2 cruises in a year… 1 week apart! It has been a crazy year!
Arvia is the sister ship of Iona, Arvia is a little bit bigger than Iona but the ship’s layout is almost identical. Saying that, there are a few differences between them. In this blog, I will tell you what they are.
These are all my opinions/experiences and at the end of the day, it’s your trip so you can make up your own opinions!
Embarkation
Both ships go from Southampton at Ocean Terminal (Dock Gate 4)… However the queuing was a little different.
Iona – had 2 queues at the terminal, one for earlies and one for on time. The early queue was a lot longer than the earlies but it didn’t take us long to get into the terminal.
Arvia – 4-5 different queues depending on your embarkation time. This was a lot easier to queue as you just go to the queue that matches your time.
Cabin steward/stewardess
Iona – our stewardess advised that they will clean the cabin when we put the “Go Exploring” sign outside the door.
Arvia – They would come everyday to clean the cabin. We were lucky to have a cabin next to each other and it had a door linking our rooms so was able to open it. So if we forget to put “Go Exploring” outside the door, our steward would clean both rooms.
Main Dining Rooms (MDR)
Iona – 4 MDRs; Pearl, Opal, Aqua and Coral.
Arvia – 2 MDRs; Zenith and Meridian but they have 2 extra non chargeable restaurants; The Olive Grove and The 6th Diner.
The menu on Iona for The Olive Grove is half non chargeable and half chargeable, so beware if you do Arvia first!
Buffet cutlery
I know cutlery is only a small thing but just a subtle difference… There are no trays on both ships!
Iona – all cutlery were inside the napkins so it was a lot cleaner and more sanitary.
Arvia – the cutlery were separate from the napkins and were put in their own cutlery trays. Less sanitary but it was still ok.
Staff
Iona – more attentive and just all round amazing. The restaurant staff were all very nice and patient.
Arvia – weren’t too keen on the staff in Zenith (MDR), they were quite abrupt when answering you; they either reply with “mm” or “fine.” Everywhere else were fine though.
Food
Now this one was a big one… some of the food were the same BUT the presentation were different! Explaining to my cousin the food I had on Iona was a big sharing plate, but on Arvia it was smaller. Here are a couple of examples:
Iona on the left, Arvia on the right for both:
This was the pineapple dessert and as you can see the presentation are different.
The Indian sharing plate, on Arvia it definitely wouldn’t have been a sharer! It was advertised as a sharer/large plate and you definitely couldn’t share it! They really need to make it consistent especially if they are sister ships.
Overall
I think these were my main differences I could point out. I would love to go on both ships again though, can’t fault the cleanliness. I was kinda nervous about cruising after COVID as I kept hearing that people caught COVID once they got back on land, but luckily on both trips I didn’t catch anything!
As I said at the beginning, these are my opinions and you can take it with a pinch of salt! This shouldn’t deter you from booking a cruise. I read so much negativity on Facebook about different things but it’s their opinions, go on the cruise with an open mind!
Hope you enjoyed this blog. More from my cruises soon! Jill x
The Oriental Foodie 