Selbourne

I’m fine with that as it hopefully means that it turns out better than we expected, unlike the one the bridge team use that predicts showers when in reality it’s a prolonged monsoon! 😂

We’ve had a couple of days like that, but there are many more to come 🙏🤞😂

I agree and that’s why I think the suggestion that the limited smoking areas will be removed is a false rumour.

I’m telling myself, and my wife, that everything up until now has been the support act and from the next stop onwards (when we finally reach the Caribbean) it will be the main event! As it happens, neither of us cope well in blisteringly hot weather, but it would be nice to have more dry and sunny days. That’s why Miami was perfect. Dry all day but mid 20s so manageable, even pushing the wheelchair for miles. The forecast isn’t looking great for our first few stops in the Caribbean, but that may well change by the time we get there.

Day 23 - Thursday 25th January - New Orleans We entered the Mississippi Delta at 10pm the previous evening, but it was pitch dark and very quickly became foggy, so we couldn’t really see anything other than a few lights through the gloom. We managed to sleep OK in spite of the frequent sounding of the ships fog horn. When we woke the ship was still moving and the fog was even thicker. When we eventually stopped the Deputy Captain made the first of several announcements at 7.05am to say that we couldn’t berth yet as there was nobody shoreside to secure the ropes. This took some time to organise but was eventually sorted. After 3 weeks it is clear that the people making the disembarkation announcements do not use the BBC weather forecast or any other reputable forecasting system, as they are usually way out. Yet again the Mickey Mouse weather forecasting service failed to warn us of the severity of what was to occur a few hours later and indeed for most of the day. Thankfully as I had looked at the far more accurate BBC forecast, we were at least slightly prepared! So, after breakfast we headed ashore. I often use the expression that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Well, our first (and lasting) impression of New Orleans cruise terminal is that it is a complete dump. You firstly end up on the quayside with no directional signs as to where to go. I then spotted a woman sitting behind a trestle table who beckoned us towards her. She then waved us across a dark and dingy access road where busses were manoeuvring and then the only way out of that area was two lifts and no stairs, so everyone was piling up in front of the lifts, which took an age to arrive. There was still no clear signage where to go so we ended up getting out on the top floor of the Riverside Outlet Mall. We walked along this mall and asked a staff member where we needed to go. We got another lift down one floor (as far down and it would go) and continued along the mall. We then had to get a third lift down to yet another level from where we eventually picked up a sign for the French Quarter, so continued right to the end of the Mall and managed to get outside at long last and on to the riverside walk. The Creole Queen paddle boat was just leaving, so we watched that go and then continued to walk towards the French Quarter. After about 5 minutes the sky went black and we knew what was coming, so I quickened my pace and we just managed to get to the Natchez riverboat terminal when it started. Thunder, lightening and rain like you’ve never seen. We sheltered under a canopy and waited for it to stop. Well, we waited and waited and waited. Every time we thought that it was easing it would pick up again. After a full hour of waiting I decided that it was now or never, so I decided to make a dash for nearby Jackson Square and Cafe du Monde. We got about half way and it started absolutely pouring down again. I managed to get us under a canopy on the opposite side of Jackson Square to Cafe du Monde and then, when it finally eased to just heavy rain, I got us over to the other side. We ended up outside ‘Monty’s on the Square’ (under their canopy) and I popped in their to ask if they knew if there was a ‘handicapped restroom’ (to use the US terminology for disabled toilet) anywhere nearby, and they kindly offered the use of theirs, which was a relief as it was getting urgent. I noticed that they sold coffee and Beignets (which is what we were heading to Cafe du Monde for), so as they’d been so helpful we stopped there for them. This decision was made all the easier by the fact that there was jazz music playing in Cafe du Monde. I know that this next comment could get me locked up in New Orleans, but I love all types of music bar one - jazz. To me it is just an unpleasant noise that I go out of my way to avoid 😂 The coffee and Beignets were both delicious. $20 plus I left a $5 tip. We continued along this street, as there were some canopies providing brief respite from the rain, and purchased some New Orleans sweatshirts for our daughters (I haggled the price down by buying two) and a New Orleans Christmas tree decoration in the Christmas shop! We skipped the French Market as it was still raining and headed back to Jackson Square. We went into the square and, as it was still raining, we were very grateful to a local who pointed out that the way that we had come into the square was the only ramped entrance and all others were steps, so we headed back out again. Bourbon Street is obviously the main destination in the French Quarter, so we headed up there in the rain, keeping under as many canopies as we could and walked up and down it. I’m sure it looks better on a nice day, or at night, but I’m glad that we made it. The weather was showing no sign of improving and we were both wet and miserable, so we decided to head back to the ship and get into some dry clothes. We were extremely glad to be back on the ship after yet another disappointing day weather wise. Those who went on organised tours on coaches today definitely made the wise choice! Tomorrow’s forecast looks rubbish as well, so I think we will restrict ourselves to the indoor mall next to the ship. We are done with getting drowned! We shall be glad to eventually get to the Caribbean although, unbelievably, the forecast for our first few ports down there doesn’t look great either 🙄 Dinner was Burns Night themed. The haggis starter was nice, as was the beef and potato stew. Well, to be precise, the beef and the stew were nice. What is it with P&O potatoes? Their barrel shaped roast potatoes are inedible. They taste like a week old roastie that’s been microwaved. The boiled potatoes (as in my stew and as with my wife’s fish) also had an unpleasant taste. My wife reckons they might be tinned? I’ve no idea, but I’ve never eaten potatoes that taste bad before. As we were overnight in New Orleans we had a local band for entertainment in the theatre - Phil Campo & The Loose Change Jazz Band. As its jazz I would have given it a wide berth but my wife wanted to go. Don’t tell anyone, but I quite enjoyed it! 😂 Tomorrow day 2 of our stay in foggy and rainy New Orleans.

