Oceana late into Southampton 7 May

[tom_uk]

Does anyone know why Oceana is so late into Southampton today? At the time of writing (approx 8:30) she's still out in the English channel. Also, the ABP Southampton Cruise Schedule page is showing her ETA at Southampton as 12 noon. Does anyone know anything about this?

 

Thinking about it, I wonder if it's a follow-on from the incident reported so graphically by 'Jo' on April 15 as follows:

Wednesday afternoon, there was suddenly a huge black billowing of smoke that came from the funnel and Oliver said it smelt like a steam engine. We were on the promenade deck and tiny fragments of soot blew back onto the ship (and all over me!!)

 

Yesterday morning the captain made an announcement that the turbo charger on one of the engines had blown and despite their engineers efforts they had not been able to fix it during the night. As a result the ship was running late and we didn't dock until after 11am rather than the planned 8.30am. I think that may be connected to my sooty shower don't you?

Here's a link to her whole thread.

[MattyBarlow]

She's currently passing Bognor doing 18 knots.

[robinhood2b]

she had an electrical failure whilst in port on thursday and her sailing was delayed until the problem was resolved so she left port late that is why she is late arriving.

:):):):)

[tom_uk]

This is a webcam grab shot of Oceana off Ryde this morning. It's not often you get to see the ships going that way at sensible times!

 

[cclarke12]

We're still at home waiting to travel down to Southampton - we've been told not to arrive until 2pm at earliest. It's a real shame we are going to be so late getting on board given it is just a weekender. Someone on board the ship has just posted that last disembarkation card is 2.35pm so I can't see people getting onboard before 3pm. How they are going to get luggage all on and delivered and muster drill done before first sitting at dinner I don't know!

[babybambino]

Does anyone know why Oceana is so late into Southampton today? At the time of writing (approx 8:30) she's still out in the English channel. Also, the ABP Southampton Cruise Schedule page is showing her ETA at Southampton as 12 noon. Does anyone know anything about this?

 

Thinking about it, I wonder if it's a follow-on from the incident reported so graphically by 'Jo' on April 15 as follows:

 

Here's a link to her whole thread.

Hi, do we know who the current Captain is on her? He won't be happy am sure!

[Brayman]

Hi, do we know who the current Captain is on her? He won't be happy am sure!

 

It sould be Angelo Vago with Deputy Nick Carter.

[Britchic4]

We're still at home waiting to travel down to Southampton - we've been told not to arrive until 2pm at earliest. It's a real shame we are going to be so late getting on board given it is just a weekender. Someone on board the ship has just posted that last disembarkation card is 2.35pm so I can't see people getting onboard before 3pm. How they are going to get luggage all on and delivered and muster drill done before first sitting at dinner I don't know!

 

Can't believe you're still there! Have a wonderful child-free time, LOL!

[LibraLass41]

Just read on another site she is already sailing away from her berth on her weekender cruise! That was a quick turnaround, hope they loaded enough supplies for the next 2 days lol.:)

[Britchic4]

CClarke12 arrived at the terminal at about 4pm and they were giving away free soft drinks and snacks, and Carol Marlowe was walking around apologising to people for the delay. Percentage wise its a big chunk of the cruise so I hope a bit of OBC is offered.

[dj_spud]

CClarke12 arrived at the terminal at about 4pm and they were giving away free soft drinks and snacks, and Carol Marlowe was walking around apologising to people for the delay. Percentage wise its a big chunk of the cruise so I hope a bit of OBC is offered.

 

You think they will offer some sort of OBC

I guess they will do the muster drill in the morning, Sure i read on here that it has to be done within 24 hours so the following morning will be fine.

[feebee_71]

I think Oceana heard that Artemis had been late into Southampton when she returned from her final cruise at the start of last week!! It did make a change to be sailing round the Isle of Wight during the daylight hours and arriving in Southampton towards lunchtime.

 

Seriously though, I hope there wasn't too much disruption for those people on the weekend cruise and that they all had a good time.

