Selbourne

I don’t believe so. I’ve asked two people now so we’ll see what happens.

Day 14 - Tuesday 16th January - Sea Day The first day where we’ve had warm and (reasonably) sunny weather all day! We continue to plod along at a very slow pace and the sea remains very calm so, although there’s nothing to look at other than the ocean, it’s the sedate cruising in warm weather that people have craved ever since we left Southampton. There wasn’t as much of interest on during the day as there had been yesterday, but we attended a moderately interesting talk on Elvis Presley in the theatre at 10.30am. We then stayed in our seats for the port talk on New Orleans, which followed afterwards. The pre-cruise research that I’ve done means that I rarely glean anything from these talks, other than where we are berthing, but I guess that means that I’ve done my research properly! At 1.15pm we went to the first Tiffin Lunch in Sindhu. They had previously called us about a slot on the next tasting dinner, but it was at a fixed time of 6.15pm which is far too early for us, so we declined. It was good to have a different lunch experience to the MDR, but we weren’t particularly enamoured with it. My wife only liked one of her 3 main course choices and I wasn’t particularly taken with any of my 3. The deserts were better. We remembered from before that there’s a menu A and menu B. Today was menu A. We have said that if they do a menu B later in the cruise we shall give it a go. At 3pm I attended William Joyce’s second talk in the Playhouse, this time on the outer planets. I said yesterday that he didn’t have the presenting skills that the previous speaker, Dick Taylor, had but I’ve changed my opinion today. Whilst Dick Taylor had a more commanding voice, the subjects that he talked about, whilst very interesting and enjoyable, could have been presented by anyone who was a confident speaker and had done their research on the internet. By contrast, William Joyce knows his (extremely complicated) subject matter inside out and presents without the use of notes. He has a fantastic knowledge and is very impressive. A true expert. My wife has enjoyed a couple of sessions reading her Kindle (now that I’ve worked it all out thanks to my CC buddies) on our balcony. That’s not really my thing, but I managed 10 laps of the promenade deck instead. When I returned I was able to say to my wife with a straight face that I’d just seen a lovely pair of Booby’s whilst on the promenade deck. After a pause for dramatic effect (I get no reaction now - she just ignores me 😂) I followed it with “they were diving down to catch the fish disturbed by the ship”. I thought it was funny, but all I got was 🙄 Pre dinner entertainment in Carmens was the comedian who also sings. As he doesn’t appeal and we don’t particularly like the venue either, we skipped that. Dinner in the MDR was better than the last few nights. If I was nit picking, there was virtually no Marie Rose sauce on the prawn cocktail, but the beef was lovely and I requested (and got) some of the veg listed on the other dishes, as I’ve had my fill of the obligatory green beens that they seem incapable of serving a meal without! The pud, an apple and orange strudel was the best pud in the MDR so far and I had a result with the daily comedy ice cream description. Last night I’d had “Honey and Comb” ice cream and tonight’s menu choices were “Vanilla charred, Coconut, Champagne Sorbet”. I asked for Coconut and when it arrived it was black. I questioned what it was and the answer was “charred coconut” 😂 Anyway, it was delicious! For several reasons that I won’t go into on here, we have asked if we can move tables in the MDR (2nd sitting club) to a table for 2. They are going to look at it, but if it’s going to take as long to get a resolution as it is taking to get an answer on our US immigration question (chased twice now, still no answer) or it took to get someone to look at the creaking in the cabin ceiling (4 requests) then I can see me having to request a meeting with the Food and Beverage manager. They don’t seem very sharp on problem resolution on this ship. The evening show was the Stephen Mulhern show Astonishing, but we’ve seen it once when it first came out and once was enough. I went up on to deck 13 to see if William Joyce was there star gazing (he said he would be) but it was deserted. I need to check what times he’s up there. Tomorrow we reach our third port, Nassau in the Bahamas. Weather forecast looking a bit iffy.

I’m pleased to hear that they have dropped the need to pre book on Britannia. As mentioned above, it was a farce. It sounds as though it’s only on Arvia and Iona now.

Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I’m having 😋

Yes, I should have added that most on this cruise seem to have done multiple Caribbean trips, and all those we have spoken to have said that conditions are usually better than we have had. There have definitely been plenty of periods when it’s been warm enough to sit outside, but today is the first very warm day. My wife is currently on the balcony ☀️

As would I, but we are doing the first Sindhu Tiffin lunch 😂

Todays MDR menus

It’s true that we have been unlucky so far, as we had two sunny days early on (22 degrees) but the sea was rough, and today is the first sunny day since. However, keep in mind that we tracked West for 5 days from Madeira as our next stop was Bermuda. On Iona you will track more south westerly so will reach warmer weather far quicker. We don’t actually reach the Caribbean until the last day of January!