Many a true word spoken in jest John 😂

Thanks. So do we 😂 🙏 ☔️ ⚡️ 💨 🌧️

Another sunny day in paradise. Will it never end? IMG_1245.mov

Much as I’d love to see ships that are 100% smoke and vape free, I strongly suspect that this is a false rumour. The smoking areas on ships now are extremely restricted so as to minimise the impact to the majority of passengers and, even as a passionate anti-smoker / anti-vaper, I would have to concede that P&O has it about right. They might change the designated areas, but especially with the market that P&O is now chasing I simply cannot see them stopping smoking or vaping altogether.

Todays MDR menus

Day 22 - Wednesday 24th January - At Sea Well it’s now been 3 weeks since we boarded Aurora for this 65 night adventure and I started this live blog. If the number of views and responses are anything to go by, I don’t seem to have bored everyone rigid quite yet, so I guess I’d better plough on 😂 Today is our final (hopefully) sea day in an unplanned continuous run of 4 sea days between Miami and New Orleans, but if you’ve been following the blog you know why that is (and if you haven’t, where have you been?) 😉 The clocks had gone back another hour, so we are now 6 hours behind the UK (which explains why my posts are at such weird times - I’m not an insomniac, it’s the time difference)! With breakfast in the Medina MDR the last few days we haven’t needed a pager for a table for 2. We just get shown straight to a table. We had contemplated attending William Joyce’s final talk (on Ice Volcanoes - never knew there was such a thing) but we didn’t finish breakfast until it was already underway and, unlike some, we don’t like distracting people by arriving mid talk. There is a ban on using the washing machines in the laundrette for the next 4 days, presumably due to local environmental restrictions. I don’t have a problem with that, but it does seem a bit contradictory that we can’t discharge into the Gulf of Mexico on our inbound route, but we can on the outbound? This, of course, coming from one of the world’s most polluting counties! The other contradiction is that we can still use the ships (paid for) laundry, so we sorted out a bag of ten items for £32 (£28.80 after loyalty discount). We have a lot more to do, but I’m waiting for the next ‘buy one bag, get the second half price’ offer 😂 We did some hand washing in the bathroom of mostly socks and it dawned on me that the laundrette driers wouldn’t be being used, and I was correct, so having hand washed a load I popped it in a drier rather than hanging it all up 👍 Although cloudy and a bit misty, the Gulf of Mexico was warm and humid, so my wife sat on the balcony reading on her Kindle whilst I caught up with the news. I’ve hardly watched the TV at all this cruise, as the picture is just so poor (and the sound just as bad) so I’ve definitely been getting great value out of my £6 a day internet plan. It’s also been great being able to keep in full contact with family and friends, as well as managing our affairs as if we were at home. At 1130 there was the next port talk in the theatre. This time just the one port - Martinique. We left a bit early to catch the midday announcement (always made by a junior officer) to see if we could glean any info. We are cruising at just under 10 knots and are 120 miles from where we embark the pilot for New Orleans, which is going to mean that we aren’t arriving tonight as we’d hoped and the transit in will be whilst we are asleep 🙄 We had lunch in the MDR today. All OK but the ratatouille side order was the highlight. Our