Tom Burke’s Blog

As usual our last night was a quieter affair – less to drink, careful selections from the menu, and a fairly early night. Dinner was still good, however, if at times a little sad as we knew that it was last one for this cruise. Then an early-ish night, not forgetting to put out our second bag for collection Everything else would have to be carried off the ship in the morning.

The cross-channel passage from Guernsey was very calm. I woke at about 5:15 to find the ship slipping past the NE coast of the Isle of Wight. Then  Cowes came into view, with very little obvious activity, and then we were into the turns around Bramble Bank. I decided to get up, and I was up on deck by 6am. It was very quiet, peaceful and still as we made our way up Southampton Water at a very slow speed. The sun was shining and there wasn’t too much wind. We were following Arcadia, and she looked good in front of us. Behind us was a Red Funnel ferry, which perhaps didn’t look so good! We berthed at the QEII terminal, turning round before we did so; Arcadia also turned before berthing at the Mayflower, and as the two ships reached their berths at almost the same time, we had a bit of synchronised  manoeuvering. Then it was time to leave the deck and go down to the cabin to prepare for the journey home.

We ate breakfast in the Peninsula, and just for a change had a Full English – with  bit of ballast we might be able to do the drive home (to Sheffield) without stopping. We left the cabin just before 8:30 and sat in the sun on the Lido deck waiting our disembarkation group to be called, and this happened at about 9:15 which was about 15 minutes or so ahead of schedule. Then there was a short queue on deck 5 to actually disembark, a few minutes locating our bags in the shed, and a longer queue (perhaps 15 minutes?) for the car keys from the CPS kiosk. I think we were in the car and driving out of the car park at just about 10 o’clock – and I took a last look at Oriana beside the berth.

So, what are my thoughts? Well, it was an excellent cruise, to three interesting places I have never visited to before, with good food and drink and good company. That said, the best thing about it was Oriana herself. I think she’s a beautiful ship, easily the best I’ve ever been on (for reference, the others have been MSC Sinfonia, Norwegian Jewel, Galaxy, and Braemar). Many things about her appealed to me, some of which I’ve already mentioned: the stern terraces and the Crows Nest being just two. But as we got more familiar with her, so certain things became clearer. One of these would be the fact that the best & easiest way to get around the ship is to use decks 7 or 8. For exampple, to get from our cabin – C288, aft, on Canberra Deck (9) – to the Crows Nest (deck 13) was to go down one or two decks, walk forward along one of the wide walkways on the port side of either deck 7 or 8, then go all the way up in the forward lifts. Much better than going all the way along deck 9 – it’s a pleasanter walk, and you’re not getting in the way of the cabin stewards. I also came to appreciate the atrium – a collection of very different spaces, all linked together by the stair case and the waterfall. Certainly I felt very much at home on her, and very relaxed. One day I hope I’ll cruise in her again.

Conditions early today were not good – it was raining, cool and quite windy – so we decided to stay on board and relax during the morning. We had breakfast in Al Fresco. When we entered I was struck by the strange combination of total silence from the crew, accompanied by signs of frantic activiity – any crew member not actually serving was busy wiping down some surface or other. The explanation quickly became apparent – the Captain was there, taking his breakfast. Once he’d finished and left, things slowed to a more human pace. We wish we’d found Al Fresco earlier – for a simple breakfast (which is what we have) it’s much more civilised than the Conservatory.

At 11 o’clock we decided to go ashore, and went looking for a tender ticket. We were told that it would be about an hour before our tender ticket was called, but in the event it was no more than 20 minutes. Tendering was being done from a pontoon outside deck 3, and I think that a total of three tenders were being used. The tendering operation itself had its drama, however. Our tender found itself ’stuck’ to the hull – there was a strong off-shore wind blowing against that side of Oriana, and this wind was blowing the tender back against the hull, with repeated crashes as the tender got a couple of feet out and was then blown back into the ship’s side. At one point the tender pilot tried to run the tender along Oriana’s side and off at the bow, but that produced even more alarming crashes – the tender continued to be blown into Oriana but now it was the roof-line of the tender which was hitting the ship, due to the shape of Oriana’s hull at the bow. This was actually quite alarming as the roofline is just a fibre-glass material, and with each collision we could see the tender’s ceiling bend. Eventually, with a lot of work with boathooks to push the tender away from Oriana, we got way to cheers and applause.

Tendering back after a few hours ashore in St Peter Port was easier, except that because so many passengers were returning we had to queue for about 20 minutes for the tender.

