Pre-booking MDR's on Iona

[Port out]

I understand that those of us with cruises booked on Iona shortly are currently able to pre-book, prior to boarding, any of the 4 MDR restaurants, along with their preferred dining time but, not table. I understood it was just Freedom, but P&O are 'testing' this new arrangement out. Wonder if anyone who has recently been on Iona can confirm or dispel this. 

[Bin man]

At the moment it isn't the case only the limelight club is bookable.The others are saying apply onboard that's the 4 mdrs and all the other restaurants .Dont know if they are trialing it or given up on it or not .

[Port out]

33 minutes ago, Bin man said:

At the moment it isn't the case only the limelight club is bookable.The others are saying apply onboard that's the 4 mdrs and all the other restaurants .Dont know if they are trialing it or given up on it or not .

Interesting

[HalifaxYorksCruiser]

Just got back from Iona. You have to go into a Virtual Queue for MDR restaurants. It worked ok for us but we dine fairly early. Lots of folk complaining at the restaurant doors that the My Holiday App was not updating their position in the queue. The app did crash on two nights.

[Son of Anarchy]

3 hours ago, HalifaxYorksCruiser said:

Just got back from Iona. You have to go into a Virtual Queue for MDR restaurants. It worked ok for us but we dine fairly early. Lots of folk complaining at the restaurant doors that the My Holiday App was not updating their position in the queue. The app did crash on two nights.

It was last year, but we just used to belly up to the MDR and took our chances.  Got seated straight away.  Was on a staycation with reduced capacity.  See what happens next month!

[davecttr]

3 hours ago, HalifaxYorksCruiser said:

Just got back from Iona. You have to go into a Virtual Queue for MDR restaurants. It worked ok for us but we dine fairly early. Lots of folk complaining at the restaurant doors that the My Holiday App was not updating their position in the queue. The app did crash on two nights.

I think someone posted that you have to manually update the virtual queue on the app. Also the posts about being able to book in advance appear to have been about a trial P&O were conducting.

[No pager thank you]

It may be different now than earlier this year on Iona, however it was then possible to pre-book a table in the MDR.  Where possible, this was only at either a very early (pre, or sometimes at 6pm) or very late (after 9pm) time.  Same applied for breakfast in the MDR, with a very early slot only available.  Lunch was fine.

 

I believe that it was possible also to book days ahead, whilst on board if you so wished, subject to the above.  App is awful, you have to remember to keep refreshing the page to be "pinged" when it is your turn.  On our cruise on Aurora earlier this year, the balance feature stopped working after week 1 for everyone om board, but P&O still found a way to keep counting of course 🤣

 

If this becomes a problem a good tip is to consider booking a specialty restaurant for the first evening on board, as they tend to be less popular then, occasionally there is an offer on, and you get a fixed time to plan the evening around after you have unpacked and began to orientate yourself around the ship etc.

 

My experience has been that waiting times have got longer as the app was introduced and "flow" has got worse.  Certainly that was noticeable on Iona.  The reason appeared to be that areas of the MDRs were closed off earlier in the evening, because the staffing ratios have decreased (and the staff can't see the queue physically), however my cruise was at a time when passenger numbers were deliberately lower due to Covid, so perhaps different now.

 

The challenge with this system is that, as all passengers are on Freedom Dining, and assuming you want to be dining between 7pm and 9pm say, then you have to "guess" which queue will be quickest, which is not necessarily the shortest one.  Those who cannot use the system are given a manual pager.

 

This "guessing system" contrasts with the smaller ships where the allocation staff may add you to the queue at a certain point, if you want to dine at the same time each day and you let them know.  However, you have to accept waiting invariably long periods if you have a preference for a particular table/area I.e., you have developed a rapport with the team waiting on.

 

The cynic in me says that the system is in part designed to encourage greater bar tabs from pre dinner drinks as people wait.  Hence, we tend to guess the queue length and add ourselves to the queue whilst getting ready to go out for the evening.  That said, the 15 minutes to get there on Iona is trickier than on Aurora! 

 

Hope this helps...would be interested if there are any changes as I assume that it will be similar on Our Vera!

 

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

I think someone posted that you have to manually update the virtual queue on the app. Also the posts about being able to book in advance appear to have been about a trial P&O were conducting.

You don't necessarily have to update the app, it does buzz you when your table is ready. But sometimes queues move faster than others, which leads passengers to think it has failed.

Of course the delay could be when a large number of passengers who have not used the app to join a virtual queue suddenly turn up and are seated at tables that would have been available for passengers that did use the app.

I assume P&O want the app to succeed, so at some point table hosts will need to tighten up their procedures and perhaps give pagers to all passengers who have not used the app to try and encourage them to conform, or find they are left with a long wait.

 

[9265359]

The only booking for the MDRs (at least on Iona at the moment) seems to be for the early times (before 6pm), and after that you have to queue.

 

Lunchtimes it seems pointless using the app since if you just walk up to the hosts desk you will be seated anyway.

 

The main issue with the lengthy queues doesn’t seem to be the passengers, but the staff and P&O’s IT system. They still don’t have sufficient staff so the staff are struggling to cope, and their online ‘at table’ ordering system is constantly falling over.

