Iona Construction ?

[zap99]

8 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Iona can't cruise the Carribbean until the fuel availability situation changes.

I didn't think of that, but am glad somebody did😁.

[pete14]

1 hour ago, Scratchrat said:

You have a very good point!

 

"Iona launches our brand into the new era of cruising!" or some other kind of marketing wizardry.

As I posted elsewhere, my shilling is on Iona having her maiden on October 15th, the date when cruises are scheduled to begin. This would give 9 nights before her first scheduled cruise on Oct 24 which will allow her to replicate the original maiden to Norway which of course did not happen. By then, Norway should be safe and presumably accepting cruiseships, the only problem is over whether we will be.

[Son of Anarchy]

10 minutes ago, pete14 said:

As I posted elsewhere, my shilling is on Iona having her maiden on October 15th, the date when cruises are scheduled to begin. This would give 9 nights before her first scheduled cruise on Oct 24 which will allow her to replicate the original maiden to Norway which of course did not happen. By then, Norway should be safe and presumably accepting cruiseships, the only problem is over whether we will be.

Sounds like a good plan.

[Alan Flett]

41 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

Sounds like a good plan.

The cruise on October 24th is going to Germany, Holland and Belgium. Not Norway.

[majortom10]

The problem with having Iona maiden cruise at the very start of cruising in October or whenever it is if htere is bells and whistles and everything goes fine then that is great for P&O but if it doesnt either through new practices not working or heaven forbid a second wave of Covid-19 or a death onboard due to Covid-19 the press would have a field day and would be very bad publicity. Personally I think they will launch other ships on a trial basis to see if new practices work and there are no glitches and if there might be the need for minor alterations before they launch Iona on her maiden.

[terrierjohn]

3 hours ago, wowzz said:

Iona can't cruise the Carribbean until the fuel availability situation changes.

I think you might find that supplies have already been put in place for Carnival's Mardi Gras  a sister ship to Iona, due to debut this Autumn before the pandemic hit.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

The problem with having Iona maiden cruise at the very start of cruising in October or whenever it is if htere is bells and whistles and everything goes fine then that is great for P&O but if it doesnt either through new practices not working or heaven forbid a second wave of Covid-19 or a death onboard due to Covid-19 the press would have a field day and would be very bad publicity. Personally I think they will launch other ships on a trial basis to see if new practices work and there are no glitches and if there might be the need for minor alterations before they launch Iona on her maiden.

That was my thinking as well, but you expressed it much better than I did.

An outbreak of CV19 on the Iona maiden voyage would be a PR disaster.

[zap99]

19 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I think you might find that supplies have already been put in place for Carnival's Mardi Gras  a sister ship to Iona, due to debut this Autumn before the pandemic hit.

Looks like off to Barbados on Iona then. 🚢

[Addict]

3 hours ago, pete14 said:

As I posted elsewhere, my shilling is on Iona having her maiden on October 15th, the date when cruises are scheduled to begin. This would give 9 nights before her first scheduled cruise on Oct 24 which will allow her to replicate the original maiden to Norway which of course did not happen. By then, Norway should be safe and presumably accepting cruiseships, the only problem is over whether we will be.

 

15 October cruise won't be happening unfortunately.  From P&O website..... "Unfortunately, as the world continues to adapt to this global crisis, we have made the decision, difficult as it is, to extend our pause in operations for all sailings up to and including 15 October 2020".

[Britboys]

38 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I think you might find that supplies have already been put in place for Carnival's Mardi Gras  a sister ship to Iona, due to debut this Autumn before the pandemic hit.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that there are LNG facilities in the Caribbean. Mardi Gras is due to homeport at Port Canaveral in Florida, doing 7 night round-trip itineraries to the Caribbean. Port Canaveral does have LNG facilities.

[Britboys]

43 minutes ago, wowzz said:

That was my thinking as well, but you expressed it much better than I did.

An outbreak of CV19 on the Iona maiden voyage would be a PR disaster.

Absolutely. IIRC, Aurora's Maiden turned out to be a circle around the Isle of Wight due to mechanical problems and was indeed a PR disaster...

[Roger88]

I really hope everything will work for them but its still hard to predict cause you never know, especially with the news about second Covid break out in Autumn. I really doubt it to be truthful but if it happens we might have it postponed till like next year or smth 

[pete14]

2 hours ago, Alan Flett said:

The cruise on October 24th is going to Germany, Holland and Belgium. Not Norway.

But my suggestion was a Norway cruise before the scheduled one on Oct 24th. It could leave on 16th not 15th, maybe naming ceremony on 15th before midnight departure on 16th to fulfil the P&O small print. Probably a dream but you never know. Better still, they could make it free for those booked on the original maiden 😊😉.

Clearly they would need to weigh up the Covid risk which would mean they would not give much notice before letting us know. 

[Alan Flett]

2 minutes ago, pete14 said:

But my suggestion was a Norway cruise before the scheduled one on Oct 24th. It could leave on 16th not 15th, maybe naming ceremony on 15th before midnight departure on 16th to fulfil the P&O small print. Probably a dream but you never know. Better still, they could make it free for those booked on the original maiden 😊😉.

Clearly they would need to weigh up the Covid risk which would mean they would not give much notice before letting us know. 

