Beautiful ship

When you first see Iona you are taken back at how big she actually is. The entertainment schedule is fantastic, always something for everyone. The restaurants can get busy between 7pm and 8pm so we found it easier to join the vertiual queue on the app, you then have 15 mins to arrive at the restaurant. The waiters in the Pearl restaurant are incredible, and should be praised for the hard work they do. They are pleasent and nothing is too much trouble. The food was excellent, wish I could eat like that every day. I was extremely upset by the way some passengers spoke to the waiters, they were rude and arrogant, I had to bite my lip a few times. Only used the Horizon restaurant once as we found it crowded and people refused to queue and just pushed in where ever they liked. The indoor pool isn’t really big enough for a ship of that size, however there are plenty of jacuzzis dotted around the ship on open decks. The balcony cabins are lovely, the only criticism is they would be better with a walk in wardrobe like on Britannia, as it’s hard to open the wardrobe doors next to the bed, they do have lovely large bathrooms, much bigger than on Britannia. We were lucky enough to get in the 710 club, you need to get in the queue early, as it is a tiny none bookable event. Most shows last approx 45 mins, and we managed to do/see 3 things a night on a couple of occasions, but ate dinner early so we could get to the first show. The skyline cable car trip was amazing, highly recommend it. But book early or you’ll miss out. Alot of people missed the opportunity. Jack Ryan was amazing in the club house. However his show should have been placed in a bigger venue as there was standing room only and my sister ended up sitting on the floor! When we booked our cruise we linked our 3 bookings, my sister’s had been placed on Deck 10 at the front of the ship, and I had been placed on deck 5 at the very back. I had the sound of water running down a drain pipe from the upper decks going 24/7, and there was slight noise coming from the engines. I had requested to be placed near my sister’s, I tried to get this altered on 3 days before we sailed but P&O couldn’t help and I was advised to speak to my TA. They couldn’t help either. Once on board I went straight to reception, I was told I’d be contacted after we set sail if a cabin change was available, I wasn’t contacted so I didn’t get the cabin change. It made it very difficult to contact my family unless we were in our cabins. There were a few reports of food poison from the Chicken served at the Quays. Thursday a member of the 710 band was taken ill, then on Friday the hole band went down with it, there were quite a few passengers that also posted on FB that they had been affected. It was noted that on Friday the level of cleaning in the Quays had been ramped up. Overall, beautiful ship, gorgeous weather, fab entertainment, excellent food in the coral & Pearl, amazing scenery.