Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[Cathygh]

Thank you for a great blog, I can't believe over 65 days have passed. I  do hope your throat is better.

 

A note regarding uncommunicative Captains. I am going on Celebrity soon and I read that if they miss a port, the Captain holds an information session in the theatre where he/she explains, along with slides, why the port was missed. It certainly shows that a decision to miss a port is not taken lightly. P&O captains could follow this example.

 

Secondly, regarging priority boarding which I think caused chaos on your cruise and also on the 35 nighter on Ventura.  I don't expect much support for this idea but some cruise lines don't have priority boarding in the same way. EG Princess and Celebrity  let you choose your own time, but they also know who is coming by coach. So if your coach is due at 2pm but you select 12 o'clock boarding you will be allocated 2 pm.

 

I do agree that CPS and Intercruises should have been more prepared and making all those elderly people stand in the cold for all that time is simply not on. As I have said before, there is no one sitting in the chairs inside the terminal so why not let people in? The alternative is that P&O stagger boarding times for the higher tier passengers, which will understandly annoy the passengers.

 

IMHO P&O, Intercruises and CPS know how many people are coming, but won't pay for extra staff to keep the queues moving. It's another cost cut and shows they don't are less about the passengers. 

[mercury7289]

12 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Final Thoughts

 

Once again, sincere thanks for all your feedback on my ramblings. I’m pleased that it has provided a source of both interest and amusement over the past few months! I know that I always enjoy reading others live blogs, but I had no idea when I started that this one would get so much interest. I am frankly staggered that this thread has now exceeded 200,000 views and over 1,700 posts 😱

 

Before I summarise our final thoughts, some quick answers to two questions that several people have asked since we’ve been back;

 

Health - my throat is no longer hurting when I swallow, but I’m avoiding alcohol as I know that aggravates it. It also kept coming and going on the ship, so I’m hoping that it won’t return in a few days time. I still have an irritating tickly cough but it’s very minor.

 

Next cruise - is in May on Cunard’s new ship Queen Anne. I am definitely NOT going to do a live blog, but am happy to share my thoughts on how it compares to the P&O ships when we get back.

 

So, what are our final thoughts? We had a lot of apprehension about going on a cruise of this duration. The longest cruise we’d had before was 24 days (USA & Canada) and we’d really struggled with the homecoming transatlantic, so this was a huge commitment. Well I’m pleased to say that we coped fine with it and didn’t have a single day when we would have preferred to be at home. We enjoyed the cruise and are really pleased that we did it. We have some great memories, which will be aided by the blog and the vast number of photos that I took. If we had to summarise the main likes and dislikes they would be as follows;

 

LIKES

 

Itinerary - we cruise for the ports, not the ship or sea days, so this cruise delivered that on steroids. 28 ports (although we ‘only’ made it to 26) of which over 20 were new to us. 

 

Value - we usually book Select fares but got this one on a late saver. It worked out at £73 per person per night for an accessible balcony cabin (£68 pppn after the £600 insurance refund for the 2 missed ports).

 

Money saved - as we were away and also on a full board basis, we saved a few thousand pounds against what we would have spent at home over the same period. In real terms, this took our ‘net’ extra cost of being on the cruise down to around £50 pppn, which is just incredible. 

 

Timing - missing two of the worst winter months in the U.K.  

 

Service - always a strength IMO but our cabin steward Antonio, assistant waiter Troy and Glasshouse wine host Dennis were all superstars. 

 

Daytime entertainment - we thought that the days of decent and interesting daytime activities had ended with P&O, but this cruise was as good as any we’ve had. Some great guest lecturers and classical recitals were highlights. 

 

Some of the performers - Headliners were very good (especially considering their inexperience) and we particularly enjoyed The Privateers, Neil Lockwood and the Annie Lennox tribute. 

 

Passenger Profile - mostly older seasoned cruisers with the behaviours to match. Exemplary lift etiquette. The polar opposite of what we experienced on Iona. 

