Countdown to ORIANA - Selling ORIANA to her public

For passengers embarking on a cruise often "the first port of call" as it were is the cruise brochure where descriptions are often given for what the passengers can expect on board and a full list of the cruises to tempt the both experinced and cruise and those who are new to cruising.
Particularly in the mid 1990's when the use of the internet was limited, a brochure picked up from a travel agents or sent directly from the cruise line was the only way to plan a cruise and it was also a perfect way to introduce ORIANA.
Featuring its own logo which became so iconic of ORIANA herself it appears on much of the Maiden voyage/season souvenirs which were available on board and would later be reused for AURORA 5 years later.

To begin with the brochure draws the attention to the fact that ORIANA is designed for the British market a selling point which set her apart from all new other new builds at that time.

Using concept art drawn up during her design stage the potential passengers are guided around ORIANA's public spaces from the Crystal Pool on the lido deck proudly procliamed as the largest on board any cruise ship, to the various bars, lounges and Restaurants.

While ORIANA had been designed to have an affinity with CANBERRA it was a matter of course that there would be marked differences between the two, ORIANA's role of full time cruise liner contrasted vastly with the liner service CANBERRA had been designed for over 3 decades before, so the brochure talks about the ways P&O had ensured there would be a sense of continuity between the two ships including the appointment of  Commodore Ian Gibb as ORIANA's first master, a familer face to passengers fond of CANBERRA.

On board CANBERRA there was also publicity for ORIANA being put into action with the new flagship being shown on menus, P&O certainly was making every possible effort to ensure that the venerable liner's
eventual successor would be well received by her future passengers.

History in the Making revised -- Part 1 - Art and Conception III

The Interior Design

As mentioned in last week's post a important addition to the team was made in October 1991 when Robert Tillberg was appointed as coordinating architect to Project Gemini as he explained
“The most important period was before the contract, when I was the only person working with P&O’s team on Gemini/ORIANA. That was when we laid the plans and decided the functions of the different rooms and their ambiance.”

Robert Tillberg

Tillberg’s brief was effectively what P&O had come up with in the early planning stages, a ships interior that was British in character yet in its design modern.

“When the contract was signed, P&O and I decided to give some of the public rooms to other architects.”

These were British architect John McNeece to work on some of the public rooms and Norwegian Petter Yran to work on the cabins, both experts in their field of work.
Among other projects John McNeece had worked on several prestigious projects including interiors for RCL's SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS, then the largest purpose built cruise ship in service.

 John McNeece

Petter Yran also has pleanty of experience with passenger ship design work including lounges, dining venues and cabins on board premium cruise ship SEABOURN PRIDE.

Petter Yarn

In order to get an idea of exactly what was needed Tillberg took two trips onboard CANBERRA to get a feel for what was required

Of the experience he said “ I was very impressed by not so much by the ship, because she is a old ship and had been altered and added , but I was impressed by the atmosphere onboard”.

 It was now that Tillberg had a better view of what his designs should incorporate.

Cutaway image of Oriana as completed.

The first public space he began working on was perhaps one of the most important for the ship, the area which would give the passenger their first impression of life onboard ORIANA, the atrium.
Standing 4 storeys tall at the heart of ORIANA, the atrium's’centrepiece is a elegant curved spiral staircase which sweeps from D Deck to F Deck.
Behind the staircase set into a marble wall is a waterfall that runs the entire height of the atrium emptying into a pool beneath the last flight of the staircase.
Each level of the atrium has its own name which contains some of the ships amenities, beginning on F Deck and working up they are, Garden Court which contains the reception desk, E Deck - Queens Court that holds the lower level of Knightsbridge shopping along with the emporium shop,
Promenade Deck- Royal Court which contains the upper level Knightsbridge shopping,
Here Tillberg worked closely with McNeece allowing him free reign to create a functional yet elegant shopping space for ORIANA.

