Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[Presto2]

3 hours ago, CaptainPedantic said:

+1 for this... as long as they are spicy... we find the curries are 'dumbed down' for the masses and miss some heat!

I hate anything remotely spicy and just the smell of a mild curry makes me heave so more than happy for them to limit them. 😉 When working used to say that hubby could only have a curry if I was on residential with the children and not home .... other than that he had to eat it in the garden 😉

[grapau27]

2 hours ago, paulatsea said:

Reverse snobbery. Snooty graduates  ? Please.

Everyone is nice on here Graduates or not.

[Presto2]

3 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Everyone is nice on here Graduates or not.

Exactly - thanks for this comment Grapau27. 

 

 

 

[pete14]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

I was saying just that at lunchtime with my pork vindaloo (that was more korma) 😂 Still nice though

Thanks for reminding me about the Pork Vindaloo on Aurora. When I had it a couple of months ago, I suspected a ship wide shortage of hot spices. Obviously they still haven’t restocked. 

[Presto2]

2 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Thanks for reminding me about the Pork Vindaloo on Aurora. When I had it a couple of months ago, I suspected a ship wide shortage of hot spices. Obviously they still haven’t restocked. 

We can only pray for the same on Britannia as the Beach House menu seems to be mainly spicy dishes. Am beginning to feel like the detectives on Death in Paradise who have to stick to Chicken and Chips 😉

Edited January 9 by Presto2

[paulatsea]

24 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Everyone is nice on here Graduates or not.

Absolutely - we have a common love of the sea and cruising - whoever we are.

[Cumbrian1]

Thanks very much for this commentary👍.

Your mention of doing laps on the promenade deck reminded me when we were on Arvia we did the same and my wife set her smart watch to check the distance covered. After a few laps she checked her watch and was astonished to find she had done 21km!!

 

Both of us had completely disregarded the forward motion of the ship in relation to the GPS reading 🫢

 

For your wife's  Kindle, have a look at this Amazon webpage...

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/341689031/?tag=mhf04-21&tag=mhf04-21

 

I think you may have to register a payment card regardless if the books are free or not?

 

Thanks again.

[Goosebear Mum]

Hi Selbourne. Glad to hear the bizarre meal combination was enjoyable! 🙂 

 

re’ the kindle, if you’ve not sorted it by Friday, let me know.  I have a long weekend, and will take screenshots of how to access the kindle unlimited library from our kindles (we have Oasis, but I’m sure it’ll be the same with other editions)  I normally ’order’ on my iPad and then the kindle receives it, but I’ll look at doing it direct from the kindle.  
 

in the meantime, the kindle unlimited library link (for you laptop/tabket/phone/whatever you’re using to post to CC!) is here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Unlimited-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=4764713031. You’ll need to be logged on as your wife’s kindle account (my husband and I share ours, so we both have the books)  There are other ways to search for kindle unlimited books, but this is one direct method (screenshot attached) 

 

Before Friday, I’m at work, and don’t have the energy/brain power, to look at our kindles, sorry!  

 

GBM

Edited January 9 by Goosebear Mum

[Selbourne]

Just now, Goosebear Mum said:

Hi Selbourne. Glad to hear the bizarre meal combination was enjoyable! 🙂 

 

re’ the kindle, if you’ve not sorted it by Friday, let me know.  I have a long weekend, and will take screenshots of how to access the kindle unlimited library from our kindles (we have Oasis, but I’m sure it’ll be the same with other editions)  I normally ’order’ on my iPad and then the kindle receives it, but I’ll look at doing it direct from the kindle.  
 

in the meantime, the kindle unlimited library link is here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Unlimited-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=4764713031. You’ll need to be logged on as your wife’s kindle account (my husband and I share ours, so we both have the books) 

 

Before Friday, I’m at work, and don’t have the energy/brain power, sorry!  

 

GBM

Thank you. That’s extremely kind of you. My wife seems to think that she has to download ebooks on her Amazon account on her iPad first and then, once she’s done that, it will update on her Kindle, but the problem is that she can’t have them both on WiFi at the same time as we can only have one device connected at a time. If there is a way to connect her Kindle directly via the P&O WiFi and download directly to the Kindle that would seem to be much easier. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, CaptainPedantic said:

+1 for this... as long as they are spicy... we find the curries are 'dumbed down' for the masses and miss some heat!

