Cathygh

We missed a port last week and some of our party used Holiday Extras insurance as they are the company recommended by P&O and our TA. P&O issued a letter last week sayong P&O would not refund the port fees and to send thr letter to the insurance company. Holiday Extras are saying they have to prove they have tried to claim from elsewhere and send proof they have tried and been refused. I assume that "elsewhere" means they should try to claim from P&O. Has anyone dealt with this situation with Holiday Extras and how did you deal with it please? Thanks

On some ships, you can pre book speciality dining before you do but I can't remember if Azura is one of them

Yes I've done that now.

I have just completed the feefo one, I don't usually bother. The reviews are public so it helps future passengers. I doubt P&O take any notice

I have just received the feefo one for Iona G316

We have just got back from Iona, a half term cruise. Our grandchildren got into the kids club for every session. I don't know if the maximum quota for children had been reached but there were a lot of extra staff for the clubs on board.

Totally agree. P&O have had this app for nearly 2 years and it hasn't got much better.

It seems it is very successful on other lines so P&O must think enough of us have half a brain to do it. I might consider bidding if I thought I was getting a bargain but bargains don't seem to be available.

Sorry for not being clear, and the typos. P&O are now emailing passengers after final payment offering the chance to bid on an upgrade. If your bid is succesful then you are allocated a new cabin in the category you bid for, with no choice of location.

Yes we did, despite the virtual queuing nonsense. It seems like we didn't miss much in Haugasund and at least more entertainment was offered on the ship.

A great review. I am glad to hear that it's not only Iona that has problems with virtual queuing. Msc and Princess have a similar system which works well, but on both of those ships we were able to walk in to dinner at a time to suit ourselves. At least there is still some fixed dining on Britannia, unlike Iona, which is a mistake IMHO

Haugasund, it was too windy for Iona to get through the narrow entrance.

Iona last week?

This has been very helpful, as we are about to claim for our first missed port.

I think that now P&O are offering upgradeafter fis nal payment, they will hold prices if this is successful, and may be drop prices nearer to saling date. It is too early to tell.

You are welcome. 6 is easier to manage for sure. I am not sure if you can get a pager for Celebration NIght but its worth a try. The virtual queues were very long every night. We have used a similar system on Princess but found we didn't need to use it, we could walk in and be seated at any time convenient to us. I don't know why P&O make a meal out of it (excuse the pun!). Speciality dining was booked up all week except maybe the first night, so I would definitely book any you want before hand. Keel and Cow and Glasshouse were also very popular and were regularly full early evening. I'm not sure about later on. We got into every show we wanted to see withut booking and even got into the 710 club. We arrived on spec at 6 .45 and were asked to wait. My DH checked the app and found there had been a cancellation so we went in, and everyone who wanted to go in got a seat. I did have a great holiday. great ship, lots to do with extra put on for a cancelled port day. I have no complaints about the food (that's a first!) and was hapy with very meal. We ate in the MDR for every breakfast, most lunches and evenings and were happy with the choices on offer. Some of the family ate in the Quays for breakfast and lunch, as well as the buffet and loved the food. I hope you have a fantastic holiday in August.

@Selbourne Now I am off Iona and back with better wifi, I asked and was told that there was 5,700 passengers and 1600-1700 crew. There are meant to be 1800 crew. From what I coud see the shrtages were evident in Vistas - there was often a long queue for take away coffee, and in clearing tables in the restaurants. This delayed service The ship was busy but we could always find somewhere to sit and as long as you don't want to be by a pool it's fine. Having said that we still found beds by the Infinity Pool on our first sea day which was a very warm and sunny day. Sometimes there were chairs by the Skydome Pool but the comfy ones which face the windows were always taken. Getting 8 adults seated on Celebration night was a challenge. As we had 4 cabins we tried to join 4 queues at 6.30. We managed to get in the queues for Pearl and Aqua but the others were full and stayed full. I went to enquire about walk ins and was told there were 200 people ahead of us. We finally got called at 8.30. I fodn the wait stressful as some of our party eat early and one is a type 1 diabetic. We did not order drinks in case we were called before they were ready. The next night 2 of us looked at the queues at 6.30. All queues were full and stayed full. At 7.45 went to Coral and we were told there were 300 people ahead of us but the lady let us in. Other members of our group who eat early joined a queue every night at 5.15 and were called at about 6pm. One night 2 of them joined the same queue 5 minutes apart, both asking for a table for 4. The one who joined last was called first. The dining situation was very stressful. We found it hard to plan our evenings as we either were still waiting for dinner before a show or we missed a show due to dinner being late. However another passenger told us we could collect a pager between 5.30pm and 6pm and tell the restaurant what time we wanted to eat and we would be called when the table was ready. So after that we got a pager and said we wnated t eat at 8pm. We didn't wait for the pager to go off, we went to the restaurant at 8pm and were seated straight away. A much better system which P&O could communicate better. Getting a table for 8 was so difficult we only did it once. We also booked Sindhu for 8 people but the maximum table is for 6 so we had to do 2 separate bookings at different times- 7.15 and 7.45. I asked if we could merge the booking so we could all eat at 7.15. this was not possible! we were offered 6pm. As this was a surprise for my DH's 70th birthday and he eats late, I knew that wouldn't work. We were then offered 6.30. After a discussion we agreed that some of our party would turn up at 6.30 to hold the table and we could come at 7.15 and he would seat us near each other. I was not satisfied with this but it was te best I could get. So 6 people went at 6.30 and DH and I turned up at 7.15 I looked around and noticed it would have been easy to put tables together which were in booths but they had just put some tables togther right in front of the kitchen. This was not ideal but I was too stressed to do anything about it. I felt it was uncomfortable and we missed out onthe ambience of the restaurant. The food and service were fine. As Iona is mseant to be family friendly I think P&O did not plan adequately for multigenerational parties. If the children had not been in the kids club we would have had needed a table for 11, and this is not possible. The children loved the kids club, the shows etc and there was lots of choice of food for them to eat. Hope that helps

I have just come off Iona. I can confirm that extra cleaning is being undertaken and all restaurant staff are wearing masks. I just hope the infected staff members are ok, I had chicken pox as an adult and it's not nice.

Apologies for jumping in. Another cut is petit fours are on gala night only. And no snacks in the Crows Nest. However some of our party ordered extra steak and chips with no problem.

I think that is true on a 2 week cruise but not a 1 week. Speciality dining is fully booked all cruise.

The MDR had the beef with mushroom crust. I've had that 3 or 4 times and there was no crust. I heard that the MDR is on a 2 week menu Rota so 1 week there is beef Wellington and not the next. Chef's Table does not change.

Walkups are not getting priority as we tried that last night and on gala night. Yes there is something wrong. Not enough staff, not enough tables and calling it freedom dining is a breach of the trades description act. The number of guests it shows in the queue seems to actually be the number of parties waiting according to one of the waiters.

Hi we tried booking 4 queues on gala night at 6.30. We could only get onto 2 and the other 2 queues remained closed and were still closed when we were called at 8.30

We are happy to share but there was still a long wait even at breakfast.

Sorry got the time wrong it was 6. 45 not 7.45. The queues were then all full so at 7.45 We went to Coral to enquire and were told there were 300 people in the queue and that in future if we went there 35-45 minutes before we wanted to eat we could have a pager and be called In 35-45 minutes. We will do that another night but tonight tonight we are going to.Sindhu which is another stressful story.