 Concept art for the atrium shopping area

E Deck shopping area

D Deck- Tiffany Court which contains Tiffany’s Bar which allows passengers to enjoy a wide ranges of drinks while relaxing under a stained glass tiffany styled art deco ceiling.Tiffanys

Although the atrium is indeed a beautiful and elegant introduction to the style of ORIANA passengers who are more accustomed to the North American cruise market might find it lacking in the glitz and glamour those ships feature as standard, it is the perfect realisation of P&O’s concept, refined good taste and above all very British in character.

Cabins

While Robert Tillberg worked with John McNeece on the public areas Petter Yran worked on what was required from the most important rooms onboard ORIANA the passengers cabins,
After being given the basic brief from Tillberg he was free to do what he wanted to achieve the final product.
To begin with it was necessary to look at what was required from the cabins both decoratively and from a practical point of view,
Firstly the cabins needed to welcoming to the passengers and inevitably have to give the atmosphere fitting of a premier cruise ship also in order to accommodate ORIANA’s longer cruises the cabins would require a
large amount of storage space, this is achieved by each cabin having a minimum of 12 draws for clothes storage with a further two in a unit next to each bed and a full height wardrobe with capacity for shirts, suits, and evening dresses.
As with the rest of the ship the cabins had to reflect a unique style of their own, at the time with most ships entering service for the North American market the trend was for cabins to be scaled down versions of hotel rooms,
“Virtually all new cruise ships today are designed for the North American Market” Yarn commented on being interviewed at the time
“ I have never known before of any cruise ship in the world where 96-97 per cent of the passengers would be British”
“When they come onboard a ship they expect the interiors to look more ship like and functional, whereas the Americans expect a floating hotel.”
So for the overall look of the cabins he adopted a ship like design making use of as much wood and wood laminates as possible and avoiding the use of shape edges around cabin furniture
Another requirement for cabins was of course for all to have on-suite bathroom facilities a feature that was lacking in parts of CANBERRA’s accommodation due to the original nature of the venerable liner.
Another feature to note about ORIANA’s cabins bathrooms is the number which include a bath, about 50 % of the bathrooms do, this is significantly higher number than would be found on a US market ship where the number would be 20 - 30 per cent,

Artist impression of a suite  

Of the 914 cabins on board 594 are outside cabins, 118 include balconies of these 8 are suites and 16 are mini-suites, the remaining 320 cabins onboard are inside cabins.

 Artist impression of a standard outside cabin

As P&O proudly said in the official book of ORIANA "ORIANA, From Dream To Reality, “the ship is a one-class ship: first class, unlike other prestigious ships that had gone before her if you book the cheapest grade of cabin or the most expensive suite you are guaranteed to receive the same high standards of service."

Public Rooms

Onboard ORIANA the public rooms are located on Sun Deck, Lido Deck, D deck, Promenade Deck and the main restaurants on Dec.

Tillberg’s aim with the interiors was to create a feeling of openness and to emphasize the size of ship this most apparent the public rooms on the upper decks these are The Crows Nest , Medina room and Cyber Study on the Sun Deck, The Gymnasium, health spa, The Conservatory buffet restaurant on the Lido deck.

This was achieved by using where ever possible large floor to ceiling windows, creating spaces which allow a maximum amount sunlight and of course stunning views.

This is creates the perfect ambiance for The Crows Nest bar, a bar with views that no other onboard no other can rival,

Named after the similarly used bar on Canberra The Crows Nest’s design is inspired by nautical themes and includes a authentic classic style ships compass and a model of one of P&O’s R Class ships built in the mid 1920s and to add a to add a unique aspect the individual seating all has the word ORIANA and the previous ORIANA’s badge proudly displayed.

A room that always attracts many passengers, the sights t o behold from here very from the Norwegian Fjords to the Panama Canal or just to watch the sunset over the open seas.

