Harry Peterson Posted May 28, 2018 #1 Share Posted May 28, 2018 One of the attractions of cruising for us is the guest speaker - though sadly P&O have cut back the number of them to save money. Any thoughts as to good ones and bad ones? I'm guessing the popular ones will pop up across the P&O fleet pretty regularly as the fancy takes them. Just for starters, the best we ever encountered was Kenneth Vard talking about the history of cruise liners - fascinating, superbly delivered and very topical. Paul Stickler (Historical Murder Presentations) was also excellent and filled the theatre every day on Ventura. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddie11 Posted May 28, 2018 #2 Share Posted May 28, 2018 Gervase Phinn http://www.gervase-phinn.com/ A past Public Speaker of the Year - he’s pretty much bound to be good Dr June Goodfield sailed with us on a Southampton - Barbados transatlantic. She gave fascinating talks based on Nevis (where she jumped ship for the winter!) http://www.riversoftime.co.uk/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daiB Posted May 28, 2018 #3 Share Posted May 28, 2018 One of the attractions of cruising for us is the guest speaker - though sadly P&O have cut back the number of them to save money. Any thoughts as to good ones and bad ones? I'm guessing the popular ones will pop up across the P&O fleet pretty regularly as the fancy takes them. Just for starters, the best we ever encountered was Kenneth Vard talking about the history of cruise liners - fascinating, superbly delivered and very topical. Paul Stickler (Historical Murder Presentations) was also excellent and filled the theatre every day on Ventura. Not noticed any cut back in numbers. Not sure where that came from. On Ventura in Jan there were 4 one every morning and one every afternoon on sea days. Sent from my SM-G930F using Forums mobile app Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddie11 Posted May 28, 2018 #4 Share Posted May 28, 2018 There don’t seem to be ‘celebrity’ speakers as much. Bill Giles, John Regis, Steve Heighway, Eddie Large ... just a few names from the top of my head. ‘Celebrities’ who only did one talk (or one earlier/one later on the same evening) during the whole cruise, rather than give a series of related talks on their specialist subject Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goosebear Mum Posted May 28, 2018 #5 Share Posted May 28, 2018 (edited) Best so far (by a long way), has been ‘Eddie the Eagle’ who was superb. I think we got him (on the transatlantic return half of the 2016-17 Caribbean Christmas cruise) as he remained onboard for those lucky ones on the 2017 Aurora world cruise. My hubby has enjoyed a few others, but Eddie has been the only one I’ve been bothered to see. Most have been more interesting for the male passengers... (edit... I did see one lady on one occasion, but she was pretty awful. Just reading from a script with a monotone voice. I didn’t return...) Regarding numbers, depends on cruise length. That long cruise we has two, one in the am and one in the pm. On the 7-12 day cruises we’ve had one guest speaker. Edited May 28, 2018 by Goosebear Mum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorpio41 Posted May 28, 2018 #6 Share Posted May 28, 2018 On our recent cruise the gentleman was talking about the prison service. He was an ex prison governor. He was very good and the talks were popular. He also did two unplanned talks when we missed ports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Peterson Posted May 28, 2018 Author #7 Share Posted May 28, 2018 Is the Film Studies lecturer/professor from one of the London universities still around? She gave an excellent series of illustrated talks on the history of British film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josy1953 Posted May 28, 2018 #8 Share Posted May 28, 2018 On Azura in April we only had 1 guest speaker, I don't recall his name but he was by far the best that we have seen. He was a ceatacean expert and gave a talk on each sea day and was often found on deck looking for whales and dophins and talking to anyone who was interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanlyon Posted May 28, 2018 #9 Share Posted May 28, 2018 On our recent cruise the gentleman was talking about the prison service. He was an ex prison governor. He was very good and the talks were popular. He also did two unplanned talks when we missed ports. I was on the same cruise, but to be honest, the idea of hearing about prisons and criminals did not appeal to any of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenny wren Posted May 28, 2018 #10 Share Posted May 28, 2018 We had Anne Widdicombe a couple of years ago who was absolutely brilliant and filled the theatre on four occasions. She was very funny and was not afraid to answer any questions put to her, we thoroughly enjoyed her talks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happyhummingbird Posted May 28, 2018 #11 Share Posted May 28, 2018 On Azura in April we only had 1 guest speaker, I don't recall his name but he was by far the best that we have seen. He was a ceatacean expert and gave a talk on each sea day and was often found on deck looking for whales and dophins and talking to anyone who was interested. Would his name be Clive Martin, by chance? He was guest speaker on our transatlantic cruise on Adonia last October. He was most interesting & informative. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josy1953 Posted May 29, 2018 #12 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Would his name be Clive Martin, by chance? He was guest speaker on our transatlantic cruise on Adonia last October. He was most interesting & informative. :) Yes that was his name, thank you for reminding me. I hope to hear him again at sometime in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