Later we took Afternoon Tea in the Peninsula Restaurant. This was fun – the waiters were all dressed up in white jackets, they served finger sandwiches, scones, leaf tea – one had one’s little finger ready crooked! Then we had to pack – first bags were requested outside cabin doors anytime after 3:30pm so we quickly filled our big suitcase with the washing and stuck that outside. Next we did the questionnaire – “If you have fallen overboard, how likely are to recommend falling overboard from a P&O ship to family and friends?” Then we worked out the tips – oh, the stress! – and finally departed to the Crow’s Nest to watch Guernsey disappear over the horizon.

The formal evening began with the ‘Gala Reception’ and the chance to meet the captain. Actually, there are multiple Gala Receptions; two for each sitting, and there are two sittings. Ours was in the Pacific Lounge;  we were greeted by the Chief Technical Officer, and had a brief address from the Staff Captain. The captain himself was on the bridge – as we departed Zeebrugge the weather had turned bad with heavy rain, thunder & lightning, and very poor visibility, and these conditions persisted during the evening. Clearly the Captain had used this as an excuse to not attend any of the Receptions – oops, I mean of course that the Captain’s presence was obviously required on the bridge while the challenging conditions lasted!

Dinner itself was excellent, the best meal so far (dinners have been getting better as the cruise has progressed, from a rather disappointing first night). We had ordered a bottle of wine during the afternoon using the ‘wine line’ – ring them up, give your order, and it’ll be ready for you. Something went wrong with this – we had selected a New Zealand Pinot Noir (a red wine) but were presented with a Chilean white! But the mistake was corrected without any fuss, and to be truthful I don’t know who made it, us when we phoned in the request or them when they took it. Either way, it wasn’t a problem. For the meal itself we ate a rabbit, pheasant & veal terrine, and my wife had celeriac & stilton soup. Next there was a champagne sorbet to refresh our palates, after which my wife had beef wellington for her main course while I enjoyed slices of pheasant breast, on a bed of mushrooms and mashed potatoes, in a red wine sauce. With the Pinot Noir to wash it down, these were both excellent.

(My wife did make one comment during the evening – she didn’t feel impressed by the standard of the gowns on display. “They were better on Galaxy”, she said. She also asked me not to post her comment, but hey, it’s my blog… So score one for Celebrity!)

I went for a late night turn around the promenade just after midnight and conditions weren’t too bad. Some wind, obviously, and a bit of rain, but not as cold as I had expected (I felt OK in my dinner jacket) and the sea was still quite calm. Later on in the night (3:30?) we were woken by the sound of the ship’s hooter, and a quick glance out of our window revealed thick fog. But we quickly got back to sleep (we’ve slept better on Oriana than on any other ship, in fact) and the next thing we knew was that we were at rest off St Peter Port and could hear the sounds of the tenders being lowered.

Sailaway from Rotterdam was done in warm, pleasant sunshine, and we had a drink at the Terrace Bar, which is one of my favourite spots. One of the things that I like most about the Terrace Bar is that it gives excellent views over the the stern terraces. I think this is a very strong feature of Oriana (and Aurora, of course) and one that I especially enjoy. Some other ships I’ve been on have had a feature like this, but to a lesser degree – e.g. Braemar has a terrace but it’s just smaller – and I can’t help feel that ships that don’t have this feature, e.g. Arcadia with the stern cabins – are actually losing something quite important. But going back to today, while we were here we noticed that the port-side, rear of the Conservatory was being set up for evening meals, and access to and from the Terrace was restricted. 

Dinner was good, better than the day before in fact; we were at our table for about two hours in total (8:40 to 10:40 or so). It was a semi-formal night, and was reasonably well observed; almost all the men had a smart shirt, a jacket and a tie, or at least two of the three!

Day 3: Zeebrugge / Bruges. We docked in Zeebrugge pretty promptly, and the excursions were away early as usual. We went to Bruges on our own: we used the P&O shuttle bus to Blankenberg, and then got the train to Bruges. P&O say that the shuttle bus takes ‘about 20 minutes’, but I reckon it wasn’t much more than 10 (in light traffic). The shuttle bus was free – definitely a point in P&O’s favour, Celebrity were very keen to charge for shuttle buses, including the 2 kilometers from Tourlas harbour into Mykonos town! The train to & from Bruges cost us €5 each return and the journey is just 11 minutes. However there’s just one train an hour each way, leaving Blankenberg at 10 minutes past the hour, and from Bruges at 38 minutes past. P&O had told everybody that the last shuttle bus would pick up at Blankenberg at 4:45, which was before the 4:38 train got to Blankenberg station, so the 3:38 train was pretty full with go-it-alone passengers; this lead to some queuing for buses in Blankenberg, and at the gangplank on the quayside. One thing that was unexpected was that the 3:38 train from Bruges, although indicated as an ‘IC’ train (Inter city?) from another starting point in eastern Belgium, was actually provided by local rolling stock and was already in Bruges station at 3:25. So I don’t know if they knew there were a lot of passengers and ran a ’special’. We had brought back some packages from Bruges – chocalates & beer – but there was no problem at the gang plank. (They had to go through the scanner, of course.) One last thing – Bruges station is a good 15 to 20 minutes walk from the Markt area, although we think that the pick-up for the ‘on your own’ excursions was by the station anyway.

