Ardennais

Didn’t know you could do that! I’ll ask someone if I remember.

Britannia. Yes. We’ve also had Indian and British.

Buffet tonight:

We do the Syndicate quiz when the children or other family members are with us. We don’t bother if it’s just the two of us.

Not my problem! Iona’s atrium half term Feb was messy. Tables weren’t cleared for hours - seriously, I sat there reading in the afternoons and people weren’t being served for ages. The staff on my current cruise have time to interact and chat. It’s sooo different! The mega ships are marketed as great for family cruises and should be staffed properly. I really hope they manage it for the long summer break at the very least.

I’m currently on a cruise. It’s term time. Very few children. Well staffed. This level of service (or close to it) should be the norm even during the school holidays.

Exactly. So our cruise was, in our opinion, short staffed.

Your full didn’t include the 800+ children!

We definitely thought that Iona was extremely short staffed during our Feb half term cruise. We enjoyed our cruise but I didn’t think the service good enough when folk pay a premium to travel during school holidays for whatever reason. It’s all well and good telling people to avoid school holidays - but it’s unavoidable for many.

Lovely weather where we are!

You’re missing the point. We had a great time on Iona, and yes, we will sail in her again. Might be school holidays, might not. However, the people who do cruise during the school holidays often can’t sail during term time. Prices are also higher! They deserve a good cruise too, with good levels of service. I have sailed on Ventura for a 5 week cruise in January where there was only a handful of infants aboard - a totally different experience to our Ventura cruise the previous August.

Still 13 weeks of the year and I know many parents take their children out of school for a few days either side of official school holidays too. Some half term weeks are different in the 4 nations too, so you’re looking at closer to 16 weeks of the year. These mega ships need to be staffed properly for these cruises too.

Possibly, but they could deploy staff in different ways. As I said, they could have opened another station in the buffet. To be honest, I thought they were very short staffed in places - not clearing tables in the atrium, etc and it wasn’t a good look. If the cabin staff aren’t servicing the cabins in the evening, then I imagine they’re doing something else, but what exactly, I don’t know. In the past, the supervisors would be walking around telling staff to clear up etc. That wasn’t the case on our cruise. So I believe other posters when they say that they encountered queues etc. It does happen, but probably not on every cruise!

To be clear, the point that I was making is that there’s a difference between sailing ‘full’ in term time and a ‘full’ ship during the school holidays.

Of course it was, but they could have alleviated some of the waiting by opening additional sections of the buffet late at night, for instance. It didn’t bother us, we only wanted a hot drink and some crackers, but the queue for the hot food was the longest I’ve ever seen on a cruise!

I wasn’t complaining, merely pointing out that the queuing situation might be different when you’re on a school holiday cruise. Having children around doesn’t bother me. It wasn’t half term in Wales anyway, just the southern half of England. Regardless, people who cruise during the school holidays also deserve a good level of service. Yes of course, things are going to be busier, and you expect that, but staffing levels should be sufficient.

Our tour guide in Guadeloupe got quite sniffy when I told him that we were Welsh, not English - he kept referring to everyone as being English. He was quite dismissive and said something like “same thing”. Didn’t give him a tip!!

When you say ‘sailing full’, do you mean all cabins full but not the additional 800 children? As I’ve said before, we really enjoyed Iona but there were very long queues in the buffet, especially late at night, and we failed to get into the cinema to see any films as they were full a good half hour before screening time. That was half term Feb when it was really full including all the children.

They might have more staff for the clubs. However, when I posted after our February half term cruise on Iona that they were understaffed, someone replied by saying that all the crew berths were full, and that it was therefore fully staffed. We had a great cruise, BUT, we had never before seen tables piled with dirty crockery left uncleared for ages. They would normally clear the tables in the Costa place straight away, but passengers were moving used crockery from one table to another just to have a clear table. We had no option but to cruise during school holidays at one time as I was still teaching and our children were still in school. The offering should be the same, regardless.

Are you on your back already?!

I think the school holidays are going to pose more problems. We were on the Iona half term February cruise, and it was very very busy. We thought that they were very understaffed in places. We hadn’t realised that the southern half of England were on half term - Wales was the following week. Still had a great cruise! I love seeing children around.

We were also on Iona in February and had a great time. We definitely want to sail on Iona again as there was a lot going on and we really loved The Quays. We also enjoyed the silent discos in the atrium. I agree with some of your points. There should definitely be two stations open in the late buffet. I have never ever seen queues like that late at night. It was half term and very busy. I imagine it will be the same in July/August. The acoustics were very poor in the Dome - we didn’t understand a word the girl group sang. However, the acrobatic/dance shows there were quite entertaining. Service was slow, as you say it’s easier to order at the bar/counter. Apparently they’re fully staffed, but we thought that they needed more staff in places.

Me too! I thought they were terrible.

Yes, there are shuttles to the city centre, just off the Rathaus. Well organised on Iona.

We would mostly agree having spent a wonderful week on Iona last month. The only ‘problem’ was slow service but that was probably because it was half term and packed full. I can’t wait to sail on Iona again, but the next few cruises are on different P&O ships because we don’t really want to visit the Fjords again any time soon.