waitress had a terrible cough, which rather put me off. Not her fault, obviously, but perhaps not best for her to be serving in the MDR. Afterwards we attended our first art talk of the cruise in Masquerade. This was about the art world post WW2 where the centre of attention moved to New York from Paris, where the N azis had plundered anything of value and confiscated works that they thought were morally corrupt. The irony! It was then time for some exercise walking around the promenade deck, but the temperature was up to at least 25 degrees and the sun was out at last, so it was too hot to do more than a lap pushing the wheelchair. A bit later, when the sun went behind the clouds, I sat out on our balcony for a while. At 5pm it was Roman Rudnytsky’a final classical piano recital in the Playhouse. He had a well deserved standing ovation at the end. Anyone reading this who is on Arcadia’s world cruise, you are in luck. He is joining you at (I think) Fiji. He plays a lot in the UK. If you ever get the chance, he’s well worth seeing. When we came out of the concert it was pitch dark. As we returned to our cabin we saw lightning flashes through our balcony doors so went out to watch the tropical storm. There was driving rain so we were getting a bit wet, so moved down to the promenade deck where we were treated to some spectacular lightening and even more spectacular thunder. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a clap of thunder as loud as one of them. It was like a bomb going off! All great fun and one of the joys of cruising in the tropics. One thing that I’ve never seen before was water bubbling up from under the wooden trellis panels that are in front of the doors leading back into the ship. One at the aft was chucking out so much water the promenade deck got flooded and had to be roped off. We didn’t go for a pre dinner drink,, so went straight to the MDR. We are desperately trying to avoid the folk with coughs, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult as there are so many of them, and unfortunately a couple got in the lift and the chap started coughing. We were both trying to hold our breath until we got out! During dinner they decided to parade the haggis for Burns Night as we are in port tomorrow evening. This was followed by a very laboured and prolonged rendition of a Robbie Burns poem that only those from north of the border could understand. I’m pretty tuned in to Scottish accents and expressions, but this was impenetrable! With our panoramic aft window we could also continue to watch the electrical storm from our table. After dinner we went to the theatre for the second performance (we didn’t see the first) of ‘Vocal Comedy Entertainer Benjamin Moss’ but the only two accessible seats where a wheelchair users partner can sit adjacent to them were both occupied by non-wheelchair users, so I left my wife in the area in front of the sound booth (where there are no companion seats) and said that I would skip the show and come back for her when it ended. I went out onto the promenade deck to watch the very early stages of our approach to the Mississippi delta. Tomorrow is the first of our two days in New Orleans. Hoping that the weather forecast is wrong as it looks dire for both our days there!

Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I shall be sure to use this to look out for the key sights on our transit out on Friday night. Unfortunately it will be dark very soon after leaving but hopefully we will still get to see some of them. I’m pleased to hear that you are enjoying the live blog from afar!

