AchileLauro

4 hours ago, Just 47 said:

I have just returned from iona cruise starting 23 July.we had an amazing time ,loved the ship and all the staff we encountered were friendly  and helpful.The covid measures and cleaning of everything was impressive. Yes we missed haugesund port due to technical fault but we didn't miss it one bit and very much enjoyed our sunny day on sun loungers etc.The captain refunded us £100 which was great.I honestly do not understand the bad reviews about iona.I appreciate its disappointing missing ports and I know in previous sailings 5his has happened quite a lot but norway is a windy place!!olden and hellesylt are breathtaking .I personally wouldn't hesitate to book iona again.

We were on the same cruise. I wouldn't go so far as to say we loved the ship but with a few exceptions we would certainly say that we liked it an awful lot more than Ventura or even Azura, which is a slight improvement on Ventura in my own personal opinion.

One of our greatest disappointments was the crow's nest, we were expecting it to be similar to that on Aurora but while this observation lounge is at least at the right end of the ship the decoration and ambience simply doesn't match that of Aurora. We had similar feelings about Andersons.

Given the choice we wouldn't have picked Iona and had planned and booked originally to cruise on Aurora a few years ago but since P&O decided to wreck our plans by making Aurora adult only and as we were travelling with four generations our choice was limited. The overall feeling that we have is that P&O have got most of it just about right with Iona for a family ship but there is still a few things that should be regarded as work in progress.

We were hugely disappointed that technical issues prevented us from visiting Haugesund (yes I know it's not the most interesting port of call) as unlike some sea days are not that popular in our family. It was just as well that we were blessed with fine weather for our two day dawdle back to Southampton, which allowed the use of the outside decks and pools (crowded with children) because I don't think it would have been quite so enjoyable if confined inside by poor weather.

Would we book Iona again?

Probably not but then we would be unlikely to travel with such an age range again.

Incidentally we had been warned by a family friend who is a crew member on Iona that the original port would likely to be changed to Hellesylt some weeks before the announcement, so were treating this cruise as a mystery cruise from the very start. Never mind two out of four original ports of call isn't bad for P&O these days. LOL  (We've missed ports of call or been diverted to other ports on the last three cruises we have taken with P&O.)

I may well be very wrong but I think that a minimum degree of weather protection on all survival craft (lifeboats) became a requirement some years ago, but that older ships with open boats have grandfathers rights so we may still see them in use on older vessels.

I take it molecrochip that the gunport doors that you mention on Iona are the ports usually used to take on board pilots while at sea? 

I've assumed from what has already been said that while it is perfectly possible to provide a tender service from Iona and Arvia if absolutely necessary, it was never intended that this should be done on a regular basis hence the lack of enhanced craft and possibly the retractable docking sponsons that I previously enquired about.

Having watched the video I can't say that I had either positive or negative thoughts other than to think he did brush over it slightly regarding recent issues with Iona.

I was wondering if Iona and Arvia have drop down  tendering sponsons similar to those on Aurora and Oriana?

I was thinking something similar Sharon but not having seen the survival craft on Iona yet was reserving judgment.

I have noted however that Britannia carries both types of craft so supposedly it is intended that she will visit some tender ports in the future if she hasn't already done so but perhaps it is not intended to do so with Iona and Arvia unless as a last resort.

If anything Norway should be easier because the run distances would be shorter and the waters calmer in the fjords, but it still takes quite some time to launch and recover the tenders and makes for a very long working day for the crew.

4 hours ago, Ardennais said:

You might be right, but Moley did say that Iona is ‘very much capable of tendering’! 

She may be capable of tendering but would it have been practical to do so!

12 hours ago, Ardennais said:

Is there a reason then why Iona couldn‘t tender passengers ashore in Geiranger this year, given that there are problems with the Seawalk or whatever it’s called? It’s a real shame and disappointment that Geiranger has been dropped completely, even more so when you state that Iona is capable of tendering.

I would think that this would be because tendering is labour intensive on the crew and at a time when some sectors of the crew are deliberately limiting any unnecessary contact with passengers because of risk of infection. Making tendering not really practical especially when you consider potential passenger capacity.

13 hours ago, Denarius said:

My first P&O cruise was on Oriana. There was no public room big enough to hold a captain's reception for everyone, so they had two; one in the Pacific Lounge and one in (I think) the Crows Nest. The captain did his speech in one then repeated it in the other. This practice may well be revived for Iona and Arvia.

Actually on Aurora and Oriana it would have been four cocktail parties. Two simultaneously in the Crows nest and show lounges for first sitting dinner followed by two for second sitting. It worked quite well.

On Oceana, Azura and Ventura the central atrium was used. My personal view is that it simply didn't work. No atmosphere whatsoever with everyone bunching up around a staircase trying to catch what was being said, or trying to catch a glimpse of who was saying it, while all along passengers in shorts and tees shirts passing through and snatching drinks off trays being carried by the waiters.

We are on the following cruise (G224) and we too are slightly confused by the changes especially taking into account reports of recent Norway excursions and missed ports of call.  We have taken the view that it it's not worth pre-booking anything as we are treating it as a mystery cruise.

I don't think you have to concern yourself about tendering as I don't think Iona is set up for tendering operations as normal passenger capacity would make such operations extremely onerous and time consuming. 

We've experienced tendering on various ships and while many passengers don't enjoy the experience we actually look forward to it, but we've also seen how difficult it can be to get large numbers of passengers ashore by tender in a reasonable time frame. Some years ago while on Ventura it was nearly 2 o'clock in the afternoon before some passengers were able to go ashore in Sardinia, and they had to be back on board by 4.30p.m.