 

 

DISLIKES

 

MDR Food - to be clear, it wasn’t awful but we felt that only around 20% of meals were very good, 60% were mediocre and 20% were poor. Lack of seasoning, bland flavourless sauces and gravies. Britannia, Iona and Ventura (all experienced in the second half of last year) were far better. 

 

Loyalty, what loyalty - being Caribbean tier counted for almost nothing on this cruise. Embarkation was the worst we’ve ever had and both CPS and Intercruises were woefully unprepared for over half the passengers having early boarding times. Very poor quality priority boarders buffet. Zero engagement from the Captain or senior officers at the Caribbean lunch.

 

Maintenance issues - Aurora is showing her age. The air con can’t cope in certain areas of the ship in warmer temperatures. The display screens and floor announcements in the lifts were wrong more than they were right. The exterior of the ship was looking very shabby with multiple rust and dirt patches. Wherever we went, we looked the poor relation up against the other gleaming ships. 

 

Captain Robson - we have never come across such a remote Captain. A good one can really enhance a cruise. Other than the departure announcements (which contained just the absolute bare minimum information) he did absolutely nothing to enhance the passenger experience. His explanations for the two missed ports were inadequate. 

 

Health issues - I had a sore throat for over half the cruise, including all our time in the Caribbean. I’m sure that this was caused by something on the ship (probably air con). An awful lot of passengers had coughs. Thankfully, even though it was a very long cruise, I think we were Norovirus and Covid free. 

 

Anything more would just be repeating the blog, but those are the main things. So, that’s it. I’m happy to answer any specific questions but, other than that, I’m done!

Totally agree with your MDR assessment,our thoughts exactly,also with the maintenance issues, particularly with the lifts and the external presentation.Although we have 3 cruises booked,the next on Aurora end of April,but we may cancel the other 2 should we become unwell again. Still not fully recovered from December cruise.Enjoyed your adventure

[DamianG]

Thanks again for your ginormous effort in providing the biggest and best live blog I've ever read. 200k+ views and over 1700 posts tells its own story. One of the great pleasures of writing these (as mentioned by @Dermotsgirl) is being able to look back on them in future years and remind yourself of some of the better things that happened but may have faded in your memories. 

[gadabout60]

Cruising on some cruises with P&O is interesting. Standard food offering in MDR and buffet is universally agreed not to be great but some very cheap cabins sometimes to be had.

I for one - and I suspect many Aurora passengers would agree -would be happy to pay say £10 more per day and go back to the P&O dining experience of 15 years ago.

perhaps not so relevant on the newer ships but certainly on cruises like this one 

[Bazrat]

7 hours ago, gadabout60 said:

Cruising on some cruises with P&O is interesting. Standard food offering in MDR and buffet is universally agreed not to be great but some very cheap cabins sometimes to be had.

I for one - and I suspect many Aurora passengers would agree -would be happy to pay say £10 more per day and go back to the P&O dining experience of 15 years ago.

perhaps not so relevant on the newer ships but certainly on cruises like this one 

No idea what cruising was like 15 years ago being a relatively new cruiser, paying extra so you can return to some past days is not something I would agree with, the food we have had on various cruise ship’s across various lines as always been good but alas we are not foodies but like decent food.

[MellyMoo1989]

Thank you so much Selbourne & Lady S for taking the time out of your holiday to do the blog for us! I will miss it very much, though! I look forward to hearing your review of Cunard as well. 🙂

 

If they happen to be aboard the same time as you while on Cunard, I highly recommend going to see a band called The Four D's. I've been lucky enough to see them while in Blackpool a few times and they put on a blinding show. 🙂

[gadabout60]

1 hour ago, Bazrat said:

No idea what cruising was like 15 years ago being a relatively new cruiser, paying extra so you can return to some past days is not something I would agree with, the food we have had on various cruise ship’s across various lines as always been good but alas we are not foodies but like decent food.

