Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[Selbourne]

Just now, zap99 said:

I'll go with the chef's recommendation tonight please.

Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I’m doing, although I might be tempted by the banana and pecan nuts in toffee sauce (assuming that they can make a toffee sauce that tastes of toffee) 🤔😂

[carlanthony24]

Looking at Marine Traffic 3 cruise ships made it in. So unless the Birth allocated for Aurora was due to be out of limits for the wind is another question. Then again they all arrived around Midday and after.

Edited February 20 by carlanthony24

[Selbourne]

Just now, carlanthony24 said:

Looking at Marine Traffic 3 cruise ships made it in. So unless the Birth allocated for Aurora was due to be out of limits for the wind is another question.

Someone we spoke to earlier had a list of 5 ships that had made it in and one that looked like it might be tendering. Certainly 6 other ships were due in to Cozumel today in addition to Aurora. 

[zap99]

6 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I’m doing, although I might be tempted by the banana and pecan nuts in toffee sauce (assuming that they can make a toffee sauce that tastes of toffee) 🤔😂

In the Beach House DW asked for a banana split without the banana. Next time the waiter asked ' same as last time madam '. It was obviously an unusual request.

[Selbourne]

6 hours ago, Mollag said:

if I wasn’t suspicious of anything I’d say they’ve got some kind of issues with the ship especially after missing Key West as well in light to moderate winds but we’ll never be told the truth

It’s true we will never be told the truth. P&O sadly have form with telling blatant lies about why ports are missed, as I discovered some years ago by doing some investigative work on why a fjords cruise became a coastal towns cruise. They blamed the port making the change when in fact it was as a direct result of a Carnival instruction to cancel the P&O slot to make way for a Cunard ship. 
 

I’ve heard today on fairly good authority that Key West was cancelled as the port was demanding £29,000 for the use of a tug and P&O refused to pay it, presumably as it wasn’t a budgeted cost. If true, it’s a classic example of ‘sod the customers, we won’t have to reimburse them so have nothing to lose and everything to gain by just cancelling the port call’. 

[Selbourne]

Day 49 - Tuesday 20th February - Cozumel, Mexico

 

I’d had a poor nights sleep, not because of my throat but because I never sleep well when I have to be up early - even when I’ve set an alarm. The cabin air con was back on a ‘go slow’ at night as well. For some bizarre reason, although my tour was only three and a half hours long, it was due to leave at 8am. We had been warned that it’s a long walk to get clear of the terminal so to allow 15 minutes, plus many tours seem to leave a bit early, so I was up at 6.20am. If I am on a morning tour I have to allow enough time to ensure that my wife is up and about before I go as I often have to assist her to get out of the bed (it’s too low) and to get ready.

 

I had showered, applied sun cream and the foul smelling Jungle Formula (the excursion was to Mayan ruins in a jungle) and my wife was in the shower when the captain came on the airwaves to say that due to wind the port call was cancelled. Obviously we have to take his word for it that this was the case and that our safety is his biggest concern etc etc. I know that people like to criticise ‘armchair admirals’ but it’s no wonder that people question these things on days like this. Clear blue sky, calm sea, no discernible wind at all (weather site confirmed 10 mph) and every other ship due to berth in Cozumel got in no problem - including the much larger ones that supposed to have difficulties in wind due to their high sides. We had exactly the same with Key West. Barely a breath of wind and calm seas. It doesn’t say a lot for Aurora’s capabilities in comparison to other ships when she falls at the first hurdle like this. 

 

Anyway, the decision had been made and so, in spite of having been up at an ungodly hour, we now have an unplanned sea day with nothing to do. I had a second shower before breakfast to try to rid myself of the jungle formula smell! The entertainment manager announced that tonight’s show had to be changed as Jon Clegg, comedy impressionist (Britain’s Got Talent finalist) had been due to board in Cozumel, so the female singer from a few nights back would do her second show tonight. We also learned later that a passenger was due to be medically offloaded in Cozumel (hospital arranged etc) and obviously is now stuck on here for 2 more days until Grand Cayman. 