Concept art for The Crow's Nest 

Another area which is important to many passengers is located one deck below The Crows Nest on the Lido deck that is ORIANA’s health and fitness spa complex -The Oasis Spa, also including the ships Gymnasium this is another area which makes use of floor to ceiling windows,
To allow for the passenger to relax completely the Spa includes: Steam room, a Jacuzzi, a hair and beauty salon, massage treatment rooms, as built the suite of rooms was finished with a "Aerobic Disco" area used for work routines, aerobics etc, this room would later be removed an replaced with Al Fresco a popular alternative dining venue.
　 Another room onboard which bespeaks the origins of ORIANA, is Andersons located on the promenade deck,
Named after Arthur Anderson one of the founders of P&O the room takes its inspiration from the late 19th/early 20th century London clubs and with its wood panelling and traditional furniture could easily have fitted in onboard a Edwardian ocean liner.
The room features as a tribute to its namesake a bronze relief depicting Anderson.
 Andersons forms the first of the main run of public rooms on the deck.

Andersons

Concept drawing of Andersons

 Further aft on the promenade deck is Harlequins one of the rooms given to John McNeece, ORIANA’s ballroom during the day and early evening, it changes function to that of nightclub during the later hours.To welcome passengers to dance in Harlequins a statue of Harlequin and Columbine dancing stands guard at the entrance.

 The entrence to Harlequins

Featuring the largest dance floor in the P&O Cruises fleet, Harlequins continues the nautical/exploration theme by having a large compass motif at the centre of it's inlaid sprung dance floor, all of which goes in to making this the largest and most popular nightspot onboard.

Concept for Harlequins

Continuing aft on the promenade is another of McNeece’s rooms the onboard sports bar Lords Tavern as the name suggests its theme is a cricket one, a tribute both to the much loved game and to the Cricketers Tavern onboard Canberra which over the years had become one of the liners most popular venues.
In order to create a feel of a sports bar McNeece used many references to cricket, careful examination of the bar will reveal that the ends are shaped as cricket balls, the carpet in part of the room is designed to look like a cricket pitch and the most obvious feature aside form the memorabilia on the walls is a large mural depicting Lords cricket ground.
Being typically British in it is decorative style its described by some as being one of the only true examples of a authentic British styled bar at sea.

Lords Tavern

By far the largest room on the promenade deck is the Theatre Royal, located at the forward end of the deck, the 650 seat theatre offers full theatre style productions courtesy of The headliners, P&O's own theatre company, in keeping with the theme of entertainment the two entrances to the theatre are lined with photos of legendary film and theatre stars. To keep the passengers comfortable the room is heated and cooled by vents on the back of the seats.
It is also noteble that it is the first  purpose designed theatre to be included on a cruise ship opposed to the more standard multi-purpose show lounge venues,

 Concept art for the Theatre Royal

At the after end of the deck the second lounge which is able to stage a show or host an event the Pacific Lounge is one of the few rooms on board which has changed over the years

  Concept art for the Pacific Lounge

Heading up to D Deck where more of the public rooms are located on this Deck is as mentioned before Tiffanys, Ocean Grill Restaurant, originally designed as the Curzon Room a Piano recital room , the Chaplin’s Cinema, Library and writing room and at the aft end of the deck the children’s facilities, which were removed during her refit in November/ December 2011.
Named after Charlie Chaplin, the cinema with a capacity of 200 is used to show modern and classic films but also is used to host lectures.
To have a dedicated cinema on board a modern cruise ship is actually quite a rarity. To reflect the nature of Chaplin himself passengers are greeted by not one but two statues of Chaplin in character as "The Tramp"

Chaplins Cinema and Peter Pans children's area

Chaplins entrance

The library and Thackeray writing room are two more rooms to give a special mention to, named after the renowned English writer William Makepeace Thackeray who once sailed on one of P&O's early ships Tagus the two rooms furniture and bookshelves were designed by the nephew of her Majesty the Queen, David Linley, the room gives a relaxed atmosphere within its wooden panels to read a book or magazine or to write letters home about your travels.

