A few Aurora questions

[PrincessPete]

Good evening, we are planning to pre-register for the 28 night Aurora Caribbean cruise in November 2022, with bookings opening on Wednesday.

We did a similar itinerary a couple of years ago on Oriana and absolutely loved it.

I will doubtless have a few questions about Aurora before sailing but at this stage we are just researching what cabin to book.

I would be most grateful for your comments knowing that many on the forum have sailed on her.

• Is there much of a difference between the standard and deluxe balcony cabins?

• I believe even the standard balcony cabins have a (small) bath with the shower overhead, as per Oriana. Is that correct, please?

• I know the balconies are quite small but do they take two chairs and a small table?

• On a more general note I believe the ship is very similar to Oriana, which is one of the key attractions! Any observations good or bad would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Kind regards Peter

[mike x ftc]

Hi Peter

We've  been on Aurora a few times now, supposed to be on her for Christmas this year! I think the difference is the standard balconies are cut out of the hull, if you see what I mean, and the deluxe ones have glass outside so it makes it a bit lighter inside, the balconies do have chairs and a little table I think - we were on her for Christmas 2015 and didn't spend much time out there!!  The cabins are pretty much the same, the deluxe slightly larger but they do both have baths.

We did Oriana and liked her but I definitely think Aurora has the edge, although you are right, they are similar, she seems to flow better and the spaces are just lovely, the crows nest and Andersons are both lovely bars.  She seems to have a lot of public space for a smaller ship.  Hope that helps

[Adawn47]

I think you are mistaking Aurora for Arcadia re baths. We've sailed on both a few times in  balcony cabins and only Arcadia have a bath. I don't know if the deluxe Aurora  balonies have a bath, but the standard have shower only.

Avril

[mike x ftc]

All the A deck balcony cabins have baths, some of the c deck ones are shower only.  If you look at the deck plans on P&O it shows the shower only with 4 little diamonds, mainly to the back of c deck.

[tring]

16 minutes ago, mike x ftc said:

All the A deck balcony cabins have baths, some of the c deck ones are shower only.  If you look at the deck plans on P&O it shows the shower only with 4 little diamonds, mainly to the back of c deck.

 

That is true that only some have shower only - I was about to say the same myself.

 

1 hour ago, PrincessPete said:

Good evening, we are planning to pre-register for the 28 night Aurora Caribbean cruise in November 2022, with bookings opening on Wednesday.

 

Kind regards Peter

 

We have a pre-registration on the same cruise and since the agent told us they had quite a few pre-regs, we decided to give a second choice of cabin grade/cabins and some of our second choice ones are shower only.  Never been on Aurora before other than for a ship visit in Southampton.  It was a very sunny day and must say we found the ship very dark, though we were not allowed out onto the outside decks - they preferred to keep us queuing in corridors to go into all types of cabins and a very brief walk through the indoor public areas.  We are used to smaller ships though, where you get more places that are near an outside window, which is presumably why we found her dark.  I suspect the back outside decks will be very pleasant, especially on the long Atlantic crossings.

 

Perhaps see you on board,

 

Barbara

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by tring

[wowzz]

5 hours ago, PrincessPete said:

Good evening, we are planning to pre-register 

Can I just say that you are leaving it a bit late. Aurora has a lot of dedicated cruisers, and after all this time your options may be limited.

Any reason why you did not pre-register two weeks ago? 

[jeanlyon]

Might be better to book through a good TA and not pre-register.  They will get you the cabin you want or as near as.

[Angel57]

Aurora is a lovely ship and I’ve done the round trip to the Caribbean on her and travelled in a B deck balcony cabin and also one on C deck. Both were perfectly lovely but if you can afford the B deck the glass balcony is better.

Both balconies have a small table and two chairs.......

Don't leave it too long as I suspect it’ll be a very popular cruise.

 

[Britboys]

I very much like Aurora and will be very happy to sail on her again. There are however two disappointments in comparison with Oriana for me. The bars around the atrium are very small - there is no equivalent to Tiffany's on Oriana and also, Champions is very poor in comparison to the Lord's Tavern.

If you are keen dancers, you would also miss Harlequins, although I haven't seen Aurora's Masquerades since the last refit.

[arlowood]

My suggestion would be to be careful of your cabin choice if you are looking at A deck as an option. The majority of the mid-ships A deck cabins are directly under the the Horizon buffet restaurant or the pool area.

On one cruise we were in one of those cabins and experienced a fair bit of early morning disturbance from staff setting up for breakfast service. I would suggest B or C deck or do as we did and book one of the aft section cabins (eg A279) which are not directly under a serviced area so do not suffer the same disturbance.

[PrincessPete]

Can I thank you all very much for the most helpful replies.

