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One thing I did notice on my recent Iona cruise was that most of those wearing black tie were wearing standard black tie and almost nobody was wearing dinner jackets of ‘unusual’ colours and incredibly few wearing ‘amusing’ bow ties.

To clarify, there were lengthy waiting times for both sharing and non-sharing tables, not helped by the fact there are separate queues for each of the four restaurants so you might have eight people waiting to be seated but they all want to be seated in different restaurants. The queues were not as result of there being no available tables free, there were plenty - although most of the sharing tables were unmade and full of the previous diner’s detritus by 8pm. It was the lack of waiting and kitchen staff that was the issue - waiters either running around like mad things serving their tables, or stood around polishing cutlery whilst waiting ages for the kitchen to deliver the food - the latter particularly the issue if anything had to come from the ‘allergy kitchen’ when waits of 40 minutes for a course were not unusual. When those sharing tables were eventually made up then they either went unoccupied, or one couple would turn up, then five minutes later another couple, and five minutes later perhaps another couple, and then either another couple eventually turned up or the waiters acknowledged the first couple had been sat at the table for 20 minutes plus the waiting time in the queue and served the part full table. Where did the other sharers waiting in the queue go - sorry I have no idea, but my guess is they either got fed up waiting and simply physically went to another restaurant as by that time people seemed to getting sat at individual tables as they turned up straight away (by that time the waiters want to get people through otherwise they are going to be late closing up).

On the Iona cruise I got off yesterday the queues for the MDRs were significantly longer with waits of over an hour not being unusual. Even those willing to share tables were complaining about the wait, and then with shared tables from 8pm onwards there was the issue of people needing to wait again for the table to fill if they were the first seated - and occasionally them giving up and serving only a pair of couples on a table for eight when nobody else willing to share arrived.

Having just returned from another cruise on Iona, it really is a 'curate's egg' of a ship. On the good points - - The cabin accommodation is good - far better than many of P&O's ships. - There seems to be more deck space than ships such as Ventura/Azura, but more importantly for me there are more outside that are not purely sunbed areas and there are more shaded areas. - Theatre is far nicer and more legroom in the seats. - Cinema screens are very good, and a welcome choice on seadays. - Quays food courts are a far better option than the Horizon buffet, and the Olive Grove is very nice. - 710 club is good - although now it is booking only (with any empty seats from non-attendees offered just before showtime). And the bad points - - The atrium with the Emerald 'cocktail' bar, the Glass House 'wine' bar, and the Cow & Keel 'gastropub' - all awful as the location as the atmosphere of an airport terminal. During the day the atrium is lovely, although all the space in the Cow & Keel is wasted as nobody sits there, but in an evening - awful. During a fortnights cruise I saw virtually nobody use the Glass House in the evening, and it was just sat there as empty wasted space. - Other space is also wasted, such as the table seating area on deck 8 for the ice-cream parlour that nobody uses. - Crows Nest is rather hidden away down a long corridor. - Some of the balcony cabins (deck 8, etc.) are just absurd. - MDR's struggling to cope with freedom dining - long queues, with queues even for those wanting to share tables - the main issue seems to be a lack of staff (both waiters and kitchen) as frequently on an evening there were vast numbers of tables unoccupied whilst people waited for the queue to move on the 'app'. Tables that had been occupied and then vacated at 8pm then sat with the detritus from the meal for half an hour or more, and by the time they were remade they were then frequently not used. - The poor level changes in the floor on deck 8 - it is almost as if they started building the ship at both ends and realised their measurements didn't match. - Club House struggling to cope with the volume of guests, particularly when the theatre throws out at 9.15 from the 8.30 show and there is a sudden influx of people all disappointed that there are no seats left. Other changes that P&O have made - - Using the housekeeping staff in the MDR's to guide guests to the tables - great but the housekeeping staff frequently don't know where the tables are. - The 'dumbed down' bar menus where the staff are unable to serve anything not on the menu even if they have the ingredients - you can't buy a vermouth anywhere onboard, even though some bars have bottles of it on display to use in cocktails. Also only some drinks are available in some bars (with no rationale as to why) so if you want that drink you either have to go to that bar and carry it back or go without.

Obviously your choice, but lifts absolutely jam packed, theatre full, club overflowing - and virtually zero masked passengers. Even where it was legally required on the shuttle buses in Spain (but not today in Portugal) observance was 50% on the buses out and 10% on the buses back to the ship.

Sat on Iona in Lisbon at the moment. Over the last 10 days I have seen no signs of any quarantine (red dots and trays outside of cabins, or areas blocked off), nor has their been any ‘gossip’ amongst the passengers about any cases. The ship did need to make an emergency stop yesterday after we left Cadiz so a seriously ill passenger could be transported ashore by the coastguard but there was obviously no mention of the passenger’s illness. Mask wearing - perhaps 1 in 500 or fewer passengers is wearing a mask. Amongst the crew it seems to be around 5 or 10%, but that includes the crew that wear theirs under their chin until they need to speak to a passenger when they pull it up (presumably to protect themselves). The questioning at the terminal on embarkation was “do you meet the COVID vaccination and testing policy” with an express ‘no we don’t want to see anything to prove it’. Effectively things are little different to they were pre-covid - other than the staffing issues and associated changes.