Restaurants

Onboard ORIANA there are two main restaurants The Peninsular and The Oriental. The Peninsular which seats 400 passengers at one time is located midships and The Oriental which seats 500 passengers is aft, in decorative style both have a similar style with mirrored ceiling panel and much and matching carpets and seating. The Peninsular Restaurant's colour scheme features a tasteful light green, and light coloured wood work, the forward walls are mirrored to increase the sense of openness, however the rooms most unique feature is a painting that covers the entire centre of the aft wall showing The Journey of Odysseus. The overall effects creates a bright and airy environment with unique Art Deco inspired lamps of the tables to help create sophisticated atmosphere. 

 
The Peninsular Restaurant

The Oriental Restaurant located in the very stern is of similar style to that of Peninsular however the colour scheme is red with darker wood, however the most stunning feature here is not a work of art instead the room boasts sea views on three sides.

The Oriental Restaurant

ORIANA also feature three other dining venues, The Conservatory buffet, the afore mentioned Al Frescos Pizzeria, both located on the lido deck and Ocean Grill, formally Oriana Rhodes located on D Deck, Oriana Rhodes was the restaurant of chef Gary Rhodes until 2011 when in line with the new look and branding from  P&O it was changed to Marco Pierre White ,The room was formerly The Curzon room a music venue where Piano recitals could be heard  most nights it's walls adorned with magnificent tapestries.

 Concept art for Thc Curzon Room

As hopefully can be seen words alone can not do ORIANA justice, but hopefully we have created some idea what thought went into creating the great lady and the thought process her designers also went through.
While the design work they did was to make ORIANA a world class liner able to compete and better any other afloat the foremost requirement they had to stick to was that the ship's character was to be entirely British and this was to be evident in every way possible.
It is therefore truly a testament that although aimed at the British market ORIANA  has become popular with not only the target market but as well other nationalities among them Australian, Portuguese, Spanish and South African, a real tribute to the effort which was put into creating ORIANA.
To conclude Robert Tillberg and John McNeece reflect on ORIANA how her design differed from the older liners and the approch taken to the design.

A regular visitor in Funchal

Ever since her maiden call 20 years ago, in April 1995, during her inaugural cruise, ORIANA is a well known presence in Funchal, Madeira, calling several times a year, most like her fleetmates of P&O Cruises, a company that has always been very fond of this Atlantic island.
In the images ORIANA is seen in Funchal on 1 May 1998, a busy cruise day in Madeira's main port, alongside her were the (at the time) Cunarder VISTAFJORD, the C.COLUMBUS of Hapag-Lloyd and the Portuguese cargo ship MADEIRENSE, under service for local company Porto Santo Line at the time. In the background the EDINBURGH CASTLE, also registered in London, is seen departing.
As a curious fact, of all these ORIANA is the only one who is either still in service and that has retained her name to the present day.

Images: João Abreu Collection. 

Countdown to ORIANA - Preparing for a maiden season

With the launch of any new ship the owners marketing deparment works exteremly hard to begin selling the ship to the public even before any of the cruises go on sale, a full advertising campaign to attract existing and new passengers alike to sample the new delights of the new ship.
When the ship is as important as ORIANA the marketing becomes even more so, not only would the ship need to single handedly capture 10 % of the UK market and the less than enviable task of joining CANBERRA as her new fleetmate and taking her place as flagship, CANBERRA's regular passengers had become extremely loyal to her and it would take a lot of clever marketing to convince them to cruise with the new ship.
She also was to take the place of rival Cunard's QUEEN ELIZABETH 2 as the flagship of the British Merchant Navy, P&O certainly had a lot of work to do to introduce ORIANA to the public.
 We are going to look at some of the ways that P&O publicised ORIANA and touch upon how some of her crew prepared for their new charge.
 We start by looking at Countdown to ORIANA, series of 9 magazines which P&O released quaterley from Spring 1993 to Spring 1995

The magazines looked into many aspects of the development of ORIANA from such as designs for public rooms and cabins to looking at those behinds the scenes such as the designers and introducing the officers who would guide ORIANA through her maiden season.
Each magazine focused on an area of design showing various concept drawings of the areas, theses included public rooms and cabins as shown below.