So now we’re back on board waiting for our 5:30 sailaway. Tonight is the formal night, preceded by the Gala Reception at 8:15. Before we depart Zeebrugge we want to examine the menu and perhaps order a bottle of wine to be ready for us at our table. Just one full day left, and we are already beginning to think about the end of the cruise. Not having to worry about getting to airports or about flights is actually quite welcome; although we will have to be awake enough to do a 200 mile drive home! But before that we have the formal dinner, and then a final day, hopefully at St Peter Port, as long as there are no problems tendering.

Oriana

We berthed at Rotterdam cruise terminal at the southern end of Erasmus Bridge a little after the scheduled time of 10:30 this morning, and what with waiting for immigration clearance, etc , most of the excursions must have been about half-an-hour late setting off. That wasn’t a problem for us, as were going to explore independently. In fact we used the wait for final clearance to have a coffee in Tiffany Court.

The weather at 11 o’clock was quite unfriendly – grey, cool, and rather wet – so for the morning we contented ourselves with walking across Erasmus Bridge, locating the departure point & times for the Spido river tours, and collecting appropriate maps & leaflets from the tourist information desk in the terminal. Then it was back to the ship where we sat for a while in the Crow’s Nest reading the maps. After taking some pictures of the ship it was time for lunch in the Peninsular Restaurant. The design of this seems to be he same as the Oriental (our dinner restaurant), but the decor uses lighter wood colours, and green fabrics. For lunch we both had the chick pea curry, with rice and pakoora, which was excellent; then for dessert I had icecream – simple and delicious – and my wife had ‘Brown Apple Betty’, which she said was very good. In fact, I felt that today’s lunch was probbly better than yesterday’s dinner.

Cube Houses

After eating we took the free shuttle bus into Rotterdam centre, and then made our way on foot to the Cube Houses. I’d been wanting to visit these since I’d read about them. One of them is open as a sort of show-cube or museum  (€2.50 each). Inside, the cubes are very neat and there’s more space than you would expect from the outside. However there’s no getting away from the fact that they are very small, and that the shape imposes usage. There’s a central core and the stairs run up this; the bathroom has to be in this as well, so there’s no chance of a separate cloakroom or en-suite facilities. The rest of the space – living room, kitchen facilities, bedroom – all has to wrap round the centre, as well as having walls at odd angles. The circular stair-cases in the core were *very* steep, with short, tricky steps – you’d have problems with them if you got too enthusiastically into the Heineken one night. I asked the attendant if the Cube houses were popular, and the answer was ‘no, not really, except with people who liked extreme artistic statements’. So the cube houses are not the answer to urban housing problems; still, they look amazing, especially from the outside.

After that we walked back to the river and took a 75-minute harbour tour. This was pretty interesting, but the 75 minutes it lasted was plenty long enough. Still the few minutes we spent in Eem Haven, the main container port, were impressive simple due to the scale of the operation. And it was interesting to see the constant movements of barges and small craft on the river. As we were finishing the tour we saw a barge flying a Swiss flag, so it was maybe 1000 kilometers from its home, yet still on the same river system.

So that’s Rotterdam. Soon we’ll have a late afternoon beer somewhere, then we’ll get ready for dinner – semi-formal tonight – and head for the cocktail bar.

We had a seat on a table for 8 at second sitting for dinner. My wife firmly believes that, when on a ship, her evening is not complete (or rather does not properly begin) without a pre-dinner cocktail, so by 8:15 we were in the Tiffany Lounge where she got stuck into a ‘Pimms Misty’, which she reported as being ‘more ginger-y than expected’. I had a glass of he house Californian White; let’s just say that it was obviously house wine!

At 8:30 we moved on to dinner in the Oriental restaurant and we were a bit surprised by the queue up the stairs onto the Prom deck – the restaurant doors were still locked, and there was a short wait. We were shown to our table where we met our companions – a mother & daughter from Birmingham (originally Scotland), and a couple from the Forest of Dean. And two empty seats – there were just 6 of us at our table for 8. Our companions seemed to be P&O veterans, and stories of cruises on P&O ships past & present were soon being recounted. Being P&O virgins we kept quiet at this stage.