But Selbourne has reported that only 20% of mdr food was very good - the rest was mediocre or worse.15 years ago 80% would be very good - better cuts of meat, much bigger choice of veg, flavoursome desserts, decent cheese etc. Personally I would rather a cruise line gave us decent mdr food rather than cut prices to a ridiculously low and unsustainable level. I am not a foodie either but on a 60plus night cruise like this one I would have started to find the mdr a trial

[grapau27]

@Selbourne.

I'm pleased you are home safe now.

Thank you for bringing us along on your long cruise on Aurora.

I'm happy you both had a wonderful cruise and your honest unbiased review was extremely interesting.

Kindest regards.

Graham.

 

[IAASA345]

I’m currently on the Azura and I think they’ve shipped your left over green beans here….! 

[zap99]

21 hours ago, gadabout60 said:

Cruising on some cruises with P&O is interesting. Standard food offering in MDR and buffet is universally agreed not to be great but some very cheap cabins sometimes to be had.

I for one - and I suspect many Aurora passengers would agree -would be happy to pay say £10 more per day and go back to the P&O dining experience of 15 years ago.

perhaps not so relevant on the newer ships but certainly on cruises like this one 

The bigger ships have a plethora of dining options. Many folk don't worry too much about the MDR.  We have a look at the menu as soon as available. If it doesn't look attractive, we eat somewhere else.

[gadabout60]

1 minute ago, zap99 said:

The bigger ships have a plethora of dining options. Many folk don't worry too much about the MDR.  We have a look at the menu as soon as available. If it doesn't look attractive, we eat somewhere else.

Which is why I said it was less relevant on the newer ships but certainly an issue on Aurora and Arcadia which are the ships on longer voyages as well as the ships with less options 

[PJ's]

20 minutes ago, IAASA345 said:

I’m currently on the Azura and I think they’ve shipped your left over green beans here….! 

Oh dear..we're due to embark Azura on Saturday in Tenerife for the re-positioning to Malta. Although I do like green beans but not ALL OF THE TIME. 

Many thanks to Selbourne for the excellent blog. I've been glued to it every morning and making notes as we have booked a cruise on Aurora May 2025 to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Missed out on our 25th in 2020 as lockdown struck. 

[S1971]

16 hours ago, gadabout60 said:

But Selbourne has reported that only 20% of mdr food was very good - the rest was mediocre or worse.15 years ago 80% would be very good - better cuts of meat, much bigger choice of veg, flavoursome desserts, decent cheese etc. Personally I would rather a cruise line gave us decent mdr food rather than cut prices to a ridiculously low and unsustainable level. I am not a foodie either but on a 60plus night cruise like this one I would have started to find the mdr a trial

Hi gadabout60.

 

In fairness, Selbourne has said that food is very subjective and those are just their thoughts, other less travelled folk may have nothing else to compare too, and to be honest cruise food is still very good compared to the buffet in many land based hotels.

 

I also remember several years ago when there were no speciality restaurants onboard and the MDR was the only restaurant, but the price was much higher than it is today therefore something has to give and that will be food quality, unless of course you pay the additional charge.

 

I think P&O have changed a lot over the past few years and to compete are now having to cater for mass market clientele, hence the reason for a drop in standards and some might say clientele!!!

 

 

[Selbourne]

As there have been quite a few comments about MDR food, can I just add a few points for clarity. 
 

Menu repetition - This wasn’t as much of an issue as we thought it would be. Whole menus didn’t seem to repeat (as we thought they would) but certain items did. One thing that we noticed a lot (especially with desserts) was items appearing on the dinner menu repeating at lunch the very next day. 
 

Menu descriptions - these were rarely an indicator of quality. Some elaborate and grand sounding meals turned out to be disappointing, whereas some bland sounding meals were very good. So those deciding whether to use the MDR based on the menu descriptions might be disappointed!
 