  As seen below to give an insight to the ship the deck plans, which are more or less accurate to the ship as built, were released before names had been assigned to the various venues on board.

 Other topics included covered various updates on the construction of the ship.

In the later issues the magazines also introduced perhaps the most important element to ORIANA's success her crew.

 Introducing Ian Gibb as ORIANA's Master.

  Each magazine was rounded off with questions and letters from the public about ORIANA and general news from P&O along with contact details for registering interest in ORIANA's maiden season.

History in the Making revised -- Part 1 - Art and Conception II

Early Designs and Concept

While P&O concerned its self with potential shipyards to invite to tender for the ship's construction it also had the task of deciding what was required form the proposed ship both in terms of technical aspects and what the ship could offer its passengers.

Effectivly what was the concept for the new ship?

The ship was foreseen in a role similar to that which CANBERRA occupied currently, UK based cruises which included 1 & 2 week cruises to the Atlantic Islands, Baltic, Norwegian Fjords & Mediterranean with longer cruises visiting the US and the Caribbean and the famed 3 month world cruise.

For this to be achievable it was calculated the new ship would be required to have a service speed of around 24 knots and be able to maintain the speed in all but the most serve weather conditions, making it the fastest passenger ship built since Cunard's QUEEN ELIZABETH 2 and the fastest purpose built cruise ship ever constructed, also to accomodate this the ship would need to have a large fuel and fresh water capacity to allow for longer periods between ports.

Another key feature to the success of the new ship would be hull design, most of cruise ships in development at the time were designed for regional cruising in the caribbean with only occasional ocean crossings, the new ship with its yearly world cruise and being home ported in Southampton would often encounter some of the most severe seas from the North Atlantic on crossings to the North Sea and Bay of Biscay on regular cruises.

Other features of the ship would be, a shallower draught in comparison to CANBERRA to allow access to a larger number of ports, a maximum beam of 32.2 metres.
And of course for passenger comfort minimal engine noise and vibration.
From the passengers point of view the most important decisions were regarding the new ships interiors, although no serious thought would put towards this aspect of design until a much later stage P&O did take the unusual step of defining that the ship should include at least 21 public rooms the same number as on board CANBERRA.
It had been calculated by P&O that when the ship would be operating out Southampton on regular cruises that 98% to 99% of the passengers would be British with the remaining passengers being from Europe and on world cruises 78% British around 10 % European with the remainder being Australian, North American & South African.
In the company’s opinion this justified making the ship as far as possible British in character.

Aside from what the company’s needs the ships design would be governed by its ability to conform to maritime law.
The most important of these being SOLAS but also required if the ship was to enter US ports and for the ship to comply with US coastguard and department of health regulations.
This formed the basic concept of the new ship a large modern high speed luxurious super liner designed to combine the grace of the ocean liners with the requirements of a purpose built modern cruise ship, to quote P&O’s design brief “Interior and external balancing traditional and contemporary images”.
Having sent out the invitations to tender for construction in December 1989 by early 1990 P&O had its replies.
The most promising of these was from the Bremerhaven based yard of Lloyd Werft which P&O entered negotiations with.
The drawings produced by the yard were of roughly the right dimensions and with a rather avant-garde styling it certainly looked modern and perhaps with some more work the designs would be to P&O’s liking.
The deck plans showed a layout not unlike that of CANBERRA with the public rooms sharing names, locations and functions than on board the veteran liner

Lloyd Werft profile drawing for Project Gemini 

After pleasing initial talks things rapidly came to halt when it became clear that the projected price of the proposed design exceeded the budget that P&O had allocated to the development and construction of the new ship.
With this setback P&O looked to the other yards who replied but in turn found each to be in excess of their budget and it was with great reluctance P&O put Project Gemini on hold indefinitely.
The design work that was done by Lloyd Werft later was further developed by their parent company Bremer Vulkan and in 1991 was displayed by them at a Cruise and Ferry convention in London as a cruise ship concept.
Although not exactly as designed this ship would eventually be built as COSTA VICTORIA in 1996. 