I opted for a potato curry one night on Azura a couple of year ago. It blew my head off! The waiter had to bring me some yoghurt 😂 very tasty though 

[Goosebear Mum]

21 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Thank you. That’s extremely kind of you. My wife seems to think that she has to download ebooks on her Amazon account on her iPad first and then, once she’s done that, it will update on her Kindle, but the problem is that she can’t have them both on WiFi at the same time as we can only have one device connected at a time. If there is a way to connect her Kindle directly via the P&O WiFi and download directly to the Kindle that would seem to be much easier. 

You are most welcome.
 

I download all my kindle books ‘via my iPad’, as I find it the easiest for searching.
 

Connecting the kindle to the ship wifi is problematic I understand (I’ve not tried it) but you could try and the tether the kindle to the the iPad’s internet, the kindle may be happier… 

 

order on iPad, then it should appear in her kindle automatically (once on wifi) Being on wifi on the kindle does not have to be at the same time as ordering on the iPad, it can be anytime) 

[Winifred 22]

40 minutes ago, Goosebear Mum said:

You are most welcome.
 

I download all my kindle books ‘via my iPad’, as I find it the easiest for searching.
 

Connecting the kindle to the ship wifi is problematic I understand (I’ve not tried it) but you could try and the tether the kindle to the the iPad’s internet, the kindle may be happier… 

 

order on iPad, then it should appear in her kindle automatically (once on wifi) Being on wifi on the kindle does not have to be at the same time as ordering on the iPad, it can be anytime) 

I had no luck trying to link my kindle to WiFi  which was annoying as I bought new books from Amazon but just couldn’t then download them until I got home. 

[Selbourne]

Day 7 - Tuesday 9th January - At Sea

 

The second of many one hour clock changes resulted in us waking early again, but we were able to watch the sunrise from bed. We sleep with the curtains open and it’s lovely to see the moonlight on the water and Venus shining very brightly just above the moon. As with yesterday, a calm looking sea but still quite a bit of motion due to the swells, probably not helped by the fact that we are on deck 11 and slightly forward. 

 

As everyone is up and about very early (due to the clocks going back again) we had to be issued with a pager for a table for 2 in Medina for breakfast for the first time, but the wait was well under 10 minutes, so no issue. They even have a bank of seats outside the MDR for anyone waiting, which is a good idea as there’s nowhere else to sit and wait on deck 6. As the toast is always served thin and cold I asked for a thick piece, which I’ve tried on other ships but was always the other extreme (too thick). It’s the same on here. You need an extra flexible jaw to eat it 😂 It was nice and warm though. I had eggs Benedict but asked for some smoked salmon with it. I’m always impressed that you can ask for these little extras and it’s never a problem. In fact our waiters at dinner encourage it! We could see the big swells out the window and the horizon going up and down. We also spotted our first ship in 2 days!

 

At 1030 guest speaker Chris Walker was giving a talk on Irving Berlin in the theatre, but I will catch up on that on the TV at some stage.  At 1130 I was very surprised to see a port talk on Bermuda in the theatre. I was delighted to see this, as I thought that port talks had succumbed to the cutbacks. There certainly weren’t any on Britannia, Iona or Ventura last year. As these are always a brief outline of the port followed by a sales pitch for the excursions, I can only assume that they might be doing them because there is still availability for 95% of the excursions on this cruise. In fairness to the very enthusiastic presenter, it was well over 20 minutes of useful information before the listing of all the excursions started, and a steady stream of people then started leaving. It sounds as though there will be presentations on all the ports, which will be great. 

 

One of our daughters phoned us via WhatsApp and I’m impressed that we can do that (and video calls) on the basic internet package. Incidentally, the WiFi has been fine, including in the cabin. It’s a bit of a faff switching between devices, involving a lot of clicks, but I can’t see any point in paying for multiple devices.

 

We had lunch in Medina and I’ve started noticing items appearing on the lunch or dinner menus that were on the other menu the day before. Today at lunch there was Summer Pudding that had also been on the dinner menu last night. Waste not, want not, I guess. My wife joked that the 3rd shot might be the buffet? I haven’t dwelt too much on the food in this blog as it hasn’t really been an issue. Other than breakfast, which is always excellent IMHO, our general feeling is that the MDR food at lunch and dinner hasn’t been quite as good as the other P&O ships that we’ve been on over the past 6 months. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it hasn’t really excited us much. Sauces and gravy’s in particular seem to lack any depth of flavour. No complaints, just a tad underwhelming. 