Dinner itself was good. Not great, but (for me at least) perfectly fine. I had a butternut soup, a prosciutto and pasta dish, and cheese & biscuits, all of which was good except the choice of cheese – I’m a fan of english cheese, and the initial selection was of continental soft cheeses, and Stilton. Oh for a bit of Cheshire! The waiter duly brought me a couple of lumps of cheddar. My wife had a prawn and apple cocktail, the butternut soup, a fish dish which she said was a little dry, too much veg, and icecream.

One other observation – there was very little wine available in the restaurant by the glass (in fact, just the house wine I believe). Our experience on Braemar last autumn was the same; both contrast with the practice on Galaxy where there were many wines available by the glass, including always the ‘recommended wine of the day’. Odd that these two UK-based lines don’t do the same.

Then we had a nightcap in the Crow’s Nest, and (in my case) a quick stagger round the Prom, and we retired.

First thoughts from Oriana (written before dinner on the first day): very attractive! So far we haven’t seen anything like all of the ship, of course. Our cabin (C288) is fine, perfectly comfortable and inhabitable, especially for just 4 days. Lots of drawer & wardrobe space, and roomy enough. And the bliss of having a kettle & tea-making facilities!

Other than the cabin, we’ve spent time at the Terrace Bar (for the sailaway & the obligatory glass of champagne), the Pacific Lounge (for the muster drill), on the Lido & Sun decks, and in the Crow’s Nest. The latter is exceptional – I’m happy to agree with all those who have sung its praises. And so different from the Stratosphere Lounge on Galaxy, which is the equivalent space on that ship – always deserted, very unfriendly. We sat in the Crows Nest after we passed Cowes and the wind drove us under cover and had a difficulty dragging ourselves away. (Actually, it was mainly difficulty dragging the wife away.)

Later this evening we may have a cocktail – well, we will have a cocktail, the question is simply ‘where?’ – before dinner, and then we’ll sit and enjoy our first P&O dinner.This cannot help but be an improvement on the quick lunch we ate at Rowney’s services on the M27. How a sandwich can be at once freezing cold and soggy beats me. And expensive!  a sandwich + a cuppa, for two = more than ten quid!

During the sailaway we left Southampton behind Independence of the Seas. Well, she’s probably not my ideal type of cruise ship, but she certainly looks impressive. She came past us – she was berthed at the Mayflower, we were at the QEII – and to be honest towered over us.

Anyway, more tomorrow about dinner tonight!

I have a couple of excellent (in my view) images of Oriana, taken as she was leaving Southampton. They were taken last October by John Adams, are his copyright, and are used with his permission. Thank you John!

We’re ready to go! Well, apart from packing; but as the cruise is from Southampton, and is for only 4 days, we don’t have to go through the ‘is the bag under 20 kgs?’ dance that we’ve done on many other cruises. This time we just drive to Southampton and hand over as many bags as we feel like taking with us….. But all the other things are done: we’ve decided on our excursions (not taking any, in fact); we’ve got our € currency; we’ve got car-parking sorted out (indeed, that’s been done for months – because we booked this cruise a long time ago, we qualified for free parking with CPS); and we know our route to the port. So roll on the 31st of May.

I keep doing the ‘this time next week we’ll be….’ thing. This is silly, because in just a few more days it’ll be ‘this time next week the cruise WILL BE OVER!’ So, here’s a memo to myself: try to live in the moment – after all, there are fewer moments to come than the number of moments you have had….

Yes, in two weeks’ time we shall be aboard Oriana, P&O’s 13-years old, medium-sized ship. It’ll be our first cruise with P&O and we are looking forward to it enormously. It’s just for four nights, and is completely port-intensive: we leave Southampton on Saturday afternoon; on Sunday we will be in Rotterdam, Monday is Zeebrugge, and Tuesday should be Guernsey. That last call might not happen, of course, as it’s a tender port and for some reason it’s quite common for captains to decide that the weather isn’t good enough to support tender operations. (We experienced this last September on Braemar; I blogged about it here.)

But I’m really looking forward to experiencing Oriana. In the years she’s been cruising she’s captured a great deal of support, and has also been very well maintained and upgraded – she had a refit just a couple of years ago, at which time a new signature restaurant (Oriana Rhodes) was added to her facilities. Here’s a link to P&O’s page about her.

I hope to blog from the cruise.