Quality - whilst I have some sympathy with the view that a small increase in prices in return for better quality food wouldn’t have been a bad thing on this particular cruise, those who followed my live blogs from Britannia, Iona and Ventura last year may recall that I was very complimentary about the MDR food on all three of these ships. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that what we experienced seemed to be an Aurora issue rather than a P&O one. With 40% of the crew changing on Friday, which will include chefs, the problem may have already been solved!

 

One very positive aspect of the food being a bit uninspiring was that over 65 nights I only put on just under 3lb in weight, and all of that is probably attributable to the complimentary carrot cake in Raffles 😂. I have put on considerably more than that during a 2 week cruise before and somebody on our cruise has reported putting on two and a half stone 😱

[Megabear2]

33 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

One very positive aspect of the food being a bit uninspiring was that over 65 nights I only put on just under 3lb in weight, and all of that is probably attributable to the complimentary carrot cake in Raffles 😂. I have put on considerably more than that during a 2 week cruise before and somebody on our cruise has reported putting on two and a half stone 😱

Perhaps you can call that the one benefit of your sore throat!  Alcohol is apparently the main driver of cruise passengers' weight gain so that pesky tickle may well have been a saviour.

[TigerB]

38 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

As there have been quite a few comments about MDR food, can I just add a few points for clarity. 
 

Menu repetition - This wasn’t as much of an issue as we thought it would be. Whole menus didn’t seem to repeat (as we thought they would) but certain items did. One thing that we noticed a lot (especially with desserts) was items appearing on the dinner menu repeating at lunch the very next day. 
 

Menu descriptions - these were rarely an indicator of quality. Some elaborate and grand sounding meals turned out to be disappointing, whereas some bland sounding meals were very good. So those deciding whether to use the MDR based on the menu descriptions might be disappointed!
 

Quality - whilst I have some sympathy with the view that a small increase in prices in return for better quality food wouldn’t have been a bad thing on this particular cruise, those who followed my live blogs from Britannia, Iona and Ventura last year may recall that I was very complimentary about the MDR food on all three of these ships. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that what we experienced seemed to be an Aurora issue rather than a P&O one. With 40% of the crew changing on Friday, which will include chefs, the problem may have already been solved!

 

One very positive aspect of the food being a bit uninspiring was that over 65 nights I only put on just under 3lb in weight, and all of that is probably attributable to the complimentary carrot cake in Raffles 😂. I have put on considerably more than that during a 2 week cruise before and somebody on our cruise has reported putting on two and a half stone 😱

 

All being well, I will be posting my final thoughts on our cruise in a day or two and, like you experienced on your Iona cruise last year, the MDR food was better than you have experienced on Aurora. I would go as far as to say it was even better than our last cruise on Iona.

[Bazrat]

21 hours ago, gadabout60 said:

But Selbourne has reported that only 20% of mdr food was very good - the rest was mediocre or worse.15 years ago 80% would be very good - better cuts of meat, much bigger choice of veg, flavoursome desserts, decent cheese etc. Personally I would rather a cruise line gave us decent mdr food rather than cut prices to a ridiculously low and unsustainable level. I am not a foodie either but on a 60plus night cruise like this one I would have started to find the mdr a trial

Selbourne gave us his opinion of the food which might not be the same as yours or mine it was just his opinion, until we have tried such a cruise I can only give my opinion of the food we have had onboard.

[terrierjohn]

27 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Selbourne gave us his opinion of the food which might not be the same as yours or mine it was just his opinion, until we have tried such a cruise I can only give my opinion of the food we have had onboard.

I still firmly believe that the quality, and look of the MDR food is due to the standards demanded by the chief chef.

However like @Selbourne I do think the hexagon shaped roast potatoes do need to be dropped and replaced with something that genuinely looks and tastes like a roast potato, and green beans should no longer be a daily staple, and sauces need to have more taste and substance.