 

Mid morning I picked up the revised ‘entertainment’ schedule just in time to see that there was a port talk at 1130 on Tortola and St Kitts, so we attended that. We contemplated lunch in the Glasshouse but noticed that the lunch menu in the MDR didn’t look too bad so we went there instead. 

 

We spent the afternoon reading, making our daily visit to Raffles and a few laps of the promenade deck. That was it. Relaxing but dull and not what we cruise for. Thanks to my WiFi package (which incidentally has been great and extremely reliable throughout the cruise) I was also able to attend to some domestic admin. I’m relieved that I won’t have a backlog to deal with when we get home, other than those who persist with snail mail. 

 

In an idle moment whilst waiting for a lift for an unusually long time, I discovered why the stairwells are so ruddy hot and how easy it would be to fix it. I was stood directly under one of the ceiling lights and could feel the heat coming off it. I put my hand up and couldn’t touch the bulb it was so hot. Surely it would not be beyond the wit of man (or even P&O) to replace all these bulbs with LED ones that don’t generate any heat? The same with the ceiling bulbs in the lifts. Everyone comments on the heat in these areas and it seems like an obvious fix to me! This is the sort of nonsense that I’m driven to on boring sea days 😂

 

The revised 10pm theatre show was Sammy Lomax ‘The Happy Playlist’. Her first show had been Dusty Springfield, but tonight was a mix of artists. If you can ignore the fact that the patter between songs was at times a lot longer than the songs themselves, she put on a good show. She certainly has a great voice and even well known songs that she did a different interpretation of were very well delivered. Certainly an entirely different league from the lead female singer in Pulse, who can manage to murder most songs. 

 

Tomorrow we have another sea day. 

[grapau27]

10 hours ago, Presto2 said:

Were the other ships newer so may have been able to handle the sea and winds? Just thinking ..

The newer ships will probably have Azipods which can rotate 360 degrees and make it easier to manoeuvre and dock.

[Eddie99]

S.  Your log, or extracts from it, should go to senior planners at P&O.  
So many, often small, suggestions, often easily implementable! which would make a big difference.

What’s the management consultant phrase about improving one thing 100% - v - improving a hundred things 1%?

 

Have a good day.  Hope the throat improves 

Edited February 21 by Eddie99

[Presto2]

34 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

The newer ships will probably have Azipods which can rotate 360 degrees and make it easier to manoeuvre and dock.

Thanks - I knew there was something, but couldn't think of the right word ! 🙂

[Presto2]

10 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Exactly. Even if we are to take what we were told as gospel (which, BTW, nobody that we’ve spoken to today does), then it doesn’t say much for Aurora that she cannot cope in such mild conditions.
 

Everyone understands that these issues can happen if the weather is really bad but today, as with Key West, it’s been a glorious day with calm seas. The sea state picked up a bit this afternoon but of course we are now well away from Cozumel. 

I have to say (and apologies if I've mentioned this and its slightly off topic), but the Captain on our recent cruise on Britannia was excellent in terms of communication. We had to cancel Bonaire due to high winds and there was a swap for Aruba. He gave a full explanation (at least twice as to why). And I have to say it was certainly windy in Aruba, so what it was like in Bonaire you can only guess.

 

Similarly, high winds were given out for Antigua and he said that, as it was a narrow entrance and high winds were forecast, he was getting there as soon as he could incase we left it until the morning and it was too windy. We arrived before midnight and the next day was very windy again and the weather pretty grim for that time of the year (heavy prolonged stormy rain with high winds which even the locals said were unusual). Some people complained that they had to shut the casino and shops early to allow us to dock that evening, but to us it was a good swap. Again another good decision and the Captain explained his reasoning at least twice. 

