The final relaxing day on board ORIANA began for me at just before 7:30 am when I was woken by a stream of sunshine that was filtering through the curtains, outside the weather and sea conditions were considerable better than what ORIANA had encountered in the on the Journey up to Norway.
Walking out onto the balcony there was some rain in the air but it was very fine and the most of the rain clouds were some distance from ORIANA.
Retuning inside it then became more painfully obvious all too soon we would be going home, the first class service and exquisite surroundings would become nothing more than a memory until the next time, although it was a depressing thought it was I am sure a thought that many other passengers would also be having of course there was still over 22 hours until we reached Southampton.
On board the atmosphere was a little muted so to speak with many passengers looking somewhat downbeat, although being a day at sea it was a far more relaxed day than the proceeding days had been with no rush to go anywhere people instead were taking things at their own pace.
At breakfast that morning passengers were talking about the cruise some favourable and others not so, the consensus was that in general that it had been an excellent cruise both in terms of ORIANA herself and the ports of call.
Being again on a larger table with 5 others, it was quite interesting to listen to the conflicting opinions on various subjects the most interesting to me was a comparison of ships in this case ORIANA with QE2.
It was the opinion of one couple that the passengers on board ORIANA seemed to dress far better on formal nights than on QE2 this along with other comments enraged the other couple who insisted that with its White Star Service, Cunard far exceeded any other cruise line operating.
To which the others replied that that Cunard’s resurrection of the White Star name had been a clever marketing tool used by Carnival to capitalise on the names link to TITANIC which had been the subject of the motion picture of the same name a year before Carnival’s purchase of Cunard in 1998.
I don’t remember much more of that particular conversation since my attention was on the surroundings despite having spent the last 6 days in these elegant surroundings as our “home from home” I still couldn’t help but admire ORIANA’s tasteful interior décor.
An interesting breakfast conversation!
Drawing of ORIANA used on the Cruise Logs.
On the deck 7 area outside of the Knightsbridge shop many of the ships jewellers were promoting the “inch of gold” stores where there were discounts on gold neck chains and bracelets,
On the deck below outside the lower level Knightsbridge were more stores set up this time with more souvenirs some of them ORIANA branded such as ties, bags, pens and postcards as well as typical Norwegian souvenirs giving passengers a last chance to pick up various souvenirs from the localities we had visited during the cruise.
By far the most popular retail event on board was Duty Free being held in the Pacific lounge on the aft end of deck 7 from 9am until midday and then again from 6pm until 9pm, it could be said that with the British holidaymaker the duty free is something of a tradition with Alcohol and cigarettes offer for prices considerably cheaper than on the British mainland.
As well as shopping there was plenty of entertainment options to choose from being a day at sea there was more happening on board than had been in the previous days.
The activities on offer on the promenade deck ranged from musical and general knowledge quizzes in Lords Tavern being hosted throughout the day, to Line dancing being held in Harlequins both by ORIANA’s entertainment team.
While on other decks there was more on offer, for most the morning meetings for the digital lifestyle lectures were still being held in the Medina Room and Crow’s Nest on deck 13.
And on this last day on board even the younger passengers were being kept entertained, it seemed that by the end of the day any passenger under the age 13 would be without a voice since the youth crew had them marching around the promenade deck singing patriotic songs, well I thought at least they are being kept out of trouble and out of other peoples way even if some of my fellow passengers did not feel the same about it.
While walking through ORIANA it was pleasant to see passengers going about their own plans of either going to a pre organised event or just enjoying a quiet drink in one of ORIANA’s numerous bar, in many ways showing that the idea behind ORIANA’s design of having more smaller venues works better for the mainly British clientele rather than having fewer larger venues which is now the industry standard in the modern times.
Although it seemed as we settled in to The Crow’s Nest that not everyone was as pleased as I about ORIANA however it seemed more to do with the fact they were more used to the larger ships aimed at the US market such as those of NCL, Princess and Royal Caribbean ships whose styles are on a very much larger and louder scale than ORIANA’s more sedate and refined style.
After enjoying a drink or two I headed out on to the open decks to take a walk around the Lido and Sun decks which another feature which draws its inspiration from CANBERRA.
Despite the slightly overcast skies the pools were still hubs of activity as the ardent swimmers didn’t allow for the risk of rain deter them from enjoying themselves.
There is something that appeals to both me and many other cruise passengers when at sea and that is to stand and look out to sea listing to it breaking at the ship’s bow.
To have been standing on deck like this or using the swimming pool on the outward journey would have been a very different and undesirable.
Heading back inside I found myself heading to deck 5 atrium to browse some books that were sale.
Since my first cruise two years before it had become something of a tradition of purchasing a maritime themed book on board
A tradition which I continued by purchasing TITANIC voices, an interesting collection of eyewitness accounts of TITANIC’s ill-fated maiden voyage.
While buying the book elderly passenger who was also looking at the books available asked me if I knew of a ship that embarked on its maiden voyage in 1961 that was also built by Harland & Wolff and which was “related” to ORIANA.
