First time cruise with P & O. Loved every minute of it. I will list what was great....
Embarkation and staff
Cabin and Steward
Public areas and staff
Dining and drink and staff
Entertainment
Pools and hot tubs
Ports
Disembarkation
Things we didnt like.......
NOTHING 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
Thank you to everyon onvolved in the Cruise and making it such a pleasure.
We will see you again soon....hopefully.
We had a balcony cabin deck 11 it was amazing huge and lots of room. great shower and lovely cabin staff. Food was AMAZING but much better in main dining room and speciality restaurants. The buffet was a bun fight! Too many disgusting passengers not washing their hands and picking food up with their fingers - AVOID! staff were trying to stop them its not easy!
You can use the app to book a table takes a bit of getting used to it and ASK if you want something like a table for 2 or a window seat etc. Breakfast in the main dining room was fabulous you can order anything including omelettes, crispy bacon etc try the poached eggs and hash browns they were divine! The indian was lovely as well and the fish and chips etc.
Great entertainment and a lot of deck space. All round was a fantastic cruise just avoid the serial moaners who compare cruise lines. cant wait to go back again!
Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable cruise
P&O was a clean, well run machine, particularly in the care and handling of the older/handicapped passengers. Very commendable. I found the drinks were reasonably priced, in that a drinks package was not needed for me. Although the dining rooms were comfortable and the staff very accomodating, I found the food was not up to the level I would have preferred, particularly the starters and desserts. However, to be fair, I do think cuts have had to been made by P&O somewhere (like the food!) as their cruise prices are still pretty much the same. I would rather have better quality food and not the QUANTITY on offer - too many people were not finishing their plates, particularly in the buffet. I can only guess at the food waste!
ships systems not working well at all . used thee app to book dining and evening shows only to be told that I had no booking , but I did book through the app , had to send food back ,not cooked correctly . collection of baggage was very poor on leaving ship. will not go on Iona again .
An amazing experience relaxing and entertaining
Our cruise was to the Csnaries from Southampton
Second time on Iona and within the few months since cruiseing on her before the food standard has gone down considerably.It seems they are trying to crawl back money. No nightime turndown which actually didn't bother us but again money saving . entertainment was another difference not much to do in the day and lots of repeat shows in the evenings . excursions far to expensive. Having said all that we still love cruising and being retired we will be looking for an other bargain hopefully soon .
THis was our first cruise and we found the ship Iona too large. It was a long walk from our cabin 12.316 to the restaurants. WE are 85 years old and going up and down lifts and walking a long distance for breakfast was hard for us. WE found the restaurant more restful for eating rather than the buffet.
The staff were wonderful in every respect and couldn't do enough for you.
The entertainment was based on very modern themes, more suited to a younger audience we thought. WE had hoped to see beatiful costumes at the Headliners theatre, with music from the musicals. Instead, we had the ( hard working ) youngsters waving smart phones around and toilet roles.
ON the whole we felt the shore trips were well organized and we especially enjoyed the Tuk Tuk ride in Lisbon. Some classical music would have been nice, and ballroom dancing. Barrie and Muriel Maden.
First cruise. From the moment we set eyes on the ship to moment we disembarked, outstanding!
No other words just Outstanding!
Will definitely book another cruise in the near future.
Highly recommended to anyone who has not cruised before .
Beautiful ship pity that everything onboard had to be booked through an app,it is not easy for people of my age
An exceptional cruise there wasn’t a single thing to complain about only compliment.
The entertainment was by fare tge best we have seen on our many cruises to date.
Well done P & O, we were so happy that we have booked a canaries cruise for November 2023 and a Caribbean cruise in February 2024.
Fab ship, great entertainment, superb food, not enough stimulating things to do during at sea days.
A week cruising in the Norwegian Fjiords. Because Iona is considered a "green" ship it was allowed to go further into the fjiords than many other cruise ships.
The waterfalls were absolutely amazing.
We always cruise with P&O but this was our first time on Iona and we were not disappointed.
It is a huge ship, but the range of onboard facilities and activities gave us plenty to do, even on sea days and as expected the food was fantastic. They had a few queues for some of the dining rooms but we put that down to teething troubles as it was a new ship.
We love the ease of boarding - just hand over your baggage at the terminal and you next see it at your cabin door. Parking was easy (although we preferred it when they had valet parking)
We are going on Arvia shortly on a Med cruise so looking forward to that.