Overall it was lovely – Iona is a beautiful, well-maintained, well–equipped ship.
Our cabin (14th deck) was excellent – well laid out with plenty of storage space.
There were some great staff encountered and we submitted Star forms for all of them, and the MDR food was excellent (never use the buffet – too chaotic).
Other passengers were also pleasant and considerate (my mother is in a wheelchair) which is not always the case.
The ports were fab – Haugesund more industrial than fjord I would say, but still plenty to do.
In terms of areas of opportunity………one of the attractions of cruising is meeting new people, but in a fortnight we were only allocated to a sharing table twice for breakfast – it seems very set that you have your own table and they don’t like to deviate from that.
Also not clear why they couldn’t run a mix of set tables and freedom dining, to cater for those people who would prefer the same location same time every night.
I’ve said above there were some great staff, but there were a lot of miserable ones too.
We engage with everyone, asking how they are etc, but very little came back in many cases.
Overall the ship felt very under-staffed for the number of passengers on board, which I guess converts to stress, unhappiness and abruptness.
It also translated into activities – as a keen quizzer, last year on Britannia there were 78 quizzes (on a smaller boat) – over this fortnight only 42.
The Horizon schedule was more about talks and product sales than I have encountered before – so again resource probably the issue.
That said the Ents staff who were there were all brilliant.
I didn’t feel the quality of the shows in Headliners was great – the staging/backroom stuff was superb but the productions themselves (script/acting quality) wasn’t high quality, and def the worst I have seen on the limited number of cruises I have done.
On a minor point – changing lift button lights when floors are selected to a different colour would improve efficiency – two different shades of white wasn’t very clear and slowed down these ‘sticking points’.
Thoroughly enjoyed it, and would def use P&O again, but only right to highlight where they could be better.