RainbowRichard

Ah that explains a lot - the CEO used to be the CFO? I have worked for a number of companies that got totally ruined when the CFO got promoted to CEO….

We tried Iona for the first time in May of this years after being fairly loyal Celebrity cruisers. We’re in our early to mid forties if that makes any difference. We also have yet to try Celebrity again post pandemic - our next Celebrity cruise is this September. Things we liked about Iona: The number of Speciality restaurants was good and the extra charge is modest so it is less of a considered purchase. Food was generally good, though I found breakfast disappointing, more akin to a low/mid range chain hotel. Limelight club a good concept which we enjoyed. We generally like to find a quiet-ish bar with some low key music such as piano/strings etc and there were a good number of these on Iona and relatively easy to find a seat. Seems like a bigger ship means there is something to please everyone and it was easy to find a quiet spot if that’s what we wanted. Downsides of Iona The service didn’t seem quite as polished, we felt that the staff, although pleasant, did not go above and beyond and we also feel like we did not get to know them like we do on Celebrity but that could be due to being a much larger ship. Dinner in main dining room always felt rushed, and we were in and out in about an hour or so even on formal night. We did get ill with bad colds halfway through this cruise so did not try any other entertainment outside of the limelight and music in the bars. We did not buy a drinks package either and just paid as we went. In summary, we’d certainly try P&O again especially as Celebrity pricing seems to be going through the roof. We’ll see how our September Celebrity cruise is and determine whether it is still worth paying a bit more for.

I think part of the reason for being pleasantly surprised was that we perhaps had lower expectations than we do of Celebrity but I’ll post some further thoughts on there for the benefit of everyone else - thanks for the link.

I’m very much in the same boat too (excuse the pun), We are in our early to mid forties and have been pretty loyal Celebrity cruisers the last few years - the last few times in Aqua class. We have one booked on Silhouette in September but looking ahead to next year from Southampton UK you are looking at £8k for an aqua class cabin for pretty much the same itinerary as we did in 2019 for £4k. I know prices have increased but double in five years is excessive. We earn good salaries but cannot justify that for a holiday. We went on P&O earlier this year and were pleasantly surprised so we’ll see what Celebrity is like in September and see if the extra for Celebrity is worth it.