Our past experience of P&O customer service has to say the very least been abysmally poor. For instance replying  about transferring a cruise to another ship after they cancelled our cruise, 12 days after the alternative cruise had sailed. Not to mention not informing us of the cancellation in the first place (we found out by chance from this very forum 4 days prior to sailing).

However, yesterday my daughter contacted P&O regarding our upcoming holiday and an I.T. issue (surprise, surprise) and the lady that she spoke to could not have been more pleasant to deal with or more helpful.

We heard the whole conversation on speaker phone, and speak as you find we give P&O a very positive ten out of ten on this occasion.

Only 55%, sounds like my ideal cruise.

2 hours ago, Yorkypete said:

It all depends on why you are cruising. As the food in the 'cafeteria' is reasonable, are you cruising to see different countries, places and relaxation or are you cruising for food? If the latter then stick to 5* hotels on the mainland.

The food in the "cafeteria" is quite acceptable, it's the noise and hustle and bustle that we don't want. After all it's supposed to be a cruise, a relaxing way to travel and see some of the world. 

We are due to sail on Iona in 4 weeks time. We haven't used the specialty restaurants much on previous cruises over the years so personally we aren't too concerned about them not being available, though we do appreciate that this may be a big disappointment to others.

What does however concern us is whether the loss of the specialty restaurants will place additional pressure on availability of the main dining rooms, especially having read reports that passengers on some cruises were unable to book tables in the main dining room on several nights.

I personally would be extremely annoyed if we weren't able to use the MDR for either breakfast, lunch or dinner as it just seems so much more relaxed and civilised than the buffet.

I know that we are all different and we have witnessed some passengers using the buffet for every meal.  In fact we have come across a few passengers on previous cruises that took every meal in the buffet and even some who weren't even aware that there was anything other than the buffet.

Dining in a cafeteria (the buffet) for more than the occasional meal has absolutely no appeal to us whatsoever.

18 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

We watched that virgin cruise program, alas not really our type of cruise.

Not ours either.

In my opinion the program was not a good advertisement for Virgin. 

We made the mistake of giving in to our young daughter and agreeing to going to McDonalds for breakfast while en route to embark a cruise many years ago.  That then became a bit of a family tradition with our young daughters over many years of cruise holidays. 

We are now due to cruise on Iona in July along with our now grown up daughters, one of whom has already promised her daughter (our granddaughter) who is going on her first cruise that we can stop at McDonalds for breakfast as it's traditional.

How I wish that I had never agreed to going to the place all those years ago. I hate the blinking place.

Plus they try if possible to build airfields in a cross configuration so that the aircraft can land into the wind.

I think there's a good many people who would like to be able to look into the future with regard to what the covid risk will be in October.

In the past P&O have employed  suitably qualified temporary staff for the duration of the school holidays and I'm sure that they are probably considering doing that once again to allow for the greater numbers of children being carried. However I'm sure this will very much depend on a safe method of work being devised that considers the current and near future covid risk.

If similar rules are applied as they are on land the staff to child ratio is dependent on the child's age.

If I remember correctly children up to two years of age require a staff to child ratio of 1 staff member for every three children. For children between the ages of two and four require a staff to child ratio of 1:4 I think (even less sure on this figure).

So supervising very young children will require large numbers of staff.

Having taken young and very young children on P&O in the past I can only say that this is one area where P&O have absolutely excelled in the past. The company absolutely exceeded our expectations even going so far as to enquire about food requirements for our one year old daughter and providing a light weight stroller so that we didn't even have to take our own pushchair for trips ashore.

Saying that it became so much easier when our children grew up a bit as cruising with a very young child can be wearing and often take a fair bit of pre-planning. At times I just wish we could have left the kid's in the boarding kennels along with the dogs. LOL.  Judging by the number of parents you see walking the prom deck of an evening pushing a push chair trying to get little one to go to sleep we weren't the only ones to go through it.

Are any of the dining rooms more suited to larger size parties than the others?

I ask as we shall be cruising on Iona in July and there are seven persons in our party. 

I note that there is still a requirement to book your table in advance using the on board intrenet system. However I see that you can only book a table for a maximum of six persons using this system, so presumably we will either need to just turn up at the restaurant door and request a suitable size table or we will need to phone ahead to make our reservation.

Is this policy any different to how it's always been?

It's quite a few years since we cruised with small children on P&O but I distinctly remember that it was necessary for one of us to be present when our youngest daughter was in the children's club in her early years.

We stopped sailing on Oriana when they made her adult only so can't comment on her condition in the later days of her P&O service but she was a beautiful elegant ship in her earlier days and our favourite.

When P&O made her adult only we transferred our allegiance to her sister Aurora but then unfortunately without notice P&O made her adult only cancelling our booked family holiday they lost our custom.

10 minutes ago, jeanlyon said:

Well I would agree about one thing.  the fact that they are selling cruises on all their ships means absolutely nothing.  We had a cruise booked on Adonia and also on Oriana, both of which we had to change as they sold the ships.

Yes we too have been caught twice by cancellations of long standing bookings at short or in one case absolutely no notification.

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

When you consider that the average length of stay in a care home is under 2 yrs, you can expect that they have a very high mortality rate even in normal times. Still very sad that covid probably brought this forward for many people, but not really unexpected.

I take it that when you say "average length of stay in a care home is under 2 years" you specifically mean care home and do not include residential homes also.

News reports do not seem to differentiate between care  homes and and residential homes which more often than not these days also provide a significant degree of care.