Is Bigger Necessarily Better for P&O Guests?

May 2020 will see the launch of P&O’s largest ship to date, P&O Iona, weighing in at 180,000 tonnes, another 40,000 bigger than Britannia, and named after our beautiful Scottish island.

Iona is going to be quite a groundbreaking ship for P&O with lots of new and exciting features which have recently been revealed. These features include 30 different dining venues to include tried and tested Sindhu, The Glass House and Epicurean, and new venues such as Gastropub the Keel and Cow, and a new foodie market offering dishes from all over the world (I am assuming this will be the buffet restaurant?)

There will be a boutique-style cinema on board with four screens showing a variety of films, a ‘secret’ nightclub 710 Club and the fabulous new Skydome, which will be home to the pool and will have a retractable stage for aerial performances, immersive shows and deck parties.

Along with all these new features, there will be plenty of lounges on board for passengers to relax in all offering a variety of entertainment.

All in all this looks like a fabulous new ship, but is P&O doing the right thing by its guests? I mean really?

I was on board Britannia for her launch and during a cocktail reception on of the ‘top banana’s’ from P&O gave a talk, telling us how they had listened to feedback from their guests and the concept of Britannia came about from this feedback. This I find very strange as most of the older P&O clientele that I speak too much prefer the mid-sized P&O ships, they even find Azura and Ventura to big. They just find the bigger ships far too big to walk around. Getting from the restaurant to the theatre after dinner for the show is a long, long walk.

Another thing I find odd is that they aimed this ship firmly at the family market yet they have no cabins on board that will take more than four passengers and no interconnecting cabins either – what ship doesn’t have interconnecting cabins these days? There are many families with more than two children, my own included, so this immediately rules them out.

I really hope that P&O look back at some of the choices they made with Britannia and look to improve them on Iona, and I really hope that as the years roll by and their mid-sized ships need replacing that they do so like for like. P&O cruisers love their mid-sized ships!

For now folks, happy cruising!