[gadabout60]

Also add in desserts that you can’t resist instead of being bland and watery and decent cheese

my last cruise was on Britannia last year and food was ok to good - but still not what it used to be!

there is of course now an option to upgrade in mdr but it is only 1 item for each course throughout the whole cruise

agree of course that food is subjective but Selbournes posts have resonated with some P&O cruises of recent years 

[Bazrat]

34 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I still firmly believe that the quality, and look of the MDR food is due to the standards demanded by the chief chef.

However like @Selbourne I do think the hexagon shaped roast potatoes do need to be dropped and replaced with something that genuinely looks and tastes like a roast potato, and green beans should no longer be a daily staple, and sauces need to have more taste and substance.

Hexagon shaped roast potatoes that’s a new one on me, didn’t have them on Arvia but will be looking out for them on Arcadia soon.

[Bazrat]

31 minutes ago, gadabout60 said:

Also add in desserts that you can’t resist instead of being bland and watery and decent cheese

my last cruise was on Britannia last year and food was ok to good - but still not what it used to be!

there is of course now an option to upgrade in mdr but it is only 1 item for each course throughout the whole cruise

agree of course that food is subjective but Selbournes posts have resonated with some P&O cruises of recent years 

To be honest we never really remember the quality of food only if it is bad than we don’t go back to that particular restaurant.

[white_bear]

We were on this crise (R401) also, and have enjoyed the daily blogs - agreeing with some, and not others (as you would expect).

A couple of comments:

1. On phoning Nationwide FlexPlus insurance today to make our "missed ports" claim, it became apparent that they have also had a lot of Covid/ gastro claims. Came as news to me!

2. Re MDR food - yes, menus were repetitive, but overall, we thought food OK. My main complaint was that menus too much biased to veg/vegan,  compressing options for meat and fish eaters.

[Selbourne]

22 minutes ago, white_bear said:

We were on this crise (R401) also, and have enjoyed the daily blogs - agreeing with some, and not others (as you would expect).

A couple of comments:

1. On phoning Nationwide FlexPlus insurance today to make our "missed ports" claim, it became apparent that they have also had a lot of Covid/ gastro claims. Came as news to me!

2. Re MDR food - yes, menus were repetitive, but overall, we thought food OK. My main complaint was that menus too much biased to veg/vegan,  compressing options for meat and fish eaters.

That’s interesting about Covid & Norovirus. Early on in the cruise a steward at the aft of deck 11 (we were forward) was spraying in the corridor in protective clothing and when I asked what he was doing he said ‘Covid’ but, like you, we saw no signs of it and nor were we aware of it. We took some Covid test kits with us and when my throat started I tested and was negative. We don’t use the buffet, but the usual giveaway of a Norovirus outbreak is when staff serve people there. I didn’t hear anyone mention that was happening. Frankly, with a cruise of that length in the depth of winter we fully expected outbreaks of some form but, other than all the coughing, we thought that it had been Covid and Norovirus free!

[Snow Hill]

I fully enjoyed following all 65 days of the cruise, not something I think we would ever do, unless we win the lottery! 
 

I found the description of life onboard and the various ports and excursions very informative and I thank you for that.

 

I hope the throat has improved and if not then hopefully you GP can provide treatment for it. 

[mercury7289]

8 hours ago, S1971 said:

Hi gadabout60.

 

In fairness, Selbourne has said that food is very subjective and those are just their thoughts, other less travelled folk may have nothing else to compare too, and to be honest cruise food is still very good compared to the buffet in many land based hotels.

 

I also remember several years ago when there were no speciality restaurants onboard and the MDR was the only restaurant, but the price was much higher than it is today therefore something has to give and that will be food quality, unless of course you pay the additional charge.

 

I think P&O have changed a lot over the past few years and to compete are now having to cater for mass market clientele, hence the reason for a drop in standards and some might say clientele!!!

 

 

The food presentation in the MDR, on Aurora, is dia, in MHO, the home delivered farm food advertised enterprises, look more appetising. Aurora canteen quality at best.This is my opinion from our December 2023 cruise