Somerset Cruiser

From 1 experience,

Some queued for hours beforehand, allegedly. Presumably for good seat. There's no need as once you have a ticket you are guaranteed a seat.

Once you have seats either you or your mother could leave the theatre and return.

It is very busy as it's a full house, but not chaotic. 

The show we saw was very good, 

1 hour and not too much waffle, he had his own band with him.

Good luck with the raffle. 

8 hours ago, emam said:

You can take your own tea and coffee if you prefer but there is plenty supplied (I'm a hugh tea drinker). I ask for extra from the cabin steward but if on the odd occasion I still want more, I just get them from the buffet.

However I don't think you will be allowed to take milk onboard. 

I always take milk on, Cravendale can last for 3 weeks or more if dated. I do this to avoid the phaff of the small sachets.

On 3/24/2024 at 5:46 PM, Josy1953 said:

Is it mainly families on board to Christmas cruises ? 

We've done the last 2 years on Iona, there are a lot of families but it is very mixed. We're a late 60s couple and enjoy it. 

We were on Iona at Xmas, we booked for this coming Xmas and got a good deal. We've often got prices in the past but never booked. 

Strangely we were quoted a price which we accepted, I went back to the cabin to get a credit card, on my return the agent proceeded to enter our details the price went down and the obc went up!

We usually book with a cruise club, but we had booked that one direct with P&O therefore the new one is direct. Any connection?

21 minutes ago, S1971 said:

 

Excursions, door to door, speciality restaurants, balcony etc, etc.

 

Hope you enjoy you B2B, sound like you got a good deal.

Excursions and specialty restaurants can be paid for from obc, up to a point. Even so, if we spend an additional £1,000 on those and a door to door service, even 'upgrade' to a balcony, we would still be at half the price for 28 nights to Saga 18 nights. I also appreciate that we got a good deal and the price is dearer now but your claim that there is not much in it is ludicrous. 

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

Call me a cynic, but I also strongly suspect that certain grades are temporarily placed ‘off sale’ in order to show as sold out or with limited availability (to encourage bookings), only to magically reappear at a later date. I’ve seen that happen with cruises that I’ve monitored. I suspect that the marketing team at Carnival more than pay for themselves - unlike their IT team 😂

I've seen it happen, we went B2B on Iona, Christmas and NY, it took an age to get the same cabin for both legs as cabins in the area we wanted weren't available on 1 leg, then when they became available they we simultaneously unavailable for the other leg. I only managed to get what we wanted by emailing Corporate and appealing for common sense to prevail, which eventually it did.

1 hour ago, P&O SUE said:

I’ve just looked at my photos - Cafe Jardin 😁

It was Marco Pierre White influenced originally. The evening menu had a £5 cover charge some 15-20 years ago.  We had a great Valentines meal in there once. 

2 hours ago, Cathygh said:

 Our tour guide told us that many many celebrities own property there as it's very private. She wasn't allowed to tell us who as most of the celebs sign a document to say they want privacy but Elton John hadn't signed it so she could tell us where he lives. So they can afford to pay exhorbitant prices. The guide said the islanders had a better standard of living than on the other islands as their government was not corrupts and did not strip the island's assets. Don't know if that's true. She also told us that crime is low as punishment is severe - you go to prison for littering.

Asset stripping by Governments is not uncommon, selling off social housing, essential services such as gas,electricity, water, postal, telecommunications and even the railways!

3 hours ago, pete14 said:

One of my funniest dining moments occurred many years ago in a restaurant in the Lake District. Gravlax of salmon was on the menu as a starter and a more mature in years ‘posh’ lady had ordered it. When the waiter served it to her, she complained quite loudly and bitterly that she couldn’t eat it because it was not cooked. The waiter calmly assured her that Gravlax is cured salmon and shouldn’t be cooked. It was perfectly safe to eat. The lady was having none of this, saying in increasing levels of loudness, that she had eaten in some of the top restaurants in the country and the world and had never been served raw salmon in any of them. The waiter carefully explained again to her that Gravlax is never cooked but that he would happily replace it with another dish from the menu. She demanded the manager should be called and he arrived and explained that the waiter was correct. She failed to accept his assurances as well. Her poor husband seemed to be shrivelling up inside himself in embarrassment whilst this was happening.
 

Of course, we and everybody else, were in awe of this ladies greater knowledge and experience of the culinary world and couldn’t stop ourselves from listening in with increasing amusement. It did bring to mind the Fawlty Towers episode with the lady who was hard of hearing being shown into her room and complaining about the view, (Mrs. Richards?). Of course many people who subsequently ordered the Gravlax (but definitely not me because I wouldn’t dream of it🥴) checked with the waiter whether it was cooked or not before ordering it. 

This reminds me of a recent experience on Iona, a couple on our table both ordered Bread and Butter pudding, while Mr had plenty of sultanas in his Mrs had none, The waiter was summoned and he naturally offered to get her another or an alternative, she wasn't happy and demanded to see the Head Waiter. I'm pleased to say the waiter stood his ground and declined to do so. 

6 hours ago, david63 said:

I have cruised with P&O since Covid so I am well aware of the cutbacks - but the current menus are more cutback than ever.