 

It made us feel that he cared and was making decision based on what was good for the guests as well (obviously) what was safe. We had a lot of confidence in his decision making and looking back if he had cancelled a port I feel that he would have given a good explanation and we would have accepted his decision as being in our best interests.

 

Perhaps your Captain lacks the communication skills, so it has made people doubt his reasoning when he too could be making perfectly good decisions in your best interests. (It just isn't coming across like that).

 

(If this makes sense)

[bbtablet]

In my experience with "missed ports" insurance:

 

They will not pay out without that letter from P&O the captain was referring to. Often it is not automatically sent to your cabin and you have to know that you need to go to reception to get it - other wise back home you need to write to P&O to get the letter.

 

The letter will specifically state that no compensation was paid by P&O. If compensation is paid, then the insurance claim will fall as they will claim you have not suffered any loss, having been compensated, probably even if it is less than the insurance pay-out (but no experience of that bit).

 

Most insurance policies have a limit on how many missed ports per trip they will pay out for, expressed as a limit amount in £.

 

A missed port that is replaced does not invalidate the claim, which is good news.

[Selbourne]

Just now, grapau27 said:

The newer ships will probably have Azipods which can rotate 360 degrees and make it easier to manoeuvre and dock.

Yes I believe that’s a factor and probably why we needed the tug that P&O / Carnival refused to pay for. 

 

Just now, Eddie99 said:

So many, often small, suggestions, often easily implementable! which would make a big difference.

Sadly I think they suffer from “we always know best” syndrome. Keep in mind that any unpopular changes are always trumpeted as “in response to customer feedback” 🤔

Edited February 21 by Selbourne

[Selbourne]

Just now, Presto2 said:

I have to say (and apologies if I've mentioned this and its slightly off topic), but the Captain on our recent cruise on Britannia was excellent in terms of communication. We had to cancel Bonaire due to high winds and there was a swap for Aruba. He gave a full explanation (at least twice as to why). And I have to say it was certainly windy in Aruba, so what it was like in Bonaire you can only guess.

 

Similarly, high winds were given out for Antigua and he said that, as it was a narrow entrance and high winds were forecast, he was getting there as soon as he could incase we left it until the morning and it was too windy. We arrived before midnight and the next day was very windy again and the weather pretty grim for that time of the year (heavy prolonged stormy rain with high winds which even the locals said were unusual). Some people complained that they had to shut the casino and shops early to allow us to dock that evening, but to us it was a good swap. Again another good decision and the Captain explained his reasoning at least twice. 

 

It made us feel that he cared and was making decision based on what was good for the guests as well (obviously) what was safe. We had a lot of confidence in his decision making and looking back if he had cancelled a port I feel that he would have given a good explanation and we would have accepted his decision as being in our best interests.

 

Perhaps your Captain lacks the communication skills, so it has made people doubt his reasoning when he too could be making perfectly good decisions in your best interests. (It just isn't coming across like that).

 

(If this makes sense)

Spot on. On most of our previous cruises the Captains have been just like that. This one is very different. You get told the bare minimum and nothing else. I have genuinely lost count of how many comments I have heard about the scant communication from this Captain.
 

On another (far more popular) site that I don’t use but someone showed me, where there are hundreds of people on this cruise, a moderator who is extremely pro P&O was defending something but ended with “however, I agree that the communication from the Captain has been abysmal”. 
 

The best and funniest quote that I heard was yesterday. Someone said “This is the first cruise I’ve been on where the Captain is working from home” 🤣

[Selbourne]

Just now, bbtablet said:

In my experience with "missed ports" insurance:

 

They will not pay out without that letter from P&O the captain was referring to. Often it is not automatically sent to your cabin and you have to know that you need to go to reception to get it - other wise back home you need to write to P&O to get the letter.

 

The letter will specifically state that no compensation was paid by P&O. If compensation is paid, then the insurance claim will fall as they will claim you have not suffered any loss, having been compensated, probably even if it is less than the insurance pay-out (but no experience of that bit).

