I have no problem with the way they serve the marmalade, at least not in the buffet where the portions are small but just about right, for us ar least, with no wastage, and no likelihood that it will be re-used.
Breakfast is free, but does not include hot drinks, there is of course a kettle and coffee sachets in your cabin, which in all honesty is better than the lukewarm rubbish they used to serve.
I don't believe Iona and Arvia have aft thrusters, because they use Azipod propulsion, this enables them to use the azipods to achieve the same sideways movement that thrusters give to normal propeller driven ships. They do of course have fwd thrusters.
However I am not sure if this reduces the noise level.
When the gratuities were removed my understanding is that wages were increased overall, mainly by maintaining and improving the performance bonus they receive.
Just reading over on the friendly cruise community forum, that despite being told they could not use the Tui evening bag drop, they were able do this at Bristol on a recent Malta charter flight. So maybe it is worthwhile trying this for anyone overnighting in an airport hotel, or somewhere close.
I did it a few years ago on a Ventura round trip Caribbean cruise, it is expensive but we had a ridiculous amount of OBC so it did not seem too bad. In hindsight it was worthwhile and I might be tempted to do it again if they start offering them on Iona and Arvia.
The buffet used to have an omelette station, but recently they now seem to have little bits of folded ready made eggy things masquerading as omelettes.
Different strokes, I prefer my beer well chilled, tepid beer reminds me of my youth and the awful mild beer at our local WMC, when we assumed that pretending to enjoy warm beer was a rite of passage.
Light rain here, not a breath of wind and temp of 9 deg, forecast is light rain and gentle breeze, our barometer is as low as I have ever it, at 952mb.
A quite bright and sunny start today here in Gods own country, with a very mild temp of 12 deg, might be a little breezy this afternoon with a few spots of rain. Hope the forecast is correct.
That is a very interesting and thought provoking post, makes me think that maybe the glamour of RCI is not really worth the extra cost after all, at least for adult cruisers.
I think on most cruises you can get away with about 2 or 3 days of buying onboard wi fi to cover the main sea days from and to Southampton. Start your wi fi purchase mid afternoon, and that gives you 2 days of wi fi activity. For the rest using your european roaming data on port days is currently costing about £2:00 per day.
If you have walked around the sun deck you will have stepped over the crack. Although being the top deck it was built of aluminium for lightness, and it isn't load bearing.