  COSTA VICTORIA in Funchal, Madeira 15th April 2011: Copyright João Abreu 

The design would be further developed and refined into NCL's NORWEGIAN SKY originally planned as COSTA OLYMPIA and NORWEGIAN SUN

 It is also interesting to note that the refinements made to the design included a deck structure above the bridge which bears a resemblance to the upper decks of ORIANA. 

  
New concept drawings and contract

Six months later P&O handed the work that been done on Project Gemini to another of its subsidiaries the Monaco based ISTS, which P&O had acquired when it purchased Sitmar Cruises which it promptly mereged to it's Princess Cruises operation, to review.

ISTS’s project director Charles Arkinstall reviewed the concept drawings and the proposals which had been submitted and found the reason for them being over budget was that was the concept was far too large for the proposed amount of passengers which was around 1,800, with this revelation Charles Arkinstall began to redraw the concept drawings in October 1990. By the beginning of summer 1991 all the redrawing had been completed and the new specifications showed a ship of around 67,000 tons still with a maximum passenger capacity of 1900.

Having thoroughly examined the replies they had from the 10 shipyards the year before it was decided to ask two yards to re-quote.

Meyer Werft and the Finnish yard obliged and two months later, both sets of drawings were received and studied in depth , P&O found the Finnish ship too small but the Meyer Werft ship seemed to meet each requirement which they had laid out.

 The drawings showed a ship of around 69,000 tons ,260 metres in length and a width of 32.2 with 14 decks and 26 public rooms.
The drawings also had a element of CANBERRA’s design most notably in the rounded bridge and superstructure front. Although there was still much work to do refining the finer details the ship it was clear that this was exactly what P&O had been looking for.

Meyer Werft concept drawing for Project Gemini Copyright: Meyer Werft

While work continued P&O began to assemble a team of people from across the company who would be involved with the final design and construction stages, some of these will be introduced in a later in our articles.

Before the final design was decided on over 15,000 documents, plans and general arrangements would be produced covering every single aspect of the ship in the smallest detail.

  In October 1991 Swedish marine designer Robert Tillberg was appointed as coordinating architect, most of his work would be on the interiors but he as he explained added some styling “We also had an influence on the outline of the ship. Our task was to create a ship that had a certain affinity with the CANBERRA so that when you look at the new ship you immediately see that she is from the same family.”

“This was done in subtle ways for example in the design of the funnel. With CANBERRA there are twin funnels, but with this ship we designed the one funnel to suggest two.”

Copyright:William H Miller

Another feature Tillberg adapted for inclusion in the design was the spacers between the lifeboats, which were reclined back in a similar way to CANBERRA.

With the design work ongoing there was important matter which had yet to be decided on, the name of the new vessel.

In the earliest stages of Project Gemini the name CANBERRA II had been suggested although this had never been a seriously considered, in fact hundreds of names had been suggested ranging from CHUSAN to VECTIS.

However after much consideration in the end it came down to just two names, P&O Cruises Managing Director Tim Harris unable to decide between the two took the suggestions to the Chairman of The P&O Group Lord Sterling of Plaistow. ARCADIA or ORIANA, both names were famous within P&O and among its passengers, but which would be most popular? It did not take long before Lord Sterling chose ORIANA, the name of the last of the Orient liners and for many years CANBERRA’s running mate until being transferred to P&O’s Australia operations and then retired in 1986.

All agreed that right choice had been made, the decision was also made that the name would not be known by the public until the day of the keel laying when Tim Harris would announce the name.

Two months later in December 1991 with all at P&O and Meyer Werft pleased with conditions laid down, they officially signed a contract for the construction of the ship.

For both this was extremely good news P&O’s new era of cruising was within sight and for Meyer Werft it would give them the honour of building the largest ship built Germany in 8 decades.

Photo Copyrights: João Abreu