 

After lunch I managed another 10 laps of the promenade deck prior to attending guest lecturer Dick Taylor’s 3pm talk in the Playhouse on the history of the Victoria Cross. I’m pleased to hear that he’s going to do a space related talk before my visit to the Kennedy Space Centre. We both then went for a drink in Raffles (Costa) where we bumped in to our dinner companions and had a chat.

 

We decided against the 7pm Pulse 80s themed session in Carmens and went to Anderson’s for pre dinner drinks. It was incredibly busy, even though the pre dinner canapés are now a thing of the past. The ambiance is like a (busy) country hotel - so much nicer than the clinical soulless space on Iona that carries the same name. 

 

Our new table companions joined us again (so we obviously hadn’t scared them off the previous night). The 10pm theatre show was Neil Lockwood, the former lead singer of ELO Part 2. I love the original ELO with Jeff Lynne, so wondered what to expect, but had read on this forum that his shows were very good. It was indeed a very enjoyable show. He’s an excellent musician on both guitar and piano and I’ve never seen anyone play the piano whilst laid underneath it! There was a degree of pre recorded soundtrack and the final piece in the jigsaw was the live accompaniment of the Aurora orchestra. In my humble opinion, this was the slight weak point in the performance but, in their defence, they didn’t have a hope of coming anywhere near to the quality of sound that the 80 piece orchestra that accompanied ELO on live tours (or albums) did. Another enjoyable performance in what’s turning out to be one of the better cruises that we have done when it comes to entertainment.

 

The Horizon schedule for tomorrow (Wednesday) warns us that the inclement weather that the Captain had warned us about when leaving Madeira is now due to hit us and will manifest itself with increasing swells. Stugeron at the ready!

[Josy1953]

9 hours ago, Goosebear Mum said:

You are most welcome.
 

I download all my kindle books ‘via my iPad’, as I find it the easiest for searching.
 

Connecting the kindle to the ship wifi is problematic I understand (I’ve not tried it) but you could try and the tether the kindle to the the iPad’s internet, the kindle may be happier… 

 

order on iPad, then it should appear in her kindle automatically (once on wifi) Being on wifi on the kindle does not have to be at the same time as ordering on the iPad, it can be anytime) 

I always have a number of books sitting on my kindle waiting to be read.  When we are going on a cruise I have found that the easiest thing to do is to check that I have enough books downloaded to last me for the whole cruise before leaving home.  If I was running out of books I would probably connect to free WiFi at one of the ports to download something else.

[SarahHben]

Morning.

Does your wife have kindle unlimited?

I was whiling away a few hours in A&E yesterday evening and had my kindle with me so took a few pics of what I do.

First go to kindle settings and connect to WiFi. Then I click on the 3 bars, top right, click on Shop in Kindle Store and then Kindle Unlimited is an option to choose. 
I don’t have Kindle Unlimited but type  ‘Free’ in the search bar and a long list appears. You can then click on the 3 bars again, click on Refine and chose the genre you want.

I hope that helps?

 

Edited January 10 by SarahHben

[Ukulele girl]

Thank you Selbourne for your very enjoyable commentary on the cruise. I followed your last newsy ramblings for the same reason as this as my sister and her husband are also on board. They are on a lower deck in a balcony cabin and have said that they are not as aware of the movement in bad weather. It is so good to hear the details of trip as my sister doesn't usually use the wifi on board. 

Is there still a table near the library where people leave books they have finished with? It is often a way to share reading material on a longer cruise.

Best of luck with the weather into Bermuda. 

[paulatsea]

1 hour ago, Ukulele girl said:

Thank you Selbourne for your very enjoyable commentary on the cruise. I followed your last newsy ramblings for the same reason as this as my sister and her husband are also on board. They are on a lower deck in a balcony cabin and have said that they are not as aware of the movement in bad weather. It is so good to hear the details of trip as my sister doesn't usually use the wifi on board. 

Is there still a table near the library where people leave books they have finished with? It is often a way to share reading material on a longer cruise.

Best of luck with the weather into Bermuda. 

The table in the library was there when I went on Aurora last December 2023.

Next to the main desk.
Lots of books left there to share.