Sorry I misread the post. I only know as I booked on the October 24th cruise at the weekend as we have had ours cancelled in August. Hoping it goes ahead just to get away but who knows.

[Addict]

4 minutes ago, pete14 said:

But my suggestion was a Norway cruise before the scheduled one on Oct 24th. It could leave on 16th not 15th, maybe naming ceremony on 15th before midnight departure on 16th to fulfil the P&O small print. Probably a dream but you never know. Better still, they could make it free for those booked on the original maiden 😊😉.

Clearly they would need to weigh up the Covid risk which would mean they would not give much notice before letting us know. 

It is a lovely dream, however we are on 14 Nov, and still not confident even that will sail.  If P&O have already cancelled 15 Oct, and they suddenly create another cruise to fill those dates, I'm sure that won't be a good PR move either.  There would be uproar.  How would you feel if someone cancelled your cruise, then let it sail a day later with a whole lot of new passengers? I'd be amazed if they do this.

[Scratchrat]

14 minutes ago, Addict said:

It is a lovely dream, however we are on 14 Nov, and still not confident even that will sail.  If P&O have already cancelled 15 Oct, and they suddenly create another cruise to fill those dates, I'm sure that won't be a good PR move either.  There would be uproar.  How would you feel if someone cancelled your cruise, then let it sail a day later with a whole lot of new passengers? I'd be amazed if they do this.

Be positive ❤️

 

I'm booked for December and I'm confident we will sail. 

 

My advice is to expect to sail but to not expect it to be the same. There WILL be social distancing to a degree, there will be more hand sanitisers, less self serve food without individual packaging, there will be less people allowed to swim at the same time, etc.

 

But it beats being stuck at home 😄

[Addict]

1 hour ago, Scratchrat said:

Be positive ❤️

 

I'm booked for December and I'm confident we will sail. 

 

My advice is to expect to sail but to not expect it to be the same. There WILL be social distancing to a degree, there will be more hand sanitisers, less self serve food without individual packaging, there will be less people allowed to swim at the same time, etc.

 

But it beats being stuck at home 😄

Oh definitely.  We never use the pools on ships so that's fine with us.  And I will welcome crew serving our food.  Not even that bothered about the ports as we've done them all before several times.  So if the ship sails, we're good to go! 🙂

 

[Scratchrat]

Just now, Addict said:

Oh definitely.  We never use the pools on ships so that's fine with us.  And I will welcome crew serving our food.  Not even that bothered about the ports as we've done them all before several times.  So if the ship sails, we're good to go! 🙂

 

 

It's as much fun as we make it 🙂

[majortom10]

Notice that a lot of the chargeable speciality restaurants are not a "set pp" price for the meal as in Sindhu/Epicurean on other ships but are going down the road of price per individual course which varies or in P&O terms "A supplement applies per dish". But would love to know how much the 32oz Tomahawk steak will be in Keel and Cow. Olive Grove is a set price but a few of the dishes are at a supplement.

Edited June 8, 2020 by majortom10

[brian1]

4 hours ago, zap99 said:

Looks like off to Barbados on Iona then. 🚢

Gary's gonna love some winter sun,win win all round.

[molecrochip]

10 hours ago, pete14 said:

As I posted elsewhere, my shilling is on Iona having her maiden on October 15th, the date when cruises are scheduled to begin. 

Sadly, you will lose your shilling. Not the current plan.

7 hours ago, Britboys said:

But that doesn't necessarily mean that there are LNG facilities in the Caribbean. Mardi Gras is due to homeport at Port Canaveral in Florida, doing 7 night round-trip itineraries to the Caribbean. Port Canaveral does have LNG facilities.

Both ships can carry enough LNG for 7 day cruises. There are currently no active LNG facilities in the Caribbean, certainly not the Eastern Caribbean where P&O operate from. Mardi Gras will visit Western Caribbean. There are plans in place for the first Caribbean LNG port.

6 hours ago, Scratchrat said:

I'm booked for December and I'm confident we will sail. 

At present, you should be confident.

[cruisenewbie1976]

15 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Sadly, you will lose your shilling. Not the current plan.

Both ships can carry enough LNG for 7 day cruises. There are currently no active LNG facilities in the Caribbean, certainly not the Eastern Caribbean where P&O operate from. Mardi Gras will visit Western Caribbean. There are plans in place for the first Caribbean LNG port.

At present, you should be confident.

Can you give us a hint as to when the iona maiden cruise might be? Maybe just wink or something if its before 15th October 🤣

[Scratchrat]

Just now, cruisenewbie1976 said:

Can you give us a hint as to when the iona maiden cruise might be? Maybe just wink or something if its before 15th October 🤣

They confirmed nothing will sail before 16th October. The current plan is the maiden to be the 24th October cruise.

[mercury7289]

3 hours ago, Scratchrat said:

They confirmed nothing will sail before 16th October. The current plan is the maiden to be the 24th October cruise.

Whats it like your side of the pond 113,000 fatalities and counting, scary times 

Keep safe

[Scratchrat]

6 hours ago, mercury7289 said:

Whats it like your side of the pond 113,000 fatalities and counting, scary times 

Keep safe

Obviously it's terrible no matter which side of the pond.

I'm in Cardiff and at least in Wales the lockdown is still fully in force so we're very much safe.