 

Here's also hoping that Oceana has sorted out her electrical problems and doesn't cause any delays on this or future cruises.

 

Feebee_71

[cclarke12]

I'm back! No OBC offered but to be honest they were actually only an hour late sailing and given it was a child-free weekend for us I was in a positive frame of mind about it all. Staff worked very hard to get that ship turned around in the time they did and I know the cabin stewards worked very long hours that day.

 

Sort of mini review I posted elsewhere is below:

 

Well we're back after a lovely weekend on oceana. Given the delays the staff did fantastically and it is hard to believe she only left an hour late. I am glad we did delay going down and had a late lunch in Ikea (although I was panicking at one point we were going to miss the ship when we couldn't find our way out the store!). We arrived at 3.45pm and were told to expect a delay. We were the last boarding group but onboard by 4.30pm. I suspect things may have been a bit more chaotic had we arrived sooner and that some had a long wait. To be fair they were letting people that were waiting to check-in have free soft drinks from the cafe and Carol Marlow was there talking to people and apologising for the delay (and she clearly waited around until everyone was boarded).

 

Once on board it was all very familiar and it was nice to be back (we did 7 day cruise on her back on April). I do like the way on Oceana that they have people manning the lifts and making sure people know where to go. Freedom dining seemed a bit chaotic on the first night and there were long queues well after 9pm. I think P&O need to be clearer with people that the chances of you just turning up and getting a table between 7pm and 8.30pm is not that great especially if you don't want to share with others. We love freedom dining but always assume we are going to have a 45 minute wait if we want to eat at a table for 2 at about 8pm ish so we get a pager just after 7pm. A few people were being a bit shirty with the dining manager and saying the queues were because the ship was late and it wasn't good enough etc. I don't think it was anything to do with the ship being late. The problem was that everyone turned up at about 7.30pm wanting a table, and that Oceana has half her guests on freedom dining. It must be easier to manage on Ventura/Azura when you only have one-third of guests to manage on freedom dining. Food was very good and much better than on the Ventura weekender in March.

 

There were a lot of hen/stag parties on board but in the main they were fairly quiet and it was much nicer in that respect than the Ventura weekender. I was very relieved when I saw our cabin was next to a service area on one side and that there was a couple on the other side. It was a bit noisy sometimes in the corridor with people going back to cabins in the early hours but nothing like we suffered with the partying in the cabin next door on Ventura. Entertainment was ok, but I have to say the Ventura weekender was better on that front. Noticeably the programming of entertainment was for things to finish by about 1am ish. On Ventura they had entertainment scheduled to start from 12.30am.

 

Disembarkation was a breeze. The only bummer was that we paid £30 for CPS parking as as I came off the ship we saw that 2 days parking in the short term car park at the Ocean terminal would only have be £20. I hadn't realised it was available.

 

All in all an enjoyable couple of days. I still prefer a longer cruise but it was much better than I was expecting after the Ventura weekend experience.

[AGGSBAGGS]

I was on this ship last week and there were electrical problems on Thursday. It did take a bit of time to sort out but as most people were off the ship in Bergen,not as many were affected as could have been. We got some on board credit and also some free drinks in the evening. British spirit kicked in as lots of people were helping those less able to climb the stairs and we did get food albeit cold but still fab. The staff were fab and very apologetic. Things were running again by 5 oclock and although we did sail late. Everything was well organised right down to the portaloos that they got just in case at the dockside.

[carpetboy]

A main circuit breaker failed at about 9am on Thursday whilst in Bergen. Part power was resumed mid afternoon with some cabins having power. Cabin stewards delivered complimentary water to all cabins at lunchtime when it was decided that boarding time would now be put back to 5.30.

There were updates every 15 minutes from the bridge and customer services. The funniest announcement came from the captain Angelo Vago at about 5.30 which said " I am a very happy captain, the problem has been sorted and the toilets are now running all over the ship". This announcement was repeated a few times by the comedian John Evans who did a couple of brilliant shows on board. Oceana eventually sailed at about 10.45pm.