Only when viewed from the inside.

The ‘gentleman’ having a shouting argument with the MDR host last night after being told how long he would have to wait for a sharing table would disagree with you.

That will exacerbate the pressure on the remaining two MDRs - the queue for a table can already be over an hour.

Booking Saver fares early seems to be a bit of a mugs game - you are gambling both that the price won’t fall before sailing and you are gambling that the cruise doesn’t sell well so you are left with the dross that nobody else wants. If (and I severely doubt it) that P&O gave some priority to early Saver bookers to receive the best of the dross left when it came to allocating cabins then there might be some point, but as the allocation method appears to be a ‘put the names in a hat’ approach then why expose yourself to the risk. And if booking late then it is straightforward choice between weighing up the price difference between Saver and Select - and on the Iona cruise I am currently sat on the price difference was negative £450 - yes £450 cheaper to book Select over Saver.

It isn’t an app but a captive webpage that the ship’s WiFi serves whenever you connect to it.

Have you not noticed the difficulty that P&O has filling its ships with traditional customers.

Unless you are on the management board of P&O then that’s just a guess. I would say that in the current circumstances that everything is up for grabs.

Other than sending the ships that used to do that frequency to the scrapyard and replacing them with those that don’t?

The only booking for the MDRs (at least on Iona at the moment) seems to be for the early times (before 6pm), and after that you have to queue. Lunchtimes it seems pointless using the app since if you just walk up to the hosts desk you will be seated anyway. The main issue with the lengthy queues doesn’t seem to be the passengers, but the staff and P&O’s IT system. They still don’t have sufficient staff so the staff are struggling to cope, and their online ‘at table’ ordering system is constantly falling over.

Yes, on the newer larger ships being introduced, with P&O having sent the older smaller ships to the scrapyard - the direction is clear. As for jeans not being suitable for formal nights - well having seen what some people were wearing last night at Iona’s ‘celebration night’ then I doubt it would be an issue.

There are fewer. It used to be two a week (plus jackets required nights and no jeans) and now it is one a week, no jackets and jeans are fine. The direction is clear.

That change is already in the process of taking place, with P&O having reduced the number of formal nights (and renaming them so they seem less formal), and removing the nights where a jacket was required. It would seem P&O already know what the majority of people actually buying tickets want and would prefer them not to go elsewhere, hence the changes they have made, and will continue to make. But eat where? Was it in the seating areas that the designers of the ships have helpfully put outside Horizon and next to the pools.

Horizon isn’t really a restaurant but a self-service cafeteria, but the issue is the design of the ships means that often to get from one outside pool area to another you have to go through Horizon. Standards haven’t gone out of the window, standards have changed, and that is exactly why the number of ‘mandatory’ black-tie nights has been reduced (mandatory because it is if you want full access to the ship). But why insist on a standard different to that which virtually every expensive UK restaurant demands? When did you last see a UK restaurant that refused customers who were not wearing a tie and jacket? Times have changed and wishing they hadn’t won’t bring them back.

You assume that the older ships will remain in the long term, which I seriously doubt they will.

Single trip policies cover cancellation from the point they are purchased, not just on the day the trip starts. However many people unwisely don’t buy the single trip policy at the time of booking, but closer to the date of travel, so leaving themselves exposed to the risk of something happening between booking and buying the policy, whereas that obviously cannot happen with an annual policy that automatically renews.

P&O is between a rock and a hard place. Going back in time my father would come home from his manual work job, change for the evening and would usually put on a tie. If we went out for a meal he would always be wearing a jacket and tie, even if it was just to a pub. Go into any office now and not only will nobody be wearing a suit, let alone a tie, most people won't actually be in the office but working remotely from home dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt. Go into just about any restaurant in the UK and I doubt you will find anyone wearing a tie let alone a suit. The traditional people who cruised and for many years made up the majority of their customers and enjoyed the formal evenings and 'dressing up' in general are from my father's generation. Unfortunately that generation are either dying off or have temporarily ceased cruising because of the pandemic and they are not willing to 'risk' getting on a cruise ship. This change in customer base was inevitable but the pandemic has just accelerated the process. Another issues with the older customer base not booking is they would pay the higher prices and so P&O have had to discount heavily to fill the cabins. Recently P&O have been selling select price cruises for as little as £60 per night including £11.50 onboard credit and free parking worth £150+ so effectively a little over £40 a night for accommodation, travel, three (or more) meals, entertainment, etc. Those are 'bargain bucket' prices you couldn't get in a holiday camp in the UK, so do the customers booking them expect to 'dress up' more than they would on a holiday camp. If P&O tries to do a 'Cunard' and insist on ties and jackets all the time then even selling cruises at those prices will fail and so it is trying to reach a compromise by reducing the number of formal nights to once a week on the newer ships. But the next stage that will come in the next few years will be the optional 'dress to impress' that some other cruise lines operate and will replace the single formal night, as more and more people take the view that buying and taking a Dinner Jacket or a single night isn't worth it. And there is nothing anyone can do to stop it, and the traditionalists ceasing to book because they are not getting the formality they experienced in the past will only hasten its demise.