I should imagine that on Iona and Arvia they get comparatively few higher loyalty tier passengers, so it makes sense to combine them if the lunch is basically the same. Conversely, on Aurora at present we believe that there are 1,000 higher loyalty tier passengers, so each tier is having its own lunch. In fact, the Caribbean lunch had to be split over two days as there’s so many of us!

😂 Exactly as I’m doing on Aurora presently, having discovered on our cruises last year that steaks are usually cooked one level above what you ask for. I’ve asked for medium-rare so far and received perfectly cooked medium steaks, so the plan has worked 😂

Exactly. One of the worst traits of our society nowadays is when someone is in distress, or a dangerous situation is occurring, rather than help folk feel that it is entertainment and stand around filming it on their phones. We tend not to stay up late, so would probably miss most incidents, but in all our cruises with P&O I can only recall two or three incidents of overtly drunken behaviour that would give cause for concern, which is far less than you’d see ashore in the ‘nighttime economy’. The one that always sticks in my mind was on Ventura around 6 years ago. We were in Metropolis and a guy in his 30s, who was on holiday with his wheelchair bound grandmother, was steaming drunk and making a real nuisance of himself. He approached a female singer who was performing in there and started telling her that she was “rubbish”, getting in her personal space and getting quite aggressive. Rather than reach for my phone I got up to intervene and protect her, but my wife stopped me for fear of what might happen, so I asked the bar staff to quickly call security. Thankfully they arrived rapidly and escorted him back to his cabin.

Thankfully the former 😂

Day 13 - Monday 15th January - At Sea As I’ve mentioned before, we are sleeping with the curtains open on this cruise, so we were pleased to see sunshine first thing after quite a few dull days. By the time we were dressed and heading down to breakfast it was somewhat hidden by cloud, but still feeling warm outside. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but last entry to MDR breakfast on this cruise is 9am on port days and 9.30am on sea days, which is what it used to be on all ships pre Covid. However, on the other 3 P&O ships that we’ve been on this last year we were pleased to see that it had changed to 9.30am on port days and 10am on sea days, which we find to be much better (we are on holiday, after all). I had mentioned this on our ‘First Impressions’ form, and rather oddly a restaurant manager came to our dinner table last night with my form in his hand, with the comment highlighted, and tried to tell me that room service breakfast is available later. This somewhat irritated me, firstly because that was completely irrelevant to the point I was making (which I don’t think they had understood) and he chose to engage in a conversation just as my main course had been placed in front of me. These earlier times will be increasingly problematic on the return home when we are losing an hours sleep each night. Having mentioned that yesterday’s entertainment (or lack of it) was dire, I was both pleased and relieved to see that it was as good today as it had been on our run to Bermuda. After breakfast we headed to the Playhouse for the first of a number of Space talks from our new lecturer William Joyce, which is right up my street. He doesn’t have the presentation skills that Dick Taylor had, but he certainly has excellent knowledge and I will enjoy attending all of his talks. We had our Caribbean loyalty tier lunch at midday, so were unable to squeeze in the Key West port talk, which we shall have to watch on the TV (shame they aren’t ’on demand’ as you have to be lucky to catch them). Whilst always an enjoyable event, this was probably the weakest one that we have attended. Drinks service was plentiful and, as always, we enjoyed the company of fellow cruisers, but it was different to the Caribbean lunches we had on Britannia and Ventura last year. There were some officers at the entrance to greet us, but they scarpered very quickly afterwards. Just like at the welcome aboard drinks, there seemed to be no genuine desire to interact with their most loyal guests. It was also the first Caribbean lunch where the Captain, or a designated senior officer, didn’t say a few words. I know that there are supposedly around 1,000 higher loyalty tier passengers on this cruise, but with the fact that priority embarkation had been a shambles and we have yet to see our complimentary champagne (which others on our table have had), this is the first cruise that we’ve been on where our Caribbean loyalty status hasn’t felt like something that P&O appreciated. The food was OK but I chose lamb and was served a very fatty portion which, after I’d trimmed off all the fat, was tiny. At 3pm we went to the theatre so see Christopher Biggins first talk. As expected, he was very engaging and interesting and went down very well with the audience. We returned to our cabin and then 15 minutes later decided to go for a few laps of the Promenade deck, and as we went to the lift lobby Christopher Biggins and his husband Neil got out of a lift. They greeted us and we said that we’d enjoyed his talk. They then proceeded to stop and have a good chat with us. As it was a private conversation I won’t repeat anything that was said, but I can confirm that they are both really pleasant guys and Biggins is as nice on a one to one as he is on stage. After a number of laps of the promenade deck (only just over a mile this time, but I was pushing my wife in the wheelchair) we went to the first of 5 classical piano recitals from our second guest musician - Roman Rudnytsky. Wow! This guy is amazing. He performed 3 very long, very fast and complex pieces (each over 15 minutes), all without any sheet music. What an incredible talent. Afterwards we went to a deserted Raffles for a drink before returning to the cabin. As we’d had a fairly full day we decided against going to see Pulse in Carmens for their ‘I believe in a thing called Rock’ performance. For dinner I decided to have the ‘always available’ sirloin steak and it was cooked extremely well. We all had a smile at the advertised ice cream ‘Honey and Comb’. Unfortunately we have smelt cigarette smoke the last few nights and can only assume that it’s drifting in from the deck 7 smoking area with the door opening and closing as people go in and out. The 10pm theatre show was The Lavelles - a female trio of Motown singers who we have seen on previous cruises. We went to the theatre but couldn’t get a suitable seat where I could sit near my wife, so we didn’t bother to stay for the show. Tomorrow will be the last sea day before Nassau.

