A day in one of ORIANA's favourite ports.

For ORIANA and her and many of her passengers it is always a pleasure to dock in one of P&Os favourite ports the Subtropical Paradise of Madeira.
Also for many passengers a cruise on ORIANA is their first expriance of the Atlantic Islands.
To give a idea of the experience from the passengers and Crews point of view presented below is a extract of the ships log detailing the arrival at Funchal, some images of the early stages of the approach to Funchal taken from fleet mate AURORA in November 2010 and a copy of the Port guide for Madeira given to passengers with information about the Island.
"Monday 21st December 2009
During the early hours of the morning, ORIANA rounded Ilha do Porto Santo and continued to make her way across the Madeira rise as she steamed toward the small Portuguese archipelago of Madeira With our pre-arrival checks complete, Captain Brown rang down "stand by below" on ORIANA's engines as we continued to reduce speed on approaches to the port and pilot embarkation position.
At 0903 ORIANA was 1 nautical mile to the south of the breakwaters, where we embarked our local pilot and proceeded to the harbour; making fast a tug fore and aft as we passed the breakwater at around 0914.
Once inside the harbour we altered course and paralleled our berth; coming slowly ahead as Captain Brown manoeuvred ORIANA into position before using thrusters to bring ORIANA alongside her berth and making her"all fast" at 0950 "

Log extract and Port guide Copyrights: P&O Cruises, Photo Copyrights: Steve Martin.