It was great to be back cruising and we thoroughly enjoyed P&Os newest ship.
The cabins we thought were narrower than normal but luckily we had one with the bed next to the balcony doors so no problem accessing the wardrobes.
I did miss there being no drawers but once unpacked I found enough storage for 2 weeks.
The bathrooms are great with a good sized walk-in glass shower, enough shelves for all toiletries both inside and outside the shower.
Balconies vary a lot in size and privacy on this ship ours was 11323 which was enough for 2 chairs and a small table but very private not being overlooked from anywhere.
The food was excellent everywhere whether a paying restaurant or an inclusive one.
Our worst meal was The Limelight Club a starter full of chilli which set your mouth on fire followed by a main course where both mine and my husbands (different meals his beef and mine pork) was a tough as old boots and my chocolate dessert was too rich and sickly.
I’m a chocoholic so that was most unusual for me.
The entertainment was different to normal I think due to Covid it wasn’t very varied especially in the theatre.
The headliners were very good dancers and singers as slick as usual but the show based on Glastonbury had all modern songs in it you could see the aged audience dropping off to sleep throughout the theatre.
Although the shows were on 3 times each night they still were on 2 nights in a row.
The Atrium is little plain in looks and apart from a pianist we didn’t see any entertainment in an evening in there.
On the whole I think Iona is a winner we very much enjoyed visiting all the eating places even the smaller choice on menus we didn’t mind too much, a shame the old daily standbys in the main restaurants have been dropped though and the Horizon seemed quite limited.
Breakfast can be had at The Quays but without toast that didn’t go down well.
Alcohol prices seemed reasonable but the supply of some drinks ran out altogether and some like Sambucca and Benedictine were never on board, as my husband pointed out in every bar he went to.
I believe a few people found this to be the case with other drinks too.
With regards to Covid we never heard of any outbreaks, everyone wore their masks as requested and cleanliness around the ship couldn’t have been better.
We took some lateral flow tests with us which we used every 3 days to make sure we were ok.
There have been obvious cut backs made by P&O but it’s hard to tell which are because of Covid and which are going to be permanent, hopefully we won’t lose too many luxuries after all isn’t that why we love to cruise.
I would recommend Iona but go with an open mind it’s not a traditional cruise ship and possibly not for everyone.