[Selbourne]

Just now, SarahHben said:

Morning.

Does your wife have kindle unlimited?

I was whiling away a few hours in A&E yesterday evening and had my kindle with me so took a few pics of what I do.

First go to kindle settings and connect to WiFi. Then I click on the 3 bars, top right, click on Shop in Kindle Store and then Kindle Unlimited is an option to choose. 
I don’t have Kindle Unlimited but type  ‘Free’ in the search bar and a long list appears. You can then click on the 3 bars again, click on Refine and chose the genre you want.

I hope that helps?

 

Thanks Sarah. My wife has Kindle Unlimited on a free 3 month trial, so we will give this a go later. If we are able to connect the Kindle directly to the ships WiFi and if we are then able to download books (possibly two big ‘ifs’) then we might be OK. My wife said that she thought that she tried to do something similar but wasn’t able to download direct to the Kindle, only her iPad and then the issue was that she couldn’t then zap it over to the Kindle as both devices couldn’t be on WiFi at the same time. I’ll have a look as my wife is even less IT savvy than me 😂 

[Selbourne]

Just now, Ukulele girl said:

Is there still a table near the library where people leave books they have finished with? It is often a way to share reading material on a longer cruise.

Probably. We’ll take a look. Thanks 

[SarahHben]

2 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks Sarah. My wife has Kindle Unlimited on a free 3 month trial, so we will give this a go later. If we are able to connect the Kindle directly to the ships WiFi and if we are then able to download books (possibly two big ‘ifs’) then we might be OK. My wife said that she thought that she tried to do something similar but wasn’t able to download direct to the Kindle, only her iPad and then the issue was that she couldn’t then zap it over to the Kindle as both devices couldn’t be on WiFi at the same time. I’ll have a look as my wife is even less IT savvy than me 😂 

Different models may have the settings in a different place but if you can get to the settings you should be able to connect to your WiFi package on the kindle then once connected you can definitely download books straight to the kindle. No iPad necessary.

Good luck 

[terrierjohn]

17 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks Sarah. My wife has Kindle Unlimited on a free 3 month trial, so we will give this a go later. If we are able to connect the Kindle directly to the ships WiFi and if we are then able to download books (possibly two big ‘ifs’) then we might be OK. My wife said that she thought that she tried to do something similar but wasn’t able to download direct to the Kindle, only her iPad and then the issue was that she couldn’t then zap it over to the Kindle as both devices couldn’t be on WiFi at the same time. I’ll have a look as my wife is even less IT savvy than me 😂 

It's possible that the iPad to kindle connection might be Blue tooth, in which case I would think you might not need both to be connected to wi fi just nearby, but I am no expert so could be talking rubbish.

[Selbourne]

50 minutes ago, Ukulele girl said:

my sister and her husband are also on board. They are on a lower deck in a balcony cabin and have said that they are not as aware of the movement in bad weather.

It’s definitely worse in our cabin (deck 11 forward) as we notice each time we return, but it’s still very noticeable everywhere on the ship, including the promenade deck (below all balcony cabins). Plenty of people walking around the ship with one hand on a rail. Those who aren’t noticing it must be very hardy sailors! So far this morning it’s nowhere near as bad as we feared given the warnings, but we may not be in the worst of it yet. 

[Selbourne]

Todays menus

[Bill Y]

9 hours ago, Selbourne said:

At 1130 I was very surprised to see a port talk on Bermuda in the theatre. I was delighted to see this, as I thought that port talks had succumbed to the cutbacks. There certainly weren’t any on Britannia, Iona or Ventura last year. As these are always a brief outline of the port followed by a sales pitch for the excursions, I can only assume that they might be doing them because there is still availability for 95% of the excursions on this cruise. In fairness to the very enthusiastic presenter, it was well over 20 minutes of useful information before the listing of all the excursions started, and a steady stream of people then started leaving. It sounds as though there will be presentations on all the ports, which will be great.

Glad to hear that. As people who book a cruise for new and interesting ports we valued these presentations and always used to take the port guide ashore with us, They were sorely missed last year, and left a hole in the entertainment schedule that was not filled. We were told then that there was only two port presenters fleet wide, so you must be lucky. I did predict without these presentations the shore excursions days would be numbered.

[Eddie99]

You could try asking the librarian for help setting up your kindle?  They are (usually) happy to help on the technical front