Of course I knew the answer to that one, CANBERRA, much to the passengers’ surprise.
With book in hand it was along to the Lords Tavern for a quiz on general Knowledge to keep the brain sharp as they say, before lunch.
After a good result of getting 48 answers correct 50 which I thought was good fairly going, the ships bells rang 12 times for the midday announcement.
As usual the officer of the watch took to the public address system to give information on ORIANA’s current navigational status, on this occasion to say that since ORIANA’s departure from Eidfjord until the current position we had steamed a total of distance of 385 Nautical Miles (713.02KM) with another 263 Nautical Miles(487.07KM) remaining until ORIANA reached Southampton.
For the “fact” of the announcement the officer spoke about P&O’s early entry into what would become the cruise market and that P&O’s early ships used various long established Port agents to ensure their ships would receive top service and since many of the ports agents have provided excellent service over the years they still use many of them such as James Rawes Group in Lisbon.
He then concluded by wishing all on board a relaxing final day on board.
I thought to myself as if we need reminding.
To lunch and as always it was exquisite and to celThe only problem with lunch and for that fact any meal on board ORIANA was that there was just far too many options to choose from and well there is no real way to decide between them, although it is always guaranteed as fact that whatever choice is made then the meal will be of the highest quality.
After lunch there was a task to begin to perform which I am sure most on board was also not looking forward to packing, a depressing thought at the best of times still it made sense I guess to get it out of the way and enjoy most of the time left on board.
The procedure in place on board in preparation for disembarkation is to have the luggage packed and placed outside the cabin door for collection by the cabin steward before the end of the night.
While many where packing other passengers were enjoying another favourite pastime on board, the chocoholics, chocolate buffet although not of much interest to me personally for many it was a must, most often it was attached to a tour through the main galley although on this occasion it was only the buffet.
With the packing complete we headed to the Theatre where The Headliners Theatre Company were given a group interview with the cruise director which gave an interesting insight in to the their work and the process of shore side rehearsals in London to their pre-show rehearsals on board.
Afterwards it was almost time to get ready for the last dinner of the cruise, being the last night on board the dress code was informal which after many formal and semi-formal, was something of a relief.
With the majority of the luggage cases outside the cabin door we headed towards the lifts ready to go down to dinner.
Fittingly the last night’s dinner on board is where the passengers get the opportunity to give their thanks to ORIANA’s excellent chefs by having a parade of both restaurants as the Cruise director gave a little speech about their hard work and membership of Chaîne des Rôtisseurs gastronomic society, on that note P&O Cruises can boast that it is the only cruise line in the world to be a member.
The dinner was of course excellent in both presentation and taste and for me personally was extra special since the menu consisted of my favourite foods.
After dinner we spent a little time to speak with both the Restaurant Manager and the Head Waiter to thank them for the brilliant service we had received over the past week.
With dinner over there was plenty of last night activities on board, in Lords Tavern there the evening began with a series of Popular culture quizzes beginning with a music quiz before continuing with a movie quiz before changing the mood with hosted karaoke for all wannabe pop and rocks stars being held until the early hours of the morning.
Not being the singing type it was nevertheless fun to sit and watch my fellow passengers whose singing skills ranged from none existent to surprisingly good.
Elsewhere on board there was a farewell dance being held in Harlequins and for younger passengers the Pacific Lounge had dancing and entertainment for the teens.
As the night moved on and ORIANA drew nearer her home port and her passengers headed back towards their cabins to get some hours sleep before disembarking in the morning.
As time approached midnight we too turned into for the night.
During the early hours of morning we continued to Southampton the ships clock was put back one hour and at 3:30 Captain Pembridge rang “standby below” on the ships engines in preparation for the embarkation of the local pilot at 03:45 before making the slow journey up the Solent to her berth where she docked slightly before 6am.
Waking on the promenade deck for the last time this cruise I could see all the provisions on lined up on the dockside ready to be loaded on board for the next cruise.
It seemed like a slow wait to disembark, maybe I thought knowing the cruise was over made it all feel longer than it actually was, the process beginning at 9:30 am with colour cards being called forward at designated times to the gangways doors, this can often be a slightly stressed period for some as there are many people hanging around the corridors even though they have been told not to.
Thankfully ours were among the first group to be called to disembark and soon we found ourselves in the baggage hall searching through the rows of bags, cases and other luggage types for our own.
Finally located it was out to the arrivals area where our transport was already waiting as we pulled away from the terminal ORIANA sat loomed above and like when we arrived a week before I couldn’t help but keep looking at ORIANA until she was finally out of sight.
During the course of the cruise ORIANA had travelled a total of 3200 KM.
Like all great cruises this one had come to an end and life was to resume as normal for me far from the sea and ORIANA, but thankfully I knew exactly when we would see ORIANA again, 18Th December the next year for a special Christmas Cruise around the Atlantic Islands for 10 nights
I couldn’t wait it was surely going to be another great cruise on ORIANA.
One Year later....ORIANA arrives at Funchal, Madeira, her first port of call on her christmas cruise. Copyright João Abreu.
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