Day 8 – Saturday (disembarkation)

Interestingly this morning, despite the fact that all cruise lines want to get you off their ships at the end of the cruise as quickly as possible, our assigned disembarkation time was relatively late: 09.50 – 10.00 hrs. I can only suggest that this is mainly due to staggering the large number of people all disembarking at potentially the same time. Actually, we took our luggage off ourselves and left ‘Iona’ at 8.15am after a last breakfast in the Coral Restaurant, a smooth journey through the Terminal to pick up the car and drive home.

All in all we had a fabulous time on ‘Iona’. She is a large ship and very open plan with few, if any, quiet corners that you can hide away in. As already suggested, this did mean that I personally found some of the restaurants to a bit soulless, as they are denied a separate identity. Full use is made of all the space, but upon occasion I thought the ship felt busy and there was always an undercurrent of conversation. I found this to be particularly true of The Grand Atrium, where Vistas Coffee Bar is situated: as on land, everyone gravitates to and queues for a Costa coffee, and then sits around drinking it.

First impressions on entering the area is that there are no free seats – although there usually were if you looked a bit closer! Taking the ship as a whole, on days when the weather was poor, there seemed to be more available seating inside on the upper decks of the ship – in the SkyDome and Crow’s Nest (although people also used The Club House, Brodies and Andersons Bar and Library) and when the weather was good, more people were outside or in the SkyDome and Club House areas, both adjacent to open deck space. However, the four decks of outdoor space, the separation of the pools and whirl pools and the provision of smaller restaurants (apart from Horizons) all result in the flow of people being generally quite good.

‘Iona’ is clearly aimed at a younger demographic than the traditional P&O Cruises client and is also trying to attract ‘new to cruise’ guests by offering a wider range of entertainment and dining. Whilst this is achieved with more contemporary styling to the ship, there are still touches of familiar P&O Cruises cruising in the forms of The Crow’s Nest, Brodies, Sindhu, formal nights and the excellent Kids Clubs (during school holidays there can be up to 800 children on board). On our cruise, out of 4900 guests, only 1100 were Peninsular Club members (P&O Cruises past passengers). Technology on board is a bit hit and miss – Wi-Fi packages are expensive (£140/week for one device) and whilst the use of Apps on board ships was starting to be introduced pre COVID, I suggest that this has been hastened along as a result of pandemic safety measures. Older passengers find these Apps confusing and not everyone wants to be so prescriptive on holiday and have every meal booked before they get on board! For example, to ensure a table in The Epicurean, ‘Iona’s exquisite fine dining restaurant (chargeable at £28 pp), which serves a six-course taster menu created by Norwegian chef, Kjartan Skjelde, you would have had to book as close to 12am on the day that dining availability was released, as possible.

Taking everything into consideration ‘Iona’ is a nice ship, with the P&O Cruises feel that past passengers enjoy and keep returning to, as well as a new vibe that attracts guests who have either never cruised before or have done so with other cruise lines. Competitively priced (and including gratuities), on board prices for drinks etc are reasonable, the service is acceptable (inexperienced staff and shortages taken into account) and the food, whilst being ‘safe British’ is of a consistently good standard. I would certainly sail on ‘Iona’ again.