Iona Reviews

Iona is a large ship with plenty to entertain you throughout the day but what is so surprising is you will always find a nice place to sit and relax. You can chill and watch the views as you travel through the fjords or on sea days just watch the sea and enjoy life. The day we visit Olden we like to get up very early to watch the sunrise as we voyage through the fjord, it is spectacular. The food is excellent onboard lots of choice from the buffet and the included restaurants Pearl being our favourite and if you want a special night there are restaurants for that too. Truly a magnificent ship crewed by tentative staff always willing to help and make your holiday a memorable and special occasions.

Lovely ship, with great crew, good ent and plenty of quality eating options.

The fjords are amazing with beautiful scenery itinerary was perfect, we couldn't get to our last port due to rough seas. Most of the crew were polite and friendly however some of the crew seemed uninterested in their job.

The ship was lovely and very stable even in bad weather, the rooms very comfortable, and the facilities and staff excellent. The quality of the food was also very good, as was the variety of on-board activities and the mood among passengers. We especially enjoyed the pub! Our route through the fjords was very beautiful, though we were unlucky with the weather on a couple of days, and we therefore missed one of the destinations -- but safety must come first!

What a fabulous holiday! Sailing around the beautiful Fjords on IONA was magical. Iona is a stunning ship and short of nothing. P&O were fantastic, food, entertainment, facilities, ease of the off shore excursions - BRILLIANT!!

Fabulous decor, more relaxed than other cruise ships.

I have been on the Iona several times and she really is a lovely ship! The ships crew are fantastic as well! Dining in the restaurants was excellent but less so in the self service buffet! The entertainment was good but lacked variety I felt…but overall I had a fabulous holiday to my favourite destination, Norway! PS I so wish there were fairer prices for solo travellers without being in an inside stateroom!

Fabulous ship. Better than her sister ship the Arvia. The decor, cleanliness and excellent staff made for a super cruise. Scenery of the Fyords was spectacular. Enjoyed excursions by P&O which were run efficiently . Entertainment was available throughout the day and evening performances in the Theatre were excellent. Food excellent and varied.

Embarking was a dream with everything going according to plan. Accommodation in our inside cabin was ideal. Clean comfortable and plenty of cupboard and hanging space. We ate mostly in the self service restaurant and although the variety was good the quality was poor. Having said that we didn’t go hungry but felt the standards had dropped since our last P&O cruise last September. Our ports of call went smoothly and the only disappointment was we saw less of the fjords than planned due to adverse weather conditions it was decided not to visit our last destination and instead head for home spending more time at sea. Safety is their priority and that’s fair enough but as we particularly chose this type of cruise hoping to see the fjords we only had 2 days out of 7 doing just that. We also felt staff training had slipped especially in the bars/self service restaurants. We didn’t use the entertainment of activities but there was plenty available.

We have previously cruised with other lines, but this was our first with P&O and I'm not sure we'd do it again unless the price and itinerary made it too good to pass up. Lots of staff were great, but a fair few seemed like they didn't really want to be there and like the customers were just in the way. The communication was awful. For example, we had electronic communication and even a letter 1 month before which said conditioner was included so no need to bring it. However, when we got on board we found this was no longer the case and they'd not updated their Comms. We then had to pay £7 for a bottle of pantene that's about £3 in the supermarket. We were also not told that if we didn't pre-book speciality dining before the cruise even started, the chance of getting into one of these restaurants was severely limited to lunch times on port days, and some of them had no availability at all. In hellesylt we got off the boat almost immediately yet all the ferries had already been booked up so we couldn't go to Geiranger. This frustrated me because I'd contacted P&O live chat before going to check what time we would arrive so I could book the ferry and not risk missing it and they couldn't tell me. I also wanted to do the excursion to the dalsnibba skywalk and decided to do this through P&O despite the price due to the security of timings with them but even though it was advertised on the main P&O site and took you to my cruise when you clicked on it, it wasn't actually bookable and the live chat agent wasn't helpful. Haugesund was cancelled due to weather and we had a rocky day at sea instead but this was outside the hands of the crew so can't complain about this. The main bed was comfy, but the crib was so small my daughter who has just turned 2 couldn't even fit in it diagonally. This meant we had to put her in the sofa bed from the 2nd night which didn't have any barriers to stop her falling so she fell multiple times and the eldest also had to go on the top bunk which was rock solid. On the third night the room attendant thankfully provided a bed guard after we asked for it. The timings for dinner and evening entertainment wasn't the best if you had kids and didn't want to do the last showing at gone 10pm. The buffet didn't start until 6. 15 and the first show was 6. 45. you could use the main dining room from 5. 30 if you could get a table but that service was quite slow so when we did that we had to miss dessert. The next showing was around 8. 30, but there was generally something else on at the SkyDome then so we either had to do the 6. 45 or miss one of the big shows. If you can see the last showing then it wouldn't be a problem. The price of drinks was decent, albeit they were bulked out massively with ice. The excursions were double what you could get elsewhere though. The pools were ok. The SkyDome pool was cold but the outdoor ones were a good temperature, the issue was the air temp for the outside ones. There were plenty of hot tubs but under 8s weren't allowed in so I couldn't use them. The splash park was freezing. The food had ups and downs. Some was brilliant, but some wasn't. That's to be expected of any buffet though. Overall a good holiday, but let down in so many ways.