Iona late arrival - Saturday 5th March

[Stu UK]

Following our diversion for a medical emergency the other day Iona is arriving into Southampton very late today. Due in at 12:30 with our disembarkation time of 5:15pm. For awareness of people boarding today - there will be a long delay. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Stu UK

[molecrochip]

Left again at 00:10 this morning. So 5 hours late in , 5 hours late out. Lets hope they have a swift passage down to Vigo.

[CaroleC]

Anyone know what time the final pax boarded? 

[Halfway]

Iona was due to dock at 6am, finally docked at 12:30. Not sure why it took 4 hours from passing the IOW at 8:30 - the local ferry does it in under an hour! Chaotic scenes on board as passengers faced with a waiting time of 5+ hours from vacating cabins at 11:30 to disembarking decided to take the "self-help" option and take their own luggage. We were given a time of 1:30, but as we came back from breakfast at 9, the Atrium was already filling up with passengers and their luggage. By 10:30, long queues were forming at the exit gangways despite the ship still being 2 hours from docking. P&O staff tried their best to organise things, but it wasn't working. It was obvious that virtually everybody was ignoring their allotted times and were determined to get off at the first opportunity. We took the view "if you can't beat them, join them", and joined the crowds on deck 6. We finally got off at 1:30 - ironically, the time we were given - but if we'd stuck by the rules, we would probably have been at least an hour later. Biggest lesson we learned is Iona is probably not for us in future.

[Purdey16]

While we waited for our disembarking time for 3.05 to 3.15 and stuck to the time we never went down to the atrium but kept hearing the announcements to stay away from the gangway till called, in doing so we had one of the best disembarking days ever , very relaxing on the sun beds all day with no luggage and had a lovely lunch booked in the olive grove with our last bottle of wine , but I must admit it was chaos once in the luggage hall and a few tempers and angry words were said at people pushing in the lines , I felt sorry for the ones that had to travel back home to Scotland it was a very long day and night for them , I’m lucky it’s only 35 mins for me , but staff did all they could but it was ignored by many .

[cruiseshipprofiles]

 

For those interested here is my video of Iona arriving late yesterday.

[Halfway]

3 hours ago, Purdey16 said:

While we waited for our disembarking time for 3.05 to 3.15 and stuck to the time we never went down to the atrium but kept hearing the announcements to stay away from the gangway till called, in doing so we had one of the best disembarking days ever , very relaxing on the sun beds all day with no luggage and had a lovely lunch booked in the olive grove with our last bottle of wine , but I must admit it was chaos once in the luggage hall and a few tempers and angry words were said at people pushing in the lines , I felt sorry for the ones that had to travel back home to Scotland it was a very long day and night for them , I’m lucky it’s only 35 mins for me , but staff did all they could but it was ignored by many .

We talked on board to one elderly couple from Belfast, their flight over was  delayed 5 hours due to the storm on Friday 18th Feb, they finally flew but were diverted to Stansted, all trains cancelled due to trees blocking the tracks so took a taxi to Southampton which cost £220. Hope their return wasn't as traumatic despite the delayed arrival back in to Southampton.

[Stu UK]

The chaos was caused by the usual rules don’t apply to me brigade. Same at testing / embarkation. We had a relaxing day with late breakfast, film, lunch a couple of drinks etc. Probably the most relaxing disembarkation ever. Our 5pm slot was brought forward to about 3:30pm. 

[terrierjohn]

9 minutes ago, Stu UK said:

The chaos was caused by the usual rules don’t apply to me brigade. Same at testing / embarkation. We had a relaxing day with late breakfast, film, lunch a couple of drinks etc. Probably the most relaxing disembarkation ever. Our 5pm slot was brought forward to about 3:30pm. 

I hope you did not drive home after your couplte of drinks!😇

[Stu UK]

10 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

I hope you did not drive home after your couplte of drinks!😇

Good planning on my part - partner was driving 🥳