We pre booked before our Britannia cruise last summer, but it was a bit of a nonsense. Once onboard, some of the shows changed to different days to the days we’d booked, one show we’d pre booked was changed for a different show altogether, on some days they checked people in against the pre-bookings (which caused queues getting in) and other days they didn’t bother. All kidology IMHO as making a booking doesn’t actually guarantee you a seat anyway! That being said, if they are still persevering with the pre booking then it’s probably best to pre-book (they usually open 14 days out and can be booked via your cruise personaliser).

It was indeed meant to be formal night on Aurora tonight, but it has now changed (presumably tomorrow). Plenty of green bean jokes on here as well. I think they must have a deck below where they grow them, as they seem to appear with most meals, whether they are a suitable accompaniment or not 😂

I asked about that as well, as my wife would be fine with that. Again, the answer was ‘No’. The Space Centre is fully wheelchair accessible. The problem is that the P&O transfer there is not. Prior to booking the tour I looked into us getting a cab there but there are a lot of reports of people getting there OK but then having major problems getting back to the ship, even with a pre booked cab (as they didn’t turn up).

Yes, and it was a firm ‘No’

I’d like to go again, but have been before, albeit around 20 years ago. I have also been fortunate enough to attend a nighttime space shuttle launch, an experience that I shall never forget, especially as I took my late Dad who also loved it.

Having not heard anything I went back to the shore excursions team this morning. They have established that the immigration checks will be done ashore and not on the ship, and that all passengers must be processed before anyone is allowed back on or any crew are allowed off. They are going to confirm for me what this means in practice for our situation, but I can see my excursion to the Kennedy Space Centre being cancelled. For a country that claims to be the most advanced nation in the world, they do have some rather third world attitudes towards things like this, and yet we are their closest ally. Imagine what it must be like if you come from a country that they don’t get on with!

I am hoping that we don’t encounter any Tiffany stores on this cruise. My wife has form in this regard and I had a narrow escape in Copenhagen last year 😂

Now that’s interesting as we all thought that our guide kept saying “Island Island” 😂

My wife’s had a few of those and I’ve thought the same, especially when the waiter spilt some of it when placing it on the table 😂

They have said that they don’t yet know whether it will be done on the ship or ashore 🙄

Having experienced US Border Control a number of times, I know what you mean! However, when we cruised into New York and were on the first tour we were off the ship and through immigration in less than 15 mins. I suspect that’s the exception not the rule though.

My wife will be getting off the ship at the other 4 US ports after Port Canaveral and my understanding is that you have to clear immigration at the first port, whether you get off or not, but the excursions lady hasn’t got back to me yet so I can’t confirm. Ideally I’d take my wife off the ship for a few hours in Port Canaveral when I return from the tour, if there is enough time left to do so. The general view from the ships crew that I asked about that was that the US immigration staff would have gone by then, which seems odd as people would still be leaving the ship.