space was great. I really like it that the shower door went in and out so you didnt drop water everywhere. We found there was plenty of space for all our bit and bobs.

We saw dolphins on a couple of days and most people that we met were brilliant! I did however hear a family say there were "proud" of the state they had left their cabin in that day as it "would give the steward something to do and keep them in a job"! Outrageous. Our cabin steward says they start at 7 by putting the sunbeds out, then do the rooms, have a few hours off in the afternoon before they have to put the sunbeds away and be on duty in the skydome or elsewhere in the evening. As of this week they will have more cabins to do as the capacity is about 80% rather than the 50% when we were on .
All the staff we talked to were fabulous - really pleased to be back at work - and they work soo hard. One lady we talked to in the buffet said she is normally away from home for 6-8 months and leaves behind her husband and 3 kids as she is the breadwinner. It must be tough for them but they never stop smiling.
We made an effort to talk to as many staff as we could to show that not all passengers are selfish idiots!

I was in the middle of a 60 mile run in September challenge for Cancer Research so did my 2 miles a day on the running trac - if you saw some old dear limping around that was me as I hurt my hip on the Saturday morning Usually on a cruise I go to the gym daily but didnt venture down there at all so cant comment on it. I will be using it in November though!

All in all it was a fabulous week away - and roll on the next 7 weeks until we are back on her for a "proper" holiday! And fingers crossed they'll let us off

I did take a few photos and videos but my phone was on the wrong setting so they wont share properly.
Here are a couple of my favourite - these resin artworks are in the stairwells - there was blue for forward, reds for aft and greys in the middle (I think!) but there were soo many fabulous touches all round the ship.