[amajaa]

Can I ask please and this is not just for Iona but that will also apply early next year. I was specifically wondering about Ventura initially.

 

When can you book the MDR , do you have to do it each day or can you do it days in advance? If you have to do it each day what time does the booking become  available please? 

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, amajaa said:

Can I ask please and this is not just for Iona but that will also apply early next year. I was specifically wondering about Ventura initially.

 

When can you book the MDR , do you have to do it each day or can you do it days in advance? If you have to do it each day what time does the booking become  available please? 

If you are on freedom dining, which is everyone on Iona, then unless you specifically want to book every meal time in advance, which somewhat negates the idea of freedom dining, then once you are almost ready to eat you use the app to join the queue for the restaurant you want to use that night.  If you choose to share tables the wait time before the app says your table is ready is fairly short, if you want a table for 2 the wait will be longer, so maybe you would need to join the queue earlier.

[davecttr]

Also note that Iona has 4 main dining rooms, 2 large and 2 smaller, all the same menu I think. The new Arvia will have 2 large main dining rooms with the 2 smaller ones repurposed into the Olive Grove and an American diner.

[amajaa]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

If you are on freedom dining, which is everyone on Iona, then unless you specifically want to book every meal time in advance, which somewhat negates the idea of freedom dining, then once you are almost ready to eat you use the app to join the queue for the restaurant you want to use that night.  If you choose to share tables the wait time before the app says your table is ready is fairly short, if you want a table for 2 the wait will be longer, so maybe you would need to join the queue earlier.

Thanks , so you can book days in advance if you want to can you. We normally eat as early as possible every night ( medical reasons )  which is why we prefer Freedom Dining as set dining on the older ships was always at 6.30 whereas Freedom Dining started at 6 or even 5.30 on sone cruises.

 

On the day you board can you book dining straight away?

 

Editing - I think when we are on Iona next year we might not book that far in advance as there is quite a few dining choices which sound good. 

Edited November 6, 2022 by amajaa

[9265359]

21 hours ago, davecttr said:

The new Arvia will have 2 large main dining rooms with the 2 smaller ones repurposed into the Olive Grove and an American diner.

That will exacerbate the pressure on the remaining two MDRs - the queue for a table can already be over an hour. 

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, 9265359 said:

That will exacerbate the pressure on the remaining two MDRs - the queue for a table can already be over an hour. 

Only if you desire a table for two, sharing a table hardly has any waiting time.

[amajaa]

16 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

Only if you desire a table for two, sharing a table hardly has any waiting time.

What is the story with Covid now though, if you share a table with someone who later goes down with Covid will you have to isolate as well? 

[9265359]

22 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

sharing a table hardly has any waiting time.

The ‘gentleman’ having a shouting argument with the MDR host last night after being told how long he would have to wait for a sharing table would disagree with you.

[binman2]

Finally got logged into site to update what happen last cruise on Iona mdr .We booked the whole cruise 6pm table for 2 via the app first say .Never had a problem went with the flow experienced 14 different tables for 2 in the Pearl restaurant. Waiters were all fine some better then others but all was good . We had breakfast in the same restaurant turning up about 8.15 am and again 14 different  tables for 2 with no waiting and used 4 times at lunch .So in all 32 different tables for 2 in the Pearl. Food was good veg a little sparse at times had to laugh on time had 1 piece of carrot half an inch long but over all was happy as we always had enough after the whole meal 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cheshire]

We have booked a select fare on Arvia which offers the following benefit (Iona excepted) First priority for dining style on ships offering both freedom and club dining?  So exactly what does this rather costly benefit confer?  

 

It goes on to state "plus first priority for seating time and table size for club dining?"  Ok that I understand but on Arvia?

 

[binman2]

There is no club dinning as I understand it for Arvia and is the same as Iona all freedom dinning in the Mdrs

[cheshire]

10 minutes ago, binman2 said:

There is no club dinning as I understand it for Arvia and is the same as Iona all freedom dinning in the Mdrs

Exactly so in other words the select fare offers no benefit.

[majortom10]

3 minutes ago, cheshire said:

Exactly so in other words the select fare offers no benefit.

Yes choice of stateroom which too many is a great benefit. Leaving the choice to P&O is fraught with the danger having a poor position stateroom i.e. seasickness and noise.

[cheshire]

2 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

Yes choice of stateroom which too many is a great benefit. Leaving the choice to P&O is fraught with the danger having a poor position stateroom i.e. seasickness and noise.

Good point.  having booked a superior balcony deluxe i'm not sure there are bad ones for the additional sum paid though had we booked other cabin grades arguably so. 

[binman2]

And deck 8 cabins also depends on offers at time of booking how much obc, do you want parking payed or bus down to Southampton 

[Gettingwarmer]

16 minutes ago, cheshire said:

Good point.  having booked a superior balcony deluxe i'm not sure there are bad ones for the additional sum paid though had we booked other cabin grades arguably so. 

Worth select to book a cabin nnumber for this but you must say No Upgrade or you could be upgraded to the dreaded deck 8 conservatory cabins. 
if you had not booked select you could be upgraded at any time. 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Gettingwarmer