On 6 September 2016, Carnival Corporation announced that it had signed an agreement with Meyer Werft for a 5,200-passenger vessel for P&O, scheduled for a 2020 debut. The vessel, planned to be the largest in P&O's history, at approximately , would also be powered by LNG, making her the first LNG-powered ship dedicated for the British market. It was later reported that the engine room unit for the LNG tanks for Iona was constructed separately at Meyer Werft's sister yard, Neptun Werft, in Rostock. On 27 October 2016, P&O announced that the public would be invited to name the new ship. On 24 May 2018, it was announced that the name Iona, after the Scottish island of Iona, had been chosen from 30,000 submissions.
