Celebrating ORIANA - Mementos from the Maiden Voyage

For regular cruise passengers there is nothing like embarking on board a new ship especially a Maiden Voyage and alongside the boast of being the first to enjoy the new ship's amenities and being on deck with pleanty of firehose welcomes for the ship making it's debut in each port.
Just like any other cruise picking up momentos also become something of a hobby on board and being the Maiden Voyage a once in a lifetime event it seems more poignant to pick up and keep such items to recall in the years to come.
Such is the case for ORIANA and today we look at some of the items collected from her Maiden Voyage.
Firstly a couple of unique Maiden Voyage/Season items available during the cruise from the ship's photography shop, firstly a image of ORIANA during her later stages of fitting out  and secondly a image of ORIANA on her Maiden Voyage signed by Commodore Gibb.

Another must on board ship for aficionad,  postcards on sale in gift shop here we have one of ORIANA herself and one showing her ventern fleetmate CANBERRA in all her glory.

While for ladies a compact mirror would make a small and practical keepsake.

 
Alongside the items for sale on board other items such as menus, invites etc made for another excellent keepsake to recall ORIANA's first days at sea such as this one below, the first invite sent out to her passengers for ORIANA's first formal event in service, for those present certainly memory to cherish as Commodore Gibb and the ship's company turned out in style to greet those on board.

While even some more basic items from the Maiden Voyage were also collected by those eager to collect everything they could from the ship including as shown below cabin Key cards.

A Pewter ORIANA

As with many ships past and present ORIANA has often been the subject of the model maker from the enthusiast making small scale model to add to their collection or a larger waterborne model to companies making model for retail such as the ceramic models currently sold on board.
One such example of a production run model is one from a model company called Skytrex.
Made in pewter the model is a 1:250 scale replica of ORIANA with some attempt at adding detail such as deck chairs on the stern terraces as can be see in the images below.

It is also of note that the model's interpretation of some of ORIANA's features are a little inaccurate including the radomes above the Crow's Nest being out of proportion with the rest of the model.

A Model Subject

Like many great passenger ships including her 'mother' CANBERRA and namesake  ORIANA has found herself the subject of model makers often as shown below a one off large scale model which has a price to match the large size or as a much smaller scale and mass produced item availble to purchase on board.

The above model was listed on Ebay online auction site several years ago, and it's asking price reflected the size at around a £1000 ( 1,360 €)
 Smaller models are far more common although in this size occasionally a rarity will be for sale such as this pewter model more in the style of Costa Cruises or MSC it's asking price also much lower at £48 (65€)

At present the model shown below and produced in the late 1990's is currently for sale for £39(53€) and is on a scale of  1/1250

 Ceramic models of the ship have been availble to purchase on board for many years such as the two different ones below the first was avaible up until 2006/7
While the second was availble from 2008 onwards the examples below being from the collection of Madeira based ship enthusiast and collector Sergio Ferreira.

Since her 2011 refit ORIANA herself has also featured a large model of herself on board situated behind the bar of The Crow's Nest it replaces the large scale model of one P&O's R class ships which had been in place since her entry into service in April 1995.

Highley detailed the model could easily be an owner's or shipyard model.

There have also been interesting models made by private individuals such as this one which was shown in the May 1997 edition of Marine Modelling magazine.

Capturing a historic moment on board ORIANA

Available on board ORIANA for her passengers to purchase during her maiden year alongside other momentos was this particularly impressive photo taken on her Terreced decks it shows ORIANA's officers and company assmbled for her offical handing over to P&O decked out in their uniforms and ORIANA herself dressed for the occasion, they watch on as ORIANA's Captain  Commodore Gibb alongside Lord Sterling and P&O Cruise's chairman are handed over the ship's offical documents from Bernard Meyer on behalf of his shipyard after many years of planning, designing, waiting and building ORIANA was finally ready to embark on her first adventure. 

Commodore Gibb and his crew would pose again on these very decks just over a year later for a final photo celebrating the Commodore's 40 years at sea as he prepared to retire.

Inaugural season images

Available to purchase on board ORIANA during her Inaugural season/Maiden Voyage the images show some of the memorabilia passengers could pick up in ORIANA's Photography shop.
Always a popular "port of call" while on board passengers often pick up photos availble to buy, however being on board the newest and most advanced passenger liner ever built picking up photo souvenirs such as the two below  

The first showing ORIANA shortly after completion looking resplendent with her freshly painted hull and being fully illuminated.