 

Most insurance policies have a limit on how many missed ports per trip they will pay out for, expressed as a limit amount in £.

 

A missed port that is replaced does not invalidate the claim, which is good news.

The one positive thing is that we have had personalised letters, exactly as per the wording you describe, within hours of each missed port call. 

[Mollag]

8 hours ago, Selbourne said:

It’s true we will never be told the truth. P&O sadly have form with telling blatant lies about why ports are missed, as I discovered some years ago by doing some investigative work on why a fjords cruise became a coastal towns cruise. They blamed the port making the change when in fact it was as a direct result of a Carnival instruction to cancel the P&O slot to make way for a Cunard ship. 
 

I’ve heard today on fairly good authority that Key West was cancelled as the port was demanding £29,000 for the use of a tug and P&O refused to pay it, presumably as it wasn’t a budgeted cost. If true, it’s a classic example of ‘sod the customers, we won’t have to reimburse them so have nothing to lose and everything to gain by just cancelling the port call’. 

If that’s true about Key West then surely all these letters would be making those who are claiming for missed ports will be claiming fraudulently although they are unaware of that. One of the Celebrity ships has just aborted Cayman by the looks of it, the forecast for tomorrow shows the wind decreasing slightly and more North East as opposed to Northerly at present so it’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow 

[Selbourne]

Just now, Mollag said:

If that’s true about Key West then surely all these letters would be making those who are claiming for missed ports will be claiming fraudulently although they are unaware of that. One of the Celebrity ships has just aborted Cayman by the looks of it, the forecast for tomorrow shows the wind decreasing slightly and more North East as opposed to Northerly at present so it’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow 

The letters are factually correct though so there couldn’t be any accusations of wrong doing. The ship may indeed have been unable to make the port(s) due to the manoeuvrability limitations / wind, exactly as they state. However, the letter is never going to say “we could have potentially got around that by paying for a tug, but weren’t prepared to do so” - so, as is often the case, the issue is not what has been said (which is true), but what hasn’t! Legally, I think that P&O (and us in claiming) are on safe ground. 

 

Somebody told me yesterday that there have been a few aborted calls in Grand Cayman in recent days so, like you, I’m holding my breath - especially as it’s a tender port 🤢

[Thedonkeycentrehalf]

9 hours ago, Selbourne said:

The entertainment manager announced that tonight’s show had to be changed as Jon Clegg, comedy impressionist (Britain’s Got Talent finalist)

We saw him on Ventura last year.  I go to see a lot of comedy and am not really a fan of either impressionists or cruise comedians but, given the boundaries of the routines they can perform, I though Jon was okay and worth seeing.

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, Mollag said:

If that’s true about Key West then surely all these letters would be making those who are claiming for missed ports will be claiming fraudulently although they are unaware of that. One of the Celebrity ships has just aborted Cayman by the looks of it, the forecast for tomorrow shows the wind decreasing slightly and more North East as opposed to Northerly at present so it’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow 

For thr Key West stop you were the only ship due that day. However the next day's calls by a Virgin and RC ship were both cancelled with the RC ship going to Miami and Virgin staying at sea.  In no way defending P&O but there was a very high rip tide warning for the whole southern Florida coast for the entire week and knowing the entire Keys area and Miami to Palm Beach when these run they are extremely strong. Regardless of the purported £29,000 tug offer P&O/Carnival understandably may be being more cautious after last year's Britannia and Queen Mary 2 line breaking incidents. The Britannia incident in particular drew a lot of publicity and no doubt they wish to avoid any unnecessary problems.