As I’ve said throughout the blog, the sea days we’ve had prior to yesterday have been the best (entertainment wise) that we’ve had in many years. Pretty much back to how they used to be. This is saying something for me, as I have always been consistent in saying that we cruise for the ports and sea days are just a means to an end, and not something that we particularly look forward to (I realise that we are in a minority with this view). However, yesterday was frustrating. I’m sure that there was a sound reason why we sat in the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico all day with the engines off (probably to time our crossing to coincide with better sea conditions), but the sea was calm and there was barely any wind, so it naturally resulted in a lot of debate around the ship as to why we hadn’t docked. As it was an unplanned additional sea day there was very little happening and, for the first time this cruise I was a bit bored. Would I have preferred to have been at home yesterday? Well it came close to be frank, but today it’s onwards and upwards and I am looking forward to us reaching the far side of the Gulf of Mexico this evening. I like seeing oil rigs and gas platforms 🤣

From our experience (clearly shared by many others, judging by the comments), an engaging and informative Captain can make a huge difference to the enjoyment of a cruise. I haven’t come across our current Captain (can’t remember his name) or Captain Love before. Unfortunately, Captain Love (who, from reports, seems to fit the bill) only joins us for the return transatlantic, which is a great shame when we have such a port intensive itinerary.

Day 21 - Tuesday 23rd January - At Sea (Key West cancelled) After the bitter disappointment at the cancellation of Key West as our 6th port of call, we ended up with a wasted day just bobbing around (quite literally) in the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico. After breakfast we attended the one thing of interest that was on during the whole day, a talk by William Joyce on volcanoes, which he kindly pulled together overnight. We then killed time in the cabin until lunch. As there was absolutely nothing of interest on during the afternoon we decided to have a leisurely lunch in the Glasshouse. I accompanied this with a large Jam Shed Shiraz and my wife had a Pazo La Maza Albariño, which she enjoyed as much as The Lane Pinot Gris that she’d had a few days earlier. Another excellent meal (it’s my favourite place to eat on the ship) and exemplary service, as always, from the sensational Dennis Reyes. I went for a cuppa in Raffles before steeling myself to do half a dozen laps of the promenade deck, partly to help the cruise calories and partly to cure the boredom. It was weird walking around with the ship at sea but motionless. It just drove home what a waste of a day this had been. Usual radio silence from the Captain, other than his brief announcement first thing this morning. Tomorrow we will have been on the ship for 3 whole weeks and, in all honesty, we have only had one port so far (Miami) where we have both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves from start to finish. Madeira was OK first thing but we got caught in a downpour and my island tour was shrouded in mist. Bermuda was very windy and by the time I returned from my tour everything in the dockyard area that the ship was berthed in overnight was closed. In Nassau it was a nightmare with the wheelchair and we both got absolutely drowned in the torrential rain. In Port Canaveral I had to cancel my eagerly anticipated tour to the Kennedy Space Centre as the Customer Service Manager wouldn’t engage with me on how to process my wife through immigration. Then, to top it all, our Key West call was cancelled for what seems like quite spurious reasons, given that wind and sea conditions were both fine all day. Of course, we mustn’t forget that we also had rough seas for the first week after leaving Southampton and the weather has, on the whole, been disappointing! Thank goodness that we had a thoroughly enjoyable day in Miami and also that we managed to get this cruise at a cheap price. Had we paid the Select price I’d be far more downhearted! There are only so many times that I can keep saying to my wife “it can only get better” or “it’s worse at home as it’s cold and stormy” 😂 At 5.30pm, having had a day completely motionless, the engines fired up and we started moving at long last, albeit fairly slowly. Needless to say, the sky was grey and it had started raining! Having imbibed at lunchtime we decided against a pre dinner drink and just stayed in the cabin until dinner. Our Philippine waiters seem to have taken a shine to us and like to have a chat with us, which is both amusing and challenging as their English isn’t great, so it involves lots of smiling and nodding at what we think are the appropriate moments 😂. The 10pm show was Wayne Denton’s second performance, this time as Neil Diamond. Unlike John Denver, I know exactly how Neil Diamond’s voice sounds and really like a lot of his songs, so I went along with some trepidation. He managed to cruiseify a number of the tracks by changing certain notes and skipping pauses that are in the original songs but, leaving that and the cheesy elements aside, I thought that his voice was pretty damned close to Neil Diamonds. The talk in the lift afterwards, which always amuses me, was that he sounded the same as when he performed as John Denver, but I think that’s unfair. As I said yesterday, I’m not as familiar with John Denver’s voice but I didnt think yesterday that “he sounds like Neil Diamond”. All in all, very cruise ship entertainment but perfectly passable. As you can probably tell from my earlier comments, today has been the low point of the cruise so far, so we hope that our spirits will be lifted tomorrow on our 4th sea day in a row, at the end of which we will (hopefully) be entering the Mississippi Delta for our approach to New Orleans. P.S. Can anyone who has done the transit in and out of New Orleans, and watched it, please tell me if the whole journey is interesting with things to see (bearing in mind it’s dark) or is it mostly just fields etc?

