It was still dark in the morning yesterday when ORIANA made her approach to the breakwaters of Funchal coming from the Azores archipelago, on yet another call in this port. So far nothing unsual, until a familiar sight started to appear alongside the harbour walls, it was none other than her larger mate AZURA, whom she meets quite often in her homeport of Southampton.
As ORIANA passed AZURA by her portside on the way to the designated berth, the contrast between the 113,651 GT and 289.6 meters of the larger P&O cruise ship, against the 69,153 GT and 260 meters of ORIANA could be clearly seen.
But there was another interesting contrast, of the 15 years that separate these two passenger ships, it is possible to notice how much P&O changed over the years when it comes to the order of newbuilts. Back in 1995 when ORIANA was launched by P&O Princess PLC, as the new British superliner and the first built specifically to that market, she was the result of a careful and well planned development in order to fulfill that role. And she had and still has a one of a kind design, with her closest ships being AURORA and the late venerable CANBERRA. This is even more relevant when at that same time, other cruise companies like Carnival and Royal Caribbean were already placing on order classes of several identical units.
It was the beggining of what is nowadays a standart costume in the cruise market, just like AZURA for example, whom along with her sister VENTURA, were built on the basis of a former Princess design, being also identical to the Crown class ships. It was the result of P&O and its subsidiary Princess Cruises, when they were absorbed by the American Carnival Corporation, which applies the same standart and most economical method among their vast number of subsidiaries.
Contrasts aside, it is always nice to have a P&O meeting in Funchal, and ORIANA isn't a stranger in this matter, as seen in previous posts here in the blog, and she ends one meeting having another one on schedule, with ARCADIA on the 30th October, whom she already met in this port in December 2009.
Bellow ORIANA seen leaving Funchal bound for Gibraltar, as the following images depict.
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