Edited February 21 by Megabear2

[Selbourne]

Just now, Megabear2 said:

For thr Key West stop you were the only ship due that day. However the next day's calls by a Virgin and RC ship were both cancelled with the RC ship going to Miami and Virgin staying at sea.  In no way defending P&O but there was a very high rip tide warning for the whole southern Florida coast for the entire week and knowing the entire Keys area and Miami to Palm Beach when these run they are extremely strong. Regardless of the purported £29,000 tug offer P&O/Carnival understandably may be being more cautious after last year's Britannia and Queen Mary 2 line breaking incidents. The Britannia incident in particular drew a lot of publicity and no doubt they wish to avoid any unnecessary problems.

As I’ve said, we will never be told the full story, and partial info leaves voids to be filled, but that info is certainly interesting for context. Thanks. 

[zap99]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

The letters are factually correct though so there couldn’t be any accusations of wrong doing. The ship may indeed have been unable to make the port(s) due to the manoeuvrability limitations / wind, exactly as they state. However, the letter is never going to say “we could have potentially got around that by paying for a tug, but weren’t prepared to do so” - so, as is often the case, the issue is not what has been said (which is true), but what hasn’t! Legally, I think that P&O (and us in claiming) are on safe ground. 

 

Somebody told me yesterday that there have been a few aborted calls in Grand Cayman in recent days so, like you, I’m holding my breath - especially as it’s a tender port 🤢

We went to Grand Cayman on Britannia pre covid. I don't think we tendered.

[Selbourne]

Just now, zap99 said:

We went to Grand Cayman on Britannia pre covid. I don't think we tendered.

Whilst there have been a few changes to which ports we are (or aren’t) using a tender, Grand Cayman was unfortunately listed as a tender port from the outset and we have been told it still is (assuming that it’s not aborted). There are 3 other ships due there tomorrow, as well as us, which I assume is the reason?

[bobstheboy]

The more I read about air con issues on older ships, it  makes me vow to avoid them.

[gadabout60]

5 hours ago, Thedonkeycentrehalf said:

We saw him on Ventura last year.  I go to see a lot of comedy and am not really a fan of either impressionists or cruise comedians but, given the boundaries of the routines they can perform, I though Jon was okay and worth seeing.

Think his wife is Tracey Clegg who was a P&O cruise director (not one I was a fan of)

[Selbourne]

Day 50 - Wednesday 21st February - Sea Day

 

Well here we are. Day 50. That’s more than double the length of time that we have ever been on a cruise before and we still haven’t murdered each other 😂

 

I had a much better nights sleep without the pressure of an early start and even managed to get a couple of loads of washing in the laundrette before we went to breakfast. Breakfast was a little hurried as I wanted to get both loads out of the washing machine and into the tumble driers in time to attend the first talk of our new guest lecturer, Paul Stickler at 10am. I got my wife in situ in the theatre and then whizzed back to the laundrette, sorted it all out and made it back to the theatre just a minute or two after he’d started. 

 

Well I am delighted. I really like true crime and that’s the subject of all his talks. My wife said that he had mentioned that he was on board until the end of the cruise and would give a talk each sea day, so that’s a big relief for me to have something to look forward to on the long drag home. Today’s talk was titled ‘The Porthole Murder’ about a murder on a cruise ship in 1947 that he has investigated. It was very refreshing to  hear about a case that I’d never read about and his presentation style was very good.

 

I did some more washing and some emails before we headed to lunch at 1pm in the Glasshouse. Having had at least half a dozen meals in there this cruise, I can say with some confidence that it is the best place to eat on Aurora. Every meal there has been superb and the service is always exemplary.  

 

We were planning on attending the 3pm ‘Audience with the Headliners’ in the theatre, but lunch had dragged on a bit (the second large glass of Jam Shed Shiraz was to blame) so we returned to our cabin for a rest and a read and ended up remaining there until dinner. The 10pm show was the act Duo Esencias with their performance called ‘The Dream’. We saw this on Britannia and didn’t feel the need to see it a second time. Tomorrow Georgetown, Grand Cayman, which is a tender port. 

[lincslady]

That sounds like a very satisfactory day at sea, Selbourne.