Free upgrades are a lot rarer these days since the introduction of the new system that allows people to bid for upgrades. There are quite a few things to be aware of though. Firstly, what P&O calls an upgrade isn’t what most people would understand one to be. They might ‘upgrade’ you to another inside cabin that is purely a slightly higher grade due to being more midships. Secondly, the minimum bid prices quoted so far have almost all been no cheaper than booking the better grade cabin in the first place! Finally, upgrades (paid or free) carry the considerable risk of you being allocated a cabin in a poor area, above or below a source of noise that can impact on your enjoyment of the cruise. For these, and other, reasons we tend to choose a cabin and then say ‘no’ to upgrades. Obviously that’s not an option with a Saver fare.

As has been said, you can book speciality restaurants and shows (if they are still doing that) 2 weeks before you go via your cruise Personaliser. When you have your boarding pass, make a note of the last 6 digits from the top right hand corner (under the bar code). These are the same numbers that you need from your keycard to activate the app. As soon as you get to the terminal you can log in and make any other bookings, even before you board the ship.

My wife and I both have decaf tea and I’ve asked for a pot of it partly so we can have more of it and also because it saves them time not having to do refills. They say it’s not possible (of course it is, but they won’t do it). Epicurean is different as you get a pot for one as a matter of course. Us commoners in the cheap seats aren’t trusted with pouring our own tea. 😂

I don’t recall any laundry offers when we were on Britannia for 2 weeks last July. We are currently on Aurora and in the first 3 weeks we’ve only had one laundry offer on one day, and that was too early in the cruise for it to be worthwhile! The offer, as advertised in Horizon, made no sense at all but when I asked for clarification it was pay for the first 10 items at the normal price (£32) and get the second 10 items for half price. So it was £48 for 20 items. All items had to be handed in at the same time.

Oh right. In which case the transit in would still all be in the dark 😔

I’ve been saying that to my wife for almost 3 weeks now 😂

As Bazrat has said, it’s not an app just a web page and you don’t need to pay for the WiFi to use it. It’s accessible via the free Guest WiFi.

Same frustration on Aurora at present. This morning was the first time that I was offered a refill without having to ask. At home I tend to have around 3 mugs of tea before I face the day, so to just have one small cup and then have to beg for a second, let alone a third, does rather get my goat as well 😂

I thought that I’d managed to do it once on Ventura (iPhone and iPad) but haven’t been able to work it out on Aurora. I’m just switching between devices, which requires a lot of clicks, but is quite easy.

If true this would be fantastic news. I’ve not been there before but understand that the transit in along the Mississippi Delta, from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans can take something like 7 hours? We were due to arrive at 6am Thursday and depart at 5pm Friday, so would have been doing all of the transit in and the vast majority of the transit out in darkness. If we arrive at 2030 tomorrow we will al least have the first few hours of the inbound transit in daylight, which would be appreciated by many of us.