John Castle

13 hours ago, Showingthatgame said:

My worries with Iona is not the number of passengers. There are plenty of large ships which have plenty of public space. Space ratio is by far the more important number to consider. Ionas public space to number of passengers is really low so I can see why people are negative about it.

 

That being said her size does mean she has a lot to do. So I think it will come down to more how well the space is managed. 

 

Space ratios

39.4-33.2 Britianna

37.3-32.1 Ventura/Azura

29-26 Iona (approximate)

 

My original post was concerned with the changed marketing policy: NO Club dining, NO Ballroom dancing and reduced formal nights.

In reality the size may not matter . We have sailed on Ventura and Britania several times and never felt crowded although your space ratio calculation may indicate that could be different on Iona.

We go for a table for 6. Tables for 8 are oval which makes inclusive conversation sometimes difficult. We have met some really nice and interesting people so this suits us personally. We also do first sitting because it gives us more dancing time and a little flexibility if we fancy some other entertainment before the dancing. It can be a problem that the Headliner shows seem to get handed around the fleet and we have seen most but at least they exchange the other acts at some ports of call.

As you say so long as we can choose to do what suits us it's fine.

We also had this on the first day so stuck to bottled water for the whole cruise on Ventura over Xmas.

Missed the bulk buy option in the cabin ☹️.

1 hour ago, ascot2012 said:

Having just returned from Azura, we have noticed a few things have altered, the main thing for us was that New Years Eve wasn't formal night, there were a lot of discussion on board about the lack of formal night on such a special night, most were very disappointed us included. There was no chef's parade in the MDR but that's neither here nor there, we had plastic water bottles in the room (the FOC ones), we had a ships log delivered on the last night, flowers were in the room and on the tables after the decoration had been removed.

We were probably the same cruise, 12 days canaries etc

We had similar experiences in the restaurant

 TBH that's what we have always received on P&O.

That's one reason we use them again and again. 

Other posts talk about reductions in details

We have also noticed these. Nothing that really bothers us yet but personally we would not miss the menus and Captains log hand outs at the end. 

Let's hope they don't take the cost cutting too far. 

We want the formal nights, club dining, ballroom dancing and good entertainment. 😊

We have just returned from a P&O cruise where we were told that as a company policy the Iona will not have Ballroom Dance hosts or provision for dancing even on the scrappy Atrium floors that suffice on Brittania, Ventura etc.

Apparently they want a younger customer profile. Good luck with that as it may mean that filling this 5000 pax vessel will be difficult outside school holidays.

We have used P&O a number of times and choose them for several reasons, not least being the opportunity to dance in the evenings. It may only be a small number of dancers but there are always a lot of people who like to sit, drink and watch the dancing.

This marketing decision means that we will definitely not be cruising on the Iona.