terrierjohn

I would guess that a regular booking at that time would be easily accomplished, it's the later times that get busy.

I have not checked but I doubt she has1800 upper berths, and even if she has, with the limitations on children numbers for each muster zone I imagine her max capacity is not much more than 6000.

I suspect that only a limited number of 5 and 6 O'clock bookings for the MDRs will be possible, I am on board and cannot book a time slot for later. But you can easily join a virtual queue which if you share a table normally only has a 10 min wait time, I believe a table for 2 is a longer wait.

Today was the first day we have experienced chaos in the buffet, but it was the perfect storm that anyone any good at management would have predicted and avoided. We put the clocks forward an hour last night as we moved from Portuguese time back to Spanish time, which meant everyone had an hours less sleep so were late getting to breakfast. Also the weather forecast was dire with wind and squally showers and a high of 17 deg. So not too unexpectedly the buffet was heaving at 10 O'clock, which was just as the captain decided to do a crew fire drill. As a consequence just as the buffet ran short of every item of crockery many staff were diverted to this practise evacuation drill. The result was chaos with long queues everywhere as passengers waited for coffee cups, plates, bowls and side plates. The only thing in plentiful supply was food, but with nothing to put it on, it gradually cooled and congealed, not apretty sight. This should have been easy to predict and I doubt that a delay in the timing or deferment altogether would have been anywhere near as disastrous as the muttered grumblings of 4800 (yes that is the official passenger numbers from receprion, although many will be children sharing their parents cabins) disgruntled passengers. It just goes to show that shipside management can be equally as incompetent as the shoreside ones.

If there are the normal 6-7 sea days on the crossings plus the 11 port days that could mean 10 sea days in the Caribbean, which as Yorkshirephil says could very well suit us, as sea days in the Caribbean sunshine are just as good as shore days for us.

All the above is true, but we have not find they represent major problems. I thought evening turndown would not suit us, but it really has not spoilt anything.. Toiletries and face cloths can be requested from your steward if you want them. Deck buffets were always over rated. We had deck parties on Britannia in June, none on Iona but she only has small open air pool areas. All Ionas speciality restaurants are open, although I don't know if the Glass House is serving food, but would not want to eat there even if it did, nor in the Keel and Cow.

Even 4 on a table only needs 3 trips to the servery, one of 3 and then one of 1, so it hardly adds any delay, and we are finding the buffet busy, but never any issues finding a free table reasonably quickly.

Which seems perfectly fair since we book with a TA but all these changes are e-mailed to us from P&O, so anyone claiming they have not been informed are telling porkies.

I notice from our balcony that the balcony divider is missing from 2 cabins below us, which must be the procedure for Iona as there is no connecting door. So 3 adjacent balconies should give you a massive balcony space.

What are Iona's ports on this 35 nighter MB2 10 Caribbean ports seems very stingy for a 35 nighter, is she doing some 2 night stays?

There are plenty of children on board at present, I understand it is half term in Scotland which is presumably why there are more children on board than normal.

On Iona at present and we think she has far more than double the open deck spaces than Ventura does, and the sunbeds are very well spaced out as well.I think she will be ideally suited for a 35 night round trip Caribbean cruise. We might have to think about this one ourselves.

We are on Iona at present, not sure what the passenger numbers are, but she certainly does not feel as crowded as Britannia did in June Iona has far more indoor seating around the 3 deck atrium that any of the other ships, and must have at least double, maybe treble the number of outside spaces than any of the others, and the sunbeds are well spaced as well. Then there is the crows nest and Anderson's bar as well as Brodies, and the Club House. There are the usual pinch points as entertainment venues empty, but these soon disperse. For us Iona feels far less crowded than our one and only pre covid cruise on Aurora.

The majority were wearing blue surgical masks before mask wearing was made optional, so not much protection for the wearer, but they should have helped reduce the spread among the crew, although I guess masks were not compulsory while they were off duty.

If you want pre planning you need ships that still offer club dining.

Expecting perfection from P&Os IT dept is never going to happen, we have to to live with the problems.

Pre booking seems to be the main problem with spec restaurants and especially the Olive Grove, presumably because it's free. Lots of passengers make multiple bookings early on, knowing they can easily be cancelled. We managed to join a previously non existent queue the other night, and when we arrived at 6:30 most tables were empty waitinv for 7 to 8 o':clock patrons, and the waiters were loitering around twiddling their thumbs. If they dropped all pre bookings and just used the virtual queue they could easily seat double the numbers they do now.

The Captain on Iona announced yesterday, while we were at dinner, that Carnival UK were now changing the requirement for crew mask wearing from compulsary to optional, which he indicated was a further step along the road back to normality.This seemed to get approval from the majority in the dining room.

The fixed time booking in The Olive Grove does not work well IMO, too many people book it in advance, then cancel at last minute. So the the app says it's full, then late on a virtual queue opens up. But even then there are far too many empty tables at 6:00 to 7;00, waiting for 8;00pm bookings They could double the numbers if they only allowed a virtual queue system. Similar comments also apply to MDRs, that's a big turn off on RCI, where there are at least 50% empty tables whilst having massive queues outside each restaurant. I want freedom to mean just that,book when you are ready on the app and that should see a very fast throughput, with little waiting.

I am on holiday and rather enjoy that someone else is cleaning up after me, and anyway I was once told off by a Horizon waiter for bringing my tray back.

What is wrong with ordering your wine by the glass, a large glass is 250ml, which equates to a third of a bottle, any more than that for a couple and you could easily finish off a bottle.

Sorry Bin man, I didn't realise you were on a retainer from P&O while you were cruising.😁

But as with all T&Cs any complaint needs to be made to P&O, you must have exhausted yourself trying to drum up support on here, all to no avail because none of us can influence P&O, and until we are in the same situation as you, we really have no idea how we would react. You dont tell us if your insurer has agreed to refund your lost cruise days,or indeed if ABTA are taking your case up with P&O,or if you did it's far too many posts ago for many of us to remember.

Depends on the ship Iona has a recessed area outside our cabin door, so only someone snooping in our mail box would trip over it.

That's OK but sulphur dioxide is used to suppress oxidation and prevent mouldy growths which will certainly affect the taste of your wine.