terrierjohn

I have never measured cruise ship toilet heights, but certainly our Iona accessible cabin toilet was definitely higher than ouir standard toilet at home.

There are always likely to be able bodied passengers allocated to an accessible cabin, if one is available, especially on fly cruises. We dined with a couple last week on Iona who were in a deluxe accessible cabin, these are probably last minute cancellations, and the cruise had no wait list for accessible cabins, or they had no takers.

You do not appear to understand the effect that having timed labels has on the way the luggage hall empties from front to back, rather than the haphazard way it empties when passengers disembark by deck. This leads to the hall emptying in progression rather than passengers swarming all over creating chaos and slowing down the queues. In addition most cruise lines using this system do not request you attend a venue, but they make regular announcements calling for the next coloured group to disembark, and strangely this seems to reduce the crowding that is always apparent with P&O.

As the husband of a severely disabled wheelchair user, I would not be happy to see anti discrimination legislation trump safety issues when it comes to cruising or flying. On our recent cruise in addition to accessible cabin users, there were many hundreds of passengers who it seemed would have required significant help, in an emergency, to use stairs or to board any survival craft other than the large lifeboats. It is becoming increasingly concerning to me that if we were ever involved in an ultimate emergency, we would struggle to survive.

Apologies for the long delay @TigerB, no we didn't venture out at Tenerife, it was cloudy quite cold for the Canaries, and showers were forecast, which duly arrived with regularity. But I will keep your map for any future Canaries cruise

Why do we have to wait for Easter to be happy?

But you can take milk from the buffet, use a coffe mug or a plastic water glass, then keep it in your fridge. Also less fiddly than the plastic tubes.

I doubt that it would be anymore chaotic than the current system. Although I understand, after our late arrival yesterday, that it's the port that dictates when embarkation of those collecting luggage can begin, which is not until all the luggage has been offloaded and stacked in the luggage hall, because they use FLT's to bring the crates into the luggage hall, and they don't want passengers in there when FLTs are still being used. However it could be massively improved if P&O used colour coded disembarkation luggage tags, rather than the deck system they currently operate. The benefit of timed colour coding is that the hall empties chronologically, and if you wait until a few colours beyong your own, it makes it far easier to find your luggage. On our Princess cruise last July our colour had been first called about 15 minutes before we disembarked, and our cases were very easy to identify making the disembarkation much less stressful.

That scoop is exactly the same on Iona, kids or adults, could force water over the scoop, but only in handfuls and certainly not bucketfuls, and if the sea was rough enough to cause enough water to cascade into the trough and over the scoop, then the pool would most assuredly be closed and the water level reduced to avoid any overspill.

We are on Iona at present and the aft infinity pool has been well used, but no sign of any splashing issues. Kids do try to splash the water over the spillage tray, but never succeeded while I was watching.

On our current Iona cruise the biggest change we are noticing is the number of overweight passengers there are on board, and quite a number could described as morbidly obese, some quite young but mainly among the elderly retired. So it appears that the withdrawal of trays might have reduced wastage, but possibly the passengers are now eating it all rather than leaving it!! The age range of all passengers goes from very young families right up to the very elderly, so no significant noticeable change in the age demographic for a 14 nt winter sun cruise.

Clearly there is different interpretations made by the hotel staff, I imagine if you ask to speak to the stewards line manager, then you should get a different answer.

If you request body lotion and daily facecloth change, your steward will happily provide them.

We are on our third Iona cruise and enjoying it just as much as usual. The ship has 5400 passengers on board, and according to one of our table companions 1700 are first time P&O cruisers. There are a lot of young families on board, which is probably P&O's aim, and with inside cabins selling at under £1000pp, with under twos going free, it would be hard to find a 2 week full board sunshine holiday with lots of inclusive entertainment at anything close to that price.

I think they have very sensibly timed the announcement so that the children won't have to face immediate questioning by their school friends, and hoping the frenzy will have settled down by the time they return from the Easter holidays.

On board Iona at present and thought we would try Sindhu again to see if it had improved, sadly IMO it's not changed. We tried to select dishes that sounded like something we would enjoy, but unfortunately they did not live up to our expectations. Not that they were bad or poor, just lacking in flavour and we were glad when they were finished. Probably it's that they don't suit our tastes, but we both much prefer Sainsbury or M&S Indian ready meals which have more flavour. However the day after in the MDR I had singapore satay chicken as a starter and salmon fillet as a main, and the whole meal was 10 out 10 compared to the 5 we would have given to Sindhu. And so far we both feel that the MDR quality has improved, although still too many green beans!!

It's probably ship and chef specific, however as I reported the coeliac on one of our tables on Iona was highly delighted with the choice and quality of his selections.

Agreed but footprint restriction would not apply to only one Canary island, I doubt it could be made so specific. I think it must be some restriction applied by some sort of legislation, by either the satellite operator or the island, or a combination of both. But if it entails the cruise line paying a higher fee, then I doubt P&O will tell us the truth.

There are certainly a lot of elderley passengers on our current cruise who, whilst not wheelchair users or even dependant on a walking stick, who look as though they would struggle to cope with stairs in an emergency

I dont believe that Aurora is any different to all the other cruise ships built around the same time. She was certainly not built as an ocean liner, and has no deeper draught than Oceana or Arcadia.

I imagine the fact that Oceana was a few years older than Aurora, and possibly because Oceana was more saleable.

You can download apps to your pc, laptop or tablet.

But not this weekend!!!!!!

AFAIK all the TV satellites are in orbit over the tropics, so whichever satellite Iona uses it will be pointed south.

We sat with a coeliac yesterday on Iona and he was full of praise, the waiter went over his following days menu and just about everything could be offered as GF and prepared in the segregated part of the galley. Have you advised P&O that you need a special GF diet?