This was the first time we’d ever been on a cruise ship for a family holiday so had no real idea what to expect and no other cruise experience to compare it to.
Although the rest of the family have always been keen to do a cruise, personally I’d always been very reluctant. It’s just never seemed like my kind of holiday for various reasons and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it – although the rest of the family certainly were.
I’m pleased to say I’ve been proved 100% wrong and have been totally blown away by the experience, which has been amazing from start to finish.
Iona is a very new, very large cruise ship and, from the moment of stepping on board in Southampton, everything about the ship – from the incredible size to the quality of the decor, to the service from the staff, right down to the smallest details have not stopped impressing me for the entire week.
The ship is so large that, even after a full week on board, right up to the last day we kept stumbling across new things and places we hadn’t previously seen.
That’s a great thing if you’re looking for things to do and places to go on board – although it does mean a lot of walking!
And even after that whole week, we were still finding it hard to get our bearings and know where everything is and how to find it all.
Not that that’s a problem – as the signage and diagrams and deck maps all over the ship are all you need to find your way around.
Something else that amazed me is the sheer variety of experiences there are on the ship to keep people entertained during days and nights at sea.
When you think cruise ships like this are sometimes out at sea for many days at a time – for instance if you’re cruising to the Caribbean you might spend six days straight out at sea and they have to somehow keep over 5,000 passengers happy and entertained for all that time.
That’s 5,000 people all of different interests, ages, tastes and requirements for what they might want to do, see, eat, drink…
But somehow it feels like everyone is catered for and it’s impossible to get bored or to find yourself repeating the same thing too frequently.
And despite so many people all living together on board one boat, everything seems to run like clockwork.
Everywhere you go on board is so clean and tidy – there are thousands of staff constantly cleaning every area of the ship. I don’t think I saw one single part of the ship all week that was dirty or even had one piece of rubbish left.
There’s a massive variety of entertainment going on all day every day, running to a timetable that means everyone can see and do pretty much everything that’s on offer.
Just the arrangement of the entertainment timetable must be a massive logistical challenge but it’s done perfectly.
Everything from a lecture on the history of oil exploration in Norway to live bands, comedians, sports, games, full-scale musical theatre productions to intimate classical music performances – there is literally something for everyone going on constantly.
But if you just want to sit around and relax, you can do so on loungers on sun decks, around swimming pools, or in cafes, bars or multiple hot tubs.
And one of the highlights has to be the food – the amount and quality of it is just incredible.
From the unlimited all-you-can-eat Horizon buffet – open for breakfasts, lunches and dinners, to the many, many different restaurant choices, literally everything we ate was delicious and available in huge quantities!
You have a selection of ‘main dining rooms’ for dinner, which all serve high quality restaurant 3-course meals, plus some ‘speciality’ restaurants.
All the food in the main dining rooms is included in the price you pay for the cruise. The speciality ones incur an extra cost.
We found the quality, quantity and variety of the main dining room food was so good, there seemed like no reason for us to spend extra on the speciality restaurants. That money seemed better spent on shore experiences or extra drinks with our meals.
But this cruise is obviously not just about the time spent on board the ship – it’s about visiting one of the world’s most beautiful regions – the Norwegian Fjords.
We’ve put all the details of our shore experiences in separate posts – but the Norwegian Fjords exceeded all our expectations.
It felt like the perfect way to experience this part of the world – heading out for exhilarating experiences in the natural beauty of Norway and then being able to head back to Iona with all its comfort and luxury.
If there’s one slight concern we’d have with this cruise, it’s the issue of weather conditions and potential for missed ports.
You don’t book a holiday to Norway – at any time of year – with the expectation of good weather.
It’s a northerly, cold, wet country so we knew we weren’t likely to get much time sunning ourselves!
But the problem is that, if the weather is too bad, with winds too high, Iona cannot actually get into some of the Fjords and ports and, if that happens, there’s nothing that can be done other than float around in the North Sea and be confined to the ship, or potentially stop at alternative, less scenic, ports instead.
Being on the ship is great – but you pay for the experience of the Fjords and we would’ve been extremely disappointed if, like on many of Iona’s other visits here over this summer, we hadn’t got to see all the ports we’ve paid a high price to come and see.
This cruise has run every week over the summer period of 2022 and it looks like potentially the majority of the ones in the lead-up to our cruise in August had missed at least one port – some had missed multiple ports, which is a nightmare considering there are only four in total.
Thankfully we got into all ports as planned and, on our week, the sailing conditions were good. Flat, calm seas almost the entire trip – although there was plenty of rain, we did also get some pleasantly warm, unexpected sun.
But even as we left the most beautiful of the ports – Olden – we heard that a ship due to dock there the very next day had to abandon its visit due to a force 10 gale in the region.
It seems like this particular cruise has a very high risk of missing ports, which would really take some of the shine off the holiday.
Olden and Hellesyt / Gerainger are by far the most stunning of the destinations – and if you only got to see the other two (Stavanger and Haugesund) you would really have missed out big time on the true natural beauty of the region.
But on the other hand, we made it to all of them – and the risk of booking somewhere with such unpredictable weather really paid off as the sights we saw and experiences we had made for an unforgettable holiday.
This cruise has turned me from someone who despised the idea of going on a cruise holiday, who thought he’d never set foot on a cruise ship in his life, into someone stood queuing at the on-board holiday centre looking at where we can go on our next one.
P&O Cruises and the crew and staff of Iona – congratulations on creating a truly amazing, memorable holiday experience to one of the most incredible places we’ve ever seen!