Celebrating ORIANA - A successful debut

After 14 nights away on the 23rd April 1995 ORIANA returned to Southampton to complete her Maiden Voyage and prepare for her next passengers to embark.
The previous evening was one that vetern cruisers knew with the feeling of farewells and of saying goodbyes to friends made over the preceding days and nights but also that of celebration as the ship's company did their upmost to ensure the last night of would be a memorable one.
 During the last days of the cruise P&O's cameras spoke with many of the passengers on board to sound out their opinons of the ship.

With so many P&O cruising veterns from both the previous ORIANA and CANBERRA on board it was always going to be difficult to introduce innovations and improvements to a cruising experience they saw as already perfect yet it seemed that with ORIANA the company had managed to do just that, the ship retained the company's trademark 'Britishness' and inlaid it with standards of luxury  and technology that had yet to be seen on board any other passenger ship.
For ORIANA's crew too the ship had more than proved her worth performing exactly as expected.
Commodore Gibb in particular could not praise his new command enough from her character which was already showing  to her performance.

As ORIANA departed once again on the evening of 23rd April this time bound for her maiden calls in the Mediterranean those passengers who were on their way home could look back fondly on the memories of a voyage that would last a lifetime.
Perhaps the final theatre show of cruise summed it up in the best possible way.