Powellj3

I would cruise on Iona (or Arvia) again. Only out of season though and then when there was a good offer (suggesting poor occupancy). we were on Ventura last spring on a 5 week tour of Belise / Mexico /US. It certainly had its own problems - mainly because it was rushed out of dry dock and had many new staff. But it felt like a family. People were friendlier. I suppose part of that was the narrower type of cruiser. Most retired, most with good P&O loyalty and hence into the “P&O thing”. The sort of thing you get with Arcadia and Aurora, having that fierce small ship loyalty.

As a regular P&O cruiser in my early sixties and a dyed-in-the-wool Aroura fan - I’ve just completed a fortnight on Iona. The cruise was in half term holidays and the ship was full (5,412 passengers 104%). So a very different experience. Here are my views. The ship ====== Stunning! So much more on board and everything just works. None of the constant army of deck staff painting and scraping. But soo many people! This meant so much (usually digital) queuing. Pre-booking ========== You can pre book restaurants and entertainment a few weeks before boarding. We chose to hit the app as soon as we boarded. So disappointed as most venues were fully booked. The cabin ======= Our sea view room was bigger than we were used to with a long settee that would make up to a bed. There was a lot of machine noise (#4340). I guess this was generator noise. There were no drawers at all. No shaver socket in the bathroom, so nowhere to charge your toothbrush unless you bring an adapter. Entertainment =========== The best Headliners team I have seen (I’ve seen a few), helped by the state of the art AV in the theatre. The acrobats in the sun dome were amazing. Booking a big problem but the venues not over full as many of the pre booked seats were not occupied. Only managed to get to the 710 club after midnight as it was fully booked from day 1. Food ==== Shout out for the Olive Grove (Greek themed with some pay extra items) and the Quays (fish&Chips, Asia and Burger/chicken fast food). Others pretty much standard P&O fare. No fixed dining. Pre-booking was usually full days in advance in all venues (a theme here). You could join a virtual queue and wait 30-45 minutes. The teams ======== The entertainment team were low key and anonymous. They did their job but no characters. Cabin stewards looking rushed beyond. These guys are so hard working. A higher standard of waiting staff than on Ventura in the spring. Activities ======== There were no enrichment talks, no ballroom dancing, no Sunday Church Service and no choir. Quizzes, bingo, et all, same as usual. Sail away parties when the weather allowed. No loyalty cocktail party. Other observations =============== We lost a port due to wind. I did wonder if the sheer size of this ship meant it was affected more by wind. Getting back on board was also a chore, simply due to the volume of people trying to get through security. The lifts were way over subscribed. Not helped by some very poor lift etiquette. A good promenade deck and masses of small pools everywhere. Even adults only pool areas. Lots of glass wind screening on all open decks and lots of glass walls on venues. The atrium felt a bit like a shopping mall, without the modern drama of Britannia or traditional grandeur of Aurora.

that's a shame. Thanks for the replies.

Hi All, I have a 14 day cruise coming up with an awful lot of OBC. In fact nearly as much as we had on our recently completed 35 day cruise on Ventura. Even on that cruise we didn't spend all of the OBC and ended up using it up on Jewellery in the shop. We pre-book many of our trips as they sell out so fast. So I do not expect to be able to spend the OBC on this shorter cruise. My question - what are the shops like on Iona - over and above the choices on the smaller, older ships? please. On Ventura, there was the usual super expensive clothes and handbag shops. Watches at astronomical prices and jewellery and more than highstreet. Though many of these seemed to have regular "sales" which brought them closer to highstreet. There was also the daftest "tech" shop. Which sold speakers, earphones and fitness watches. Who would buy those on holiday! I left my fitbit behind because on a transatlantic crossing the regular time changes made it useless. It would be great if the company who has the franchise had a website to preview the goods. Maybe even allow you to special order a new lens for my camera to use onboard! Thanks

I WOULD NOT recommend travelling with Eavesway. We have used them in the past and they have been acceptable. Indeed reviews have generally been better for Eavesway than Intercruise. However we have had one MASSIVE problem with them. They wrote to us a couple of weeks before our cruise telling us that they had decided not to run our coach!. Just like that. After holding our money for many months and Ts&Cs threatening us that if we cancel we will lose varying portions of our money - they just decide they don't want to run it because presumably there weren't enough people on it. So here we are, just about to travel, and because of Eavesway we have to pay premium last minute prices. To say I am gutted is putting it mildly. I will never use their services again. Just to put this in context, I've used other companies before and, when numbers were low, they simply used smaller coaches. On one, they just sent a VW Caravelle people carrier for us and another couple. It seems other companies know what it is to keep a promise but Eavesway just couldn't acre less.