Guest speakers - who's good and who's not?

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.

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/

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.

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

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 Marco Pierre White speaking once and he was excellent.

We had one of Houdini's family once telling us his life story.

We had Marco Pierre White speaking once and he was excellent.

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!

Just goes to show how they can’t please everybody all of the time, as I would have enjoyed those talks!

We were in Belfast recently and had a fantastic visit to Crumbling Road Gaol which was very interesting.

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

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:).

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!

Think you mean Crumlin Road Gaol:).

Apparently there are plenty of potholes these days.[emoji23]

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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

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.

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!