Iona, Mediterranean
4
2 weeks saver fare on the beautiful Iona to the Western Med in a balcony cabin on deck 10 aft which was allocated 3 weeks before sailing. The passengers were quite elderly (some disabled) on the whole, but largely friendly and good natured. After joining some accounts on Facebook I had begun to think that they were all going to be obnoxious like a lot of the people commenting - thankfully not :) Bought a drinks package after boarding to use up the on board credit and benefit from our 5% loyalty discount. Embarkation was seamless and staff were very helpful as I am blind and travel with my wife. Within 45 mins of arriving at Southampton port we were sat with our first drink and fish and chips in The Quays. Buying the drinks package was painless - so much better than on the Azura at Christmas which was chaos. The food at The Quays is fab and a much nicer environment than the canteen-like Horizons buffet; beautiful fish and chips, Chinese or burger/southern fried chicken.
Cabin was absolutely fine, although now that there are no drawers for storage flat-pack boxes are useful along with magnetic hooks for hanging up handbags etc. There was very little space between the wardrobe and bed which necessitated some manoeuvring around the doors to get clothes out and put them away. The bathroom is great - I particularly like the shower door instead of a curtain. Cabin attendant was really good and kept our tea/coffee drinks tray fully stocked always and brought ice and lemon to the room before leaving each day. We took our own gin and tonic on board for a little snifter whilst getting dressed up each evening. It was good to see that most people made an effort for the two black tie events.
We didn't do much in the way of entertainment - most things were fully booked by the time we got on board, so if you want to plan your evenings I suggest you do it well in advance. Managed to get into the 710 club once which was great - I suspect a lot of people book things in advance and then cancel them, so you need to be checking the MyHoliday site regularly to catch the cancelled spots. Speaking of which, the MyHoliday site worked well while we were on board and the virtual queuing for dinner was great. We ate a number of times in the Opal and Aqua smaller restaurants for which we had to collect a buzzer. There seemed to be more staff in the smaller venues than in the main dining room although the food was good everywhere - we just preferred the smaller venues and we are very disappointed that these will not be available on the Arvia when we sail on her in October as they have been converted to speciality restaurants.
We ate in the Beach House restaurant - it was ok but not worth the £10 cover charge plus extras. However, the Olive Grove was really good and I would have liked to eat there more, but we were lucky to get in once as it was showing fully booked when we boarded. We also had breakfast twice in the Keel & Cow - costs £5-7 per person depending on what you order, but the quality is exceptional and worth every penny. Disappointed that the Glass House is now just a section of the Grand Atrium and it really doesn't feel special anymore. The Sunset bar and the Crow's Nest were really good with excellent cocktails. Anderson's Bar became our favourite as the staff in there work as a really good team and take the time to get to know their customers - we really enjoyed their company and banter before dinner each evening - great for a nightcap too.
The ordering system at Costa and the bars except Anderson's and the Crow's Nest, is crackers; one person takes the order so that another can make the drink, but you just end up with disorganised queues as the person taking the orders also does other things and it's therefore difficult to spot where they are - the bar staff don't like this system either and Costa was just disorganised chaos. Also, as they use an iPad type device to order your drink and have to scan each card and type separately, it takes far too long for the process.
The staff are helpful and hard working and the staff shortages that we noticed at Christmas seem to be easing somewhat.
The ship is lovely and light and airy - the 3 story high windows in the Grand Atrium really make the area a delight. However, it is hard to appreciate how big the ship is until you are on board and realise that it is a really long walk from the front to the back - we certainly got our steps in but there were some people pushing wheelchairs around that struggled with the distances.
We do our own thing whilst in port, but the port information for go-it-alone travellers is really poor - I suspect they just want you to buy their trips. I downloaded the P&O port guides before we went, but they also were poor and didn't even have a map of the city we were in - mostly information on where to eat/drink/shop :(
On the whole, a fab holiday with good value for money on our saver fare.
Ian
Post Date: 20/03/2023