Spent 4 weeks on Iona over Christmas and New year with pretty much the same menus. Have to disagree about cutbacks as I feel the food has improved since we cruised post covid in 2021 and again in 2022. The variety on the Dinner menu is decent and apart from some good meat options I had many fish and vegetarian meals, all of which were very good. I found the lunch menus a bit limited as I tried to avoid the bread and chips. But the Pasta and Curry was always very good. The soup plus the lighter option was often a good choice. 

3 hours ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

Thanks @Eddie99.  We are up and about now.  I'm not the best sailor in the world and my wife is semi-addicted to the Windy App, the maps of wind speeds and wave heights on which are sometimes quite scary.  But, today certainly looks good and - if Windy is correct - we can expect seas of about 3 metres for the first few sea days down to Madeira, so that shouldn't be too bad.

 

I hope your disembarkation runs smoothly today and that you have a safe and easy trip home.

You should barely notice a 3m swell on Iona. 

1 hour ago, toad455 said:

 

St. Kitts' piers can hold four ships.

My thinking was a difference in docking conditions,  ie a stronger wind at one berth. @mrsgoggins has now clarified the reason so my speculation was pointless!

25 minutes ago, toad455 said:

 

Odd since the Anthem was able to dock.

A different location perhaps, there are 2 cruise ports in St Kitts.

5 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

 and seem able to check most passengers in and get them on board in 15-20 minutes max.

How do you know this?

@Selbourne

I note the lack of information from your captain, we had Wesley Dunlop on Iona over Xmas and New Year and he is the other extreme, humorous as well when the situation merited. We had a late departure from Southampton and a missed port in Mediterranean, not due to the delay. After he had fully explained the reasons it felt as though he was doing us all a favour. Consequently we heard no one complaining. 

On 1/6/2024 at 12:56 PM, Selbourne said:

Todays lunch and dinner menus

The menus are very similar to those on Iona. We're just back from a 2 x 14 nights and they are, as expected, repeated during the 2nd cruise. 

I will be interested to see what happens in your case. 

Really enjoyed the blog so far. 

Drink prices went up on Iona on 28th October. 

We did a trip, albeit with another cruise line, last year. Getting to the beach involves a little uneven ground, but other than that it wasn't bad. Having said that our trip didn't include the Botanical garden. There may have been some uneven ground at the harbour but otherwise the town was quite easy. The Police Station is excellent and just as you see it on TV,  only the vehicles were missing. 

We really enjoyed the trip and if you are a fan of the programme then it's not to be missed IMO. We were also fortunate to a sea seat next to the water in Catherine's bar with a reasonably priced beer. 

The book choice is very poor, take whatever reading material you may want. 

Not a beach but this is a good tour

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1629812-d2534788-Reviews-Orang_Utan_Island-Semanggol_Kerian_District_Perak.html

3 hours ago, sandancer said:

First time on Iona so it would be great if I could get an opinion on which MDR is the best choice, bearing in mind we have a wheelchair. I know the menu will be the same in all of them. We always request a table for 2. We will eat in most of the speciality restaurants if possible, booking in advance but will still eat in an MDR some nights. 

I recommend Pearl, if you are happy with a larger restaurant.

On the first evening speak to Bea or Carina on the desk and tell them what your requirements are, they are very helpful. 

20 hours ago, heatherb1958 said:

Haven't stayed in the cabin but would say that unless you want to have a lie in that is going to be your only issue,  lots of activity by crew when ship arrives into port . Don't forget once the ship sets sail that area will be packed up and stored so your night time sleep shouldn't be affected. Also depending on the port the gangway can be on different decks , you might find deck 4 isn't used the whole cruise . 

Just of Iona and deck 4 is used a lot, even in Southampton for crew. Otherwise I agree with your comments. 

I think it's a joke, albeit not well delivered.

28 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Lots of booking systems for hotels, restaurants and services etc have opt ins for the suppliers to turn on to make them look busier than they are rather than show everything available from the start

True but removing 1 type of cabin isn't doing that, not in this instance, but it is removing choice and may well stop some people booking. 

12 hours ago, bee-ess said:

 

But looking at availabilty it seems from trying a few dummy bookings that there are not a lot of cabins available to book online (unless they are holding cabins back). 

As you suggest not as simple as that. 

We're doing a back to back on Iona in December, when originally booking a few months ago Seaview cabins were available for the 1st leg but not the 2nd so we reluctantly booked a balcony. I found it hard to believe the unavailability was genuine so queried it and was told the cabins were being withheld by Inventory. My request to release 1 were refused.

A couple of weeks ago Seaview cabins were released for the 2nd leg but at the same time the 40 or so previously shown Seaview cabins on the 1st leg disappeared, withdrawn by Inventory.  

To cut a very long story short, i spent hours asking for common sense to prevail to be told that it was impossible to 'downgrade' due to Terms and Conditions plus the fact that Inventory says!

An email to Paul Ludlow's office resulted in a call from the Executive team and common sense eventually prevailed and we have a Seaview cabin. 

So don't believe the cabin availability you see is accurate. 

BTW I didn't establish why Inventory did what they did, I suspect no-one actually knows.