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Not very good news for you but it does show that P and O are not the only ones struggling with things at the moment

To be perfectly honest we have never bothered to claim on any missed ports down the years, but after the last two cruises and the late notification of changes we may have to rethink our attitude

Well don't bank on the sail past in Gerainger, as we never even got to Hellesylt. It looks as though the Iona mystery cruises are going to continue into next year, if we knew then what we know now we would have cancelled the trip and re booked something else, and have advised our newbie cruisers to find another line , and of course because we visited an alternative port any insurance claim is invalid

This review does not inspire confidence, we are on Arcadia for a month in September and would hate for this to be the norm for the whole cruise, staffing levels appear to be one issue but running out of food , seriously? And no cheese and biscuits? Well for me that's tantamount to mutiny!!!! Micky1959 appears to allay some of the dining problems , however it is fair to say that on both our previous cruises on her the freedom dining ( which we use) always incurs a wait of varying times. Just under six weeks to have sorted the problems before we go so fingers crossed🤞

Or none of the time 😂

Very impressed with the interactive tv on Iona , never watched it as a stand alone tv but the rest of the apps on it were useful

For the amount we watch tv they could take them out!!! Do agree though that if Azura and Ventura are been kept the time is fast approaching when serious upgrading will be required to keep up with other lines improvements

Think we may have to move away from the coast, if we get ten a year its a bonus😂😂😂

Not sure what the problem is , but as soon as any mention of windy weather occurred everything got cancelled , and this is another reason for a lack of confidence in making a future booking on Her

Definitely agree with that, it was almost a politicians wording😂

Thanks Billish, that is my understanding ,the only reason I have e mailed them is so I can have it in printed form as they have an annoying habit of moving the goal posts

Its all very confusing ,last week prior to our Iona cruise we got an e mail with the new health protocols for our arcadia cruise in September and then booked tests at the nearest pharmacy , from what I now understand this is no longer required and is literally a test done on honesty? I have e mailed P and O for confirmation that this is the case

Having just returned from a week long cruise on Iona to Norway here are our thoughts . Firstly the ship itself is very modern with lots of light flooding in and feels quite spacious in all the main areas , we had 4600 pax on this trip but it never felt crowded, embarkation and disembarkation were pretty smooth and the level of service was overall very good ,but allowances had to be made for quite a number of new staff who were "bedding in". The self serving eating areas had an American feel to them in the way they were set out, (the quays and the horizon) and at times it was easy to forget you were on a P and O ship, there were some pinch areas at peak times but nothing major and we always managed to find seats, something that doesn't always happen on the other ships in the fleet. It was evident that with this been the new flagship that the best is put on show with excellent staffing levels and top end entertainment, we pre booked the limelight club and the whole deal was one of the best we have had on a cruise ship , top marks there P and O. Food was to a good standard everywhere we ate and drink prices had not increased as much as we thought they would. One or two things were a little disappointing, though some of it is not the companies fault, we accept that this is a family ship but the standard of some passengers, and their offspring left a lot to be desired, a great deal of people on board were the new to cruising that P and O are trying to attract and allowance has to be made for there exuberance , but good manners cost nothing and throwing food around in the buffet and throwing water from the infinity pool isn't acceptable, our thought was that at least one pool ,Infiniti perhaps, should be adults only and also the same for the jacuzzi, they were nearly always full of unsupervised kids. As for the Itinerary it soon became obvious that this ship is not suited to the Norwegian Fjords, first two ports Stavanger and Olden went ok but then it went pear shaped as the captain announces that due to EXPECTED high wind the Hellisyilt port is cancelled and also the scenic cruising part of Gerainger but we will go to Alesund instead ,which is nothing like a Fjord, and finally due to EXPECTED storm conditions coming from Britain we will leave our last port Haugesand at 1.30 to avoid it ,another port that looks like it could be anywhere other than a Fjord, as we had first time cruisers with us this was a major, major disappointment as apart from a few hills at Olden they never got see what they had booked for ,we did feel really bad about this as we had sold them the proper Fjords and they ended up with some towns that could have been anywhere. As for the expected bad weather we never saw or felt any of it .Iona is a lovely ship but just cannot cut it to these destinations and a lot of other people will suffer the same issues of missed ports etc Would we go on Iona again? Certainly not to Norway and not anywhere near school holidays, it is a very stylish ship with lots of up to date facilities but to be honest the type of people that P and O are trying to attract on these ships are not always the people we want to socialize with , we are just average working class people but the behaviour of some passengers showed that cruising was just a floating Butlins to them, others will no doubt disagree but as the title suggests an honest opinion

Quite agree about the repetitive itineraries, even the longer 35,65,and world cruise are similar year in year out, its one of the factors which have made us book with other lines for "a change of scenery"

A lot of people pre pandemic would not wash their hands or sanitize either after using washrooms or before entering dining venues ,and until it is enforced strongly infections will always occur, covid been one of them 😒

Its always nice when good things get reported as we as a nation do appear to favour the negatives, even if some of them are justified🙂

Wow ,that's some price hike, our decision to spend 10k on seventeen solar panels, all south facing and a large storage battery two years ago is now turning out to be one of the best investments we have made ,and has made a big difference to our electricity bills, if anything it has made us more aware of how much energy we used before them and how we now time the usage of the heavier items, washing machine ,dishwasher, fan oven etc. if we have a full battery at night we can still be using the stored energy well into the next day. Gas prices is of course another matter

Blimey, that could be a painful experience😆

Just wondering how many of these changes are been made from another country, possibly America?

Fully agree 👍

At least he was honest about some of the problems facing the company, do feel if this had been conveyed earlier people would have been a lot more understanding, a missed opportunity though in explaining why some cruises are cancelled at such short notice

Thanks Wowzz for the comparisons, its always useful to have some factual information to consider, the only surprising thing was that in your opinion the entertainment on P and O was better, as Princess do emphasis in their publicity blurb how good theirs is .Also a bit alarming that you were glad to get off Arcadia in March as we are on her for a month in September! And Britboys I presume that Marella did not exactly float your boat on Discovery ? I'm sure others will have differing views with all cruise lines but agree the treatment of megabear was very shoddy in difficult times

Princess seem to be getting a lot of plaudits, its a line we've not yet tried, are they as good as people are saying, and how does the pricing structure compare to P and O ?

We have five cruises booked with P and O up to 2024 ,three are catch ups that were cancelled of which one is 65 nights and the other 99 nights all on various ships , just beginning to wonder what condition they will all be in when we get on after reading some of these latest reviews, we do have an Azamara coming up and recently been on HAL so the comparisons could be quite alarming🤔

Or even earlier, only party animals are up at 22.00😂