ORIANA on Ebay

For many ship fans sites such as Ebay often offer a virtual treasure trove of collectable items.
Traditionally these items were focused around older ships and  liners in recent times many items both rare an and more common place relating to the newer breed of ships have began to gain popularitiy with both sellers and buyers.
For ORIANA the selection of items available has been varied from everyday items such as menus and the ship's newspaper to a model costing thousands.
For those with an interest of the ship's first years of service several video cassettes released by P&O were for sale.
Below is a selection of items relating to ORIANA which has been on sale over the last year or so.

 Large scale model.

 Plaque awarded for a children's fancy dress competition during her inaugural year.

 Leather ORIANA Bookmark.

 ORIANA Maiden Season wristwatch.

2000 Dinner Menu.

 Maiden Season postcard.

 ORIANA From Dream To Reality VHS.

ORIANA- As popular as ever

With the passage of 14 months since her return from refit and adult only conversion ORIANA had proved her self to be as popular in her adults only role as she was during her time as a family friendly ship.
Despite initially there being some doubt among her regular passengers about her suitability to the role and also the slight anger of passengers with children the ship was able to overcome these biases and retain her place amongst the most popular and elegant cruise liners sailing from Southampton today.
Perhaps a testament to her the effectiveness of  how well her design was effected back in 1995 that the atmosphere on board remains one of understated elegance among  the beautiful surroundings of  her public rooms and cabins.

This is reflected in recent online reviews by passengers saying ' the service was second to none'

As if to further relegate the bad press of December regarding Norovirus to the dim and distant pass one passenger commented that 'P & O did fantastically well to overcome the risk of infection' and that 'ORIANA was spotless throughout the cruise due to the efforts of  her dedicated crew.'
Further proving that in this day of floating glitzy hotels a good true ship like ORIANA still has many years ahead of her.

Photo Copyrights: João Abreu & Steve Martin.

ORIANA returns to the Garden Isle

Yesterday for the first time this year ORIANA called in Funchal on the Garden Island of Madeira a port she shares a important link with.
Joining her for the day was fellow Meyer Werft built cruise ship NORWEGIAN SPIRIT ex SUPERSTAR LEO while both featuring Meyer's high build quality ORIANA unsurprisingly showed her superior lines as shown below.

Departing shortly after 5:30 pm ORIANA set off for her home port where she is due to arrive on the 11th February.

Being the last port of call her terraced decks were lined with passengers enjoying the traditional P&O Cruises 'Great British Sail away' party as she departed.

ORIANA will return to Funchal on the 15th February as the first port of call on her next cruise a 35 night Caribbean Transatlantic.

Photo Copyrights : João Abreu.

Cruise Experience 2012

A Photographic Journey.
To complete our journey on board ORIANA we begin a two part conclusion with a collection of photographs from the the first 3 days of the Cruise.
Southampton-9th June

 ORIANA alongside QEII Termianl.

Cruise ship activity in Southampton with GRAND PRINCESS and CELEBRITY ECLIPSE.

 The band plays.

ORIANA's house flag waves in the breeze while departing the berth.

On board ORIANA & at sea 10th June

In the North Sea.

Around ORIANA.

Bergen-11th June

 ORIANA arrives in Bergen.

 Shipspotting in Bergen Copyrights: João Abreu.

AIDAMAR departs.

 175th Anniversary Sailaway Party.

Photos Copyright: João Abreu & Steve Martin.