groovechick Posted May 29, 2018 #13 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Around 5 years ago we had Dame Mary Peters as a speaker - she was very good. A couple of years ago DH went to talks by a gentlemen who talked about bank notes, counterfeiting, etc. etc. He found the first one very interesting, but they got a bit heavy after that. Last year on Aurora we had a gentleman talking about jewellery. I think he'd maybe worked at Garrards or for one of the top auction houses. I went to his last talk about Elizabeth Taylor's collection and it was interesting and made me wish I'd been to some of the others. Not sure about his background because he assumed you'd been to his previous talks and therefore didn't introduce himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickrory Posted May 29, 2018 #14 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Seen some good ones, some not so good but the best by a country mile was a guy called Pete Finlay who was a Flight Engineer on Concorde. The Theatre was packed to the rafters for his talks on Azura around 3 years ago. Audience was 98% male. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grapau27 Posted May 29, 2018 #15 Share Posted May 29, 2018 One of the attractions of cruising for us is the guest speaker - though sadly P&O have cut back the number of them to save money. Any thoughts as to good ones and bad ones? I'm guessing the popular ones will pop up across the P&O fleet pretty regularly as the fancy takes them. Just for starters, the best we ever encountered was Kenneth Vard talking about the history of cruise liners - fascinating, superbly delivered and very topical. Paul Stickler (Historical Murder Presentations) was also excellent and filled the theatre every day on Ventura. We had one of Houdini's family once telling us his life story.We had Marco Pierre White speaking once and he was excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grapau27 Posted May 29, 2018 #16 Share Posted May 29, 2018 We had one of Houdini's family once telling us his life story.We had Marco Pierre White speaking once and he was excellent. Tom O'Connor was excellent and he was signing his books afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Selbourne Posted May 29, 2018 #17 Share Posted May 29, 2018 I was on the same cruise, but to be honest, the idea of hearing about prisons and criminals did not appeal to any of us. Just goes to show how they can’t please everybody all of the time, as I would have enjoyed those talks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grapau27 Posted May 29, 2018 #18 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Just goes to show how they can’t please everybody all of the time, as I would have enjoyed those talks!Totally agree.We were in Belfast recently and had a fantastic visit to Crumbling Road Gaol which was very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Tinkywinky Posted May 29, 2018 #19 Share Posted May 29, 2018 I have been racking my brain to try and remember a speaker we saw several times last year on Arcadia around the Baltic. He was formerly in counter espionage and did several excellent talks on spying in Sweden. I am sure someone on this board will remember him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majortom10 Posted May 29, 2018 #20 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Totally agree.We were in Belfast recently and had a fantastic visit to Crumbling Road Gaol which was very interesting. Think you mean Crumlin Road Gaol:). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Selbourne Posted May 29, 2018 #21 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Totally agree.We were in Belfast recently and had a fantastic visit to Crumbling Road Gaol which was very interesting. Glad it’s not just me then. My all time favourite speaker is Diane Simpson and her talk on serial killers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRINCESSTHE BEST Posted May 29, 2018 #22 Share Posted May 29, 2018 Think you mean Crumlin Road Gaol:). Apparently there are plenty of potholes these days.[emoji23] Sent from my iPhone using Forums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tartanexile81 Posted May 29, 2018 #23 Share Posted May 29, 2018 There were lots of speakers on Ventura USA and Caribbean in February for all our sea days so didn't notice any cost-cutting. However they do seem geared towards crime detection and technology / transport so not generally my cup of tea. I'd prefer more ladies magazine type speakers - celebs, fashion, music, tv/ radio/films etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FangedRose Posted May 29, 2018 #24 Share Posted May 29, 2018 There was a gentleman speaker on a Transatlantic Caribbean cruise about 18 months ago. His subject was chocolate. I don't know how anybody could make such a subject boring but he managed it! He was on every sea day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenny wren Posted May 30, 2018 #25 Share Posted May 30, 2018 There were lots of speakers on Ventura USA and Caribbean in February for all our sea days so didn't notice any cost-cutting. However they do seem geared towards crime detection and technology / transport so not generally my cup of tea. I'd prefer more ladies magazine type speakers - celebs, fashion, music, tv/ radio/films etc We were on this cruise too and none of the talks interested us,. We did enjoy Diana Moran the Green Goddess, on one cruise, Anne Widdicombe on another, and a BBC reporter ?Philip Hayton, two Olympic female hockey players, and there are a few others I can't remember at the moment. What we are fed up with are the 'murder' , Concorde, history type talks which seem to be more the norm these days....probably cheaper! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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