We have just come off Iona, she had exactly the same problems. There were too many passengers and not enough crew. We enjoyed the cruise but the dining experience was extremely poor. Unless you were lucky enough to book dinner at 5:30 (but we don't like to eat dinner at 5:30 maybe we are not old enough) on the first formal night after waiting for almost 2 hours for a table in the mdr we gave up and went to the Horizon buffet. The next day the hotel manager made a tannoy announcement blaming the passengers for the problems. She said passengers must use the 'MyHoliday' to join the virtual queue and wait in their cabins until called.
On Christmas day it was another formal dinner we were told the virtual queue would open from 7:30pm it didn't open until 8pm we joined the queue but weren't called until 9:05. The table wasn't set other tables had Christmas crackers when we asked about them they just Brough a pile and threw them on the table, and I really mean threw! The service was very slow and we didn't finish the meal until 11:15pm and that's without coffee/tea. So we missed all the entertainment for that night.
We gave up on eating in the MDR's either using speciality restaurants or Horizon buffet.
New Year's eve, we just ate fish and chips in the Quays so we could enjoy the shows we ended up in the Club House and Pulse were amazing it was a great atmosphere and evening. If we had gone to the MDR's we would have missed it all! Now I'm sure all the P&O fans will find all this is completely acceptable but unfortunately I don't! For the ones who say "Oh they're only looking for compensation, No I'm not! but not everyone is like you who will accept anything P&O throws at you! Some people have an expectation of a good quality of service and don't mind if somethings aren't perfect. The dining situation on Iona was not minor, it was AWFUL! Will I say we will never go on Iona again.... Well no, but if we did, we would assume we would only eat in the Horizon buffet or speciality restaurants and I don't like that idea very much.