I did actually use the wrong term when I said "pre-register" (inferring that would be with P&O) as we are booking through a TA not direct with P&O, having seen the TA's advertisement in a newspaper on Friday. (re Wowzz reply, that is why we did not register previously as we only decided to go when we saw the advertisement on Friday!).

Hopefully the TA will get us a cabin and we have now given them a long list of ones we would be happy with, which are largely the deluxe balconies with bath. We have also chosen those of the standard ones that have a bath. 

Based on Mike's comment (and having looked at a video of the ship) we prefer the balcony itself on the deluxe cabins with the extra light, not just being cut out of the hull.

Fingers crossed for when they take bookings and likewise for all others who have pre-registered etc.

Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards.

Peter

[Angel57]

37 minutes ago, PrincessPete said:

Can I thank you all very much for the most helpful replies.

I did actually use the wrong term when I said "pre-register" (inferring that would be with P&O) as we are booking through a TA not direct with P&O, having seen the TA's advertisement in a newspaper on Friday. (re Wowzz reply, that is why we did not register previously as we only decided to go when we saw the advertisement on Friday!).

Hopefully the TA will get us a cabin and we have now given them a long list of ones we would be happy with, which are largely the deluxe balconies with bath. We have also chosen those of the standard ones that have a bath. 

Based on Mike's comment (and having looked at a video of the ship) we prefer the balcony itself on the deluxe cabins with the extra light, not just being cut out of the hull.

Fingers crossed for when they take bookings and likewise for all others who have pre-registered etc.

Thanks again for your help.

Kind regards.

Peter

Good luck and let us know how you get on with cabin choice.

I know you will love Aurora - she is a very comfortable ship and when the Captain says “welcome home” after a day in port, that is exactly what it feels like.

 

[kersh]

We have also re regs with a TA for this cruise. We can book tomorrow. We have been on Aurora a number of times but did prefer Oriana.  
 

Hope everyone gets what they want cabin wise. 
 

Sue

[tring]

9 minutes ago, kersh said:

We have also re regs with a TA for this cruise. We can book tomorrow. We have been on Aurora a number of times but did prefer Oriana.  
 

Hope everyone gets what they want cabin wise. 
 

Sue

 

We are also pre registered with an agent, but are Wednesday booking people.  It does indeed seem to be a popular cruise and I had fleetingly considered pre-registering with P&O to ensure a booking of a certain grade, but we really would not be happy with some cabins on the ship for a cruise of such a length, in what may well be rough seas part of the time.

 

I hope you get your priority choice of cabin, which hopefully you will with the earlier booking. 

 

If you manage to get any idea of how well booked that cruise becomes tomorrow, please let us know,

 

Barbara

[wowzz]

4 hours ago, PrincessPete said:

having seen the TA's advertisement in a newspaper on Friday. (re Wowzz reply, that is why we did not register previously as we only decided to go when we saw the advertisement on Friday

Ah, understood! 

I hope you get the cabin you want.

[terrierjohn]

18 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Ah, understood! 

I hope you get the cabin you want.

I know these are unprecedented times, but I doubt that P&O normally sell more than 20% of capacity at launch  so there should be plenty of availability for standard accommodation.

[Otter18]

20 hours ago, kersh said:

We have also re regs with a TA for this cruise. We can book tomorrow. We have been on Aurora a number of times but did prefer Oriana.  
 

Hope everyone gets what they want cabin wise. 
 

Sue

Hi Sue,

 

We have met a few times on past cruises, and we have just had our cabin confirmed this morning for this cruise on Aurora.

 

We also booked Arcadia RWC 2023 and had our cabin confirmed (E98). When I tried to search for a photo of the window (obstructed view), your name came up on a post on CC. Do you have a photo by any chance, of the window and obstructed view.

 

Hopefully we will see you again on Aurora next year.

 

Brian

[PrincessPete]

Hi all, as per my post on the “will the phone lines crash at 0830” thread, we did get a midships deluxe balcony for this cruise.

This is just a quick final thank you again for all the help, especially Mike with the description of the different balconies.

Only 18 months to wait and keeping fingers crossed in the meantime!

Good luck to all booking today.

Kind regards Peter

[tring]

We got a text from agent re Aurora to Caribbean, Nov '22 just after 9am to say cabin secured, but not the cabin number.  Mid ship deluxe were still available after that, so we should have one of those which were on our list (Starboard away from lifts).  Strangely the mid/fore deluxe cabins were coming up as unavailable by just after 8.30am, though the booking system is clearly not working properly for the deck below, as if you select mid/aft, it shows mid/fore!

 

Extremely strange things are happening with the Azura booking site as well as whole decks are coming up as unavailable for our Oct cruise.  Waiting on P&O's allocation for that cruise, so at least we are assured a cabin in the grade we want for that.  Logged in to our booking but cabin not showing yet.