The second ORIANA cuts a fine figure at sea with a fine shot of her at speed and signed by Commodore Gibb.

20 years of souvenirs

When a new ship enters service it is inevitable that passengers will be hunting for souvenirs of their time on board and ORIANA is no different from her early days in service with passengers collecting Maiden voyage/season passengers memorabilia to her passengers today picking up a momento of their time on board.
And it can be surprising to see some of the items that have been collected over the years many of them undoubtedly interesting memories attached here we look a small collection of  items from the ship over the past 20 years.

ORIANA Maiden Season Cabin keycard. 

From many the excitement of being on a ship during her inaugal year or for those who are lucky enough the Maiden Voyage itself is considered a once in a lifetime experience so it is no surprise that Maiden Season memorabilia is a must such as these below.

ORIANA ladies hand mirror

Maiden Season leather strap watch

A lot of the memorabilia also helps to remind of the jounrneys and adventures which were had on board such as the log of the cruise and the set of menus from the cruise.

VHS and more recently DVD's have also be items collected on board to form a last impression of the cruise and of ORIANA herself in the first years of her career several VHS tapes were sold on board looking at various aspects the ship, ORIANA From Dream to Reality looked at ORIANA's construction while passengers on her Maiden Voyage had the option to order a tape looking at the cruise which was sent to them when it had been edited and printed.

VHS video tour of ORIANA

With the advent of DVD more content is available and up until 2006 ORIANA: The Cruise Experience, a DVD looking at different aspects of cruising on board the ship.

Advertising a new arrival

The arrival of a new cruise ship into service is for any cruise line's marketing department a massive task which involves many different phases of advertising and often different methods.
When a ship is as CANBERRA as popular was with her passengers  it is obvious that much of that effort would be introducing them to ORIANA the ship which would ultimately be her successor, to ensure that they would continue to cruise with P&O when The Great White Whale was gone.
A rather interesting way P&O did this was by using dining room menus more specifically the covers being adorned with a computer generated image of ORIANA on the front menu and some information and technical details about the ship 
Below is one such menu dated 2nd May 1994.

ORIANA on Ebay

For many ship fans sites such as Ebay often offer a virtual treasure trove of collectable items.
Traditionally these items were focused around older ships and  liners in recent times many items both rare an and more common place relating to the newer breed of ships have began to gain popularitiy with both sellers and buyers.
For ORIANA the selection of items available has been varied from everyday items such as menus and the ship's newspaper to a model costing thousands.
For those with an interest of the ship's first years of service several video cassettes released by P&O were for sale.
Below is a selection of items relating to ORIANA which has been on sale over the last year or so.

 Large scale model.

 Plaque awarded for a children's fancy dress competition during her inaugural year.

 Leather ORIANA Bookmark.

 ORIANA Maiden Season wristwatch.

2000 Dinner Menu.

 Maiden Season postcard.

 ORIANA From Dream To Reality VHS.

Memorabilia of a Special Voyage

Below are several peices of Memorabilia from ORIANA's inaugural Voyage in April 1995, a voyage which ORAINA proved herself to be a worth successor to both her namesake and to carry the mantle of P&O into the 21st Century.

Two Photographic images that were available from ORIANA photo shop.


An Introduction letter to passengers from Commodore Gibb and a invitation to ORIANA's first Cocktail party.

ORIANA- Highly anticipated and expected

Prior to ORIANA's introduction into service P&O took great care to ensure ORIANA was on the forefront of their publicity.
For P&O the stakes were high indeed at a cost of over £200,000,000 ORIANA represented P&O's future and was take them into their 3rd Century in existence and of course to be the largest and fastest British Liner built since the 1960's.
In the build up to her arrival in Southampton and the naming by Her Majesty The Queen P&O had released 9 magazines showing various stages of ORIANA's design and development, some excepts are shown below.



In 1994 The maiden season brochure was released featuring descriptions all the experiences the new ship would have on offer and also a fitting and excellent introduction to her.
The first 5 pages of which are shown below.





The expectations could not be higher not for many years had any one ship seemed so important to the British Passenger and perhaps never again would one ever be but was it possible ORIANA could meet such high exceptions ?
Below in an interview on board some of her maiden cruise passengers voice their opinions.