P&O Cruises, Iona, Mediterranean Review

Iona, Mediterranean

We have been sailing since 2000 & mostly with P&O. We had sailed on lona in Nov 21 & thoroughly enjoyed her so thought we’d sail with her again. I’ll start with the positive, we never experienced a problem when booking dinner with the app & once again ate in every dining room. It was only on the last night we had slow’ service but that could have been down to the qty of tables the young man was serving. Food mediocre but enjoyable (qty has really shrunk). Paid to see Ray Quinn who was worth every penny, such a professional. Food in Limelight, superb (quality of how it used to be as standard with P&O). Entertainment otherwise, hit & miss, Yzzy as Paloma Faith, brilliant (acoustics in the Dome, terrible, same as Nov 21). Harriette Mullins in the Club House, very good & especially when singing to the little boy, Finlay (not a dry eye in the club). Headliners also good though we had seem some of the shows before. The acrobats (wish l could remember their name) were superb, especially the 1st show as we hadnt seen this before. Service in all entertainment venues very good. Only booked one excursion which really was a shuttle service to Las Americas in Teneriffe. We could always find seats in the Atrium & where we like to sit & people watch Beautiful spacious balcony cabin 15608 but now for the downside (i) we we’re placed below the Horizon buffett eatery - we heard every movement of trolleys from 5am - 1am (ii) the cabin balcony has an ‘overhang’ so we never had any sun on the balcony (l chose this cabin so l should have done more research before booking). l believe this applies to all of deck 15 & 16. Decks 8 & 9 (conservatory cabins) can be seen from everyone above & when walking on the deck (iii) Horizon buffet, well, what can l say, food very sparse in choice & frequently had to ask for containers to be refilled. This eatery has definitely gone down hill, the choice of cold meat was abysmal & never any cold mixed pasta dishes. All staff very busy & to the extent where they didn’t notice containers were empty. One person l’d like to give special mention to is a young lady called Hope who clears tables in the Horizon. Her smile lights up the venue, always smiling & pleasant - she should be the ‘face’ of P&O. Finally, we make the most of sea days by visiting the cinema. We queued for 35 mins to see Elvis & didnt get a seat so the next time we queued for 45 mins & got the last 2 seats. Not once did we have to queue for other films so why P&O didnt show this film (like some others) in the theatre beggars belief or had a member of staff handing out seat tickets so people then knew not to wait hoping for a seat. overall would l sail on her again. Oh yes.