Oriana Naming Ceremony 6th April 1995

[Hampshire Steve]

Morning All

My first contact with P&O was when I was asked to volunteer for security duties at the Oriana naming ceremony in Southampton in 1995, I was about 4 years into service as a Special Constable in Southampton and still keen on volunteering for everything, little did I know that years later my first cruising experience would be onboard Oriana with my wife, her brother and his wife, we loved it and have had many great cruises since, they weren't so keen and haven't been back.

This morning I came across the naming ceremony programme, long since forgotten in the bottom of a box of photos etc.

 

I have scanned a few pages for those of you that loved the ship and may never have seen these pages before.

 

 

[Hampshire Steve]

 

[Adawn47]

The only naming ceremonies I've seen have been small clips on TV. I've really enjoyed reading your post Steve, it was very interesting. Thank you

Avril

[Selbourne]

What a fantastic post. Many thanks for sharing. Our first cruise was on Oriana in 1996. We cruised from Southampton to Istanbul and flew home. It was magical (apart from the flight, which we haven’t repeated since) and although we were around 40 years younger than the vast majority of passengers, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Sadly, a lot of the things that made it so magical no longer exist, but Oriana remained a favourite for us. We distinctly recall all the seasoned cruisers complaining that “she’s not a patch on Canberra”, which having seen the deck plans of Canberra and the antiquated facilities seemed ludicrous, but I guess the same sort of views still exist today with the dislike that many have for the bigger ships.
 

Our motivation to try a cruise was a documentary series on the then relatively new satellite tv called ‘Supership Oriana’. Over around 6 one hour episodes it showed her design, construction, fit out, commissioning, sea trials and maiden cruise. Unlike the cruise programmes of today, it was a serious series and didn’t make OTT crew or passengers the focus of the programme. We couldn’t believe that ships could be so luxurious and it was portrayed as a very aspirational product (which, at the time, it was).

 

We have many fond memories of Oriana. Two in particular are superb meals in ‘Oriana Rhodes’ and the time that the ship was absolutely covered in a swarm of ladybirds in Travemunde during a heatwave and we transported them around the Baltic with the crew sweeping up piles of them every day as they died off!

[Hampshire Steve]

34 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

The only naming ceremonies I've seen have been small clips on TV. I've really enjoyed reading your post Steve, it was very interesting. Thank you

Avril

You are very welcome, nice to share something like this.

 

17 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

We have many fond memories of Oriana. Two in particular are superb meals in ‘Oriana Rhodes’ and the time that the ship was absolutely covered in a swarm of ladybirds in Travemunde during a heatwave and we transported them around the Baltic with the crew sweeping up piles of them every day as they died off!

Holidays are great for unique memories, I don't recall ever seeing more than a dozen or so Ladybirds together, that must have been quite odd! I hope we all get to cruise again in the near future.

[Angel57]

Most interesting. Thank you for posting. I remember having a tour over her a few days before the naming ceremony with the POSH club (loyalty club back in the day!) and thinking how wonderful Oriana was. We were regulars on Sea Princess/Victoria and  only had port holes to look out of so to then have a balcony was wonderful. We moved over to Aurora when she was launched but still occasionally returned to sail on Oriana. Happy memories.

[Britboys]

Thank you for a fascinating post - they really knew how to name a ship then. I would much prefer that style of ceremony to the somewhat 'Hollywood-style' ones of today. I loved Victoria, my first P&O ship and also Oriana, which remains my favourite - just above Aurora.

[Chrisdriving]

Great post thank you,  our fist cruise was on Oriana and we were on her last cruise with P and O.

 

Hope the Chinese look after her.

 

This has been posted before but an interesting video on her.

 

 

https://youtu.be/px3pS8BJrC0
 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Chrisdriving

[Dermotsgirl]

Very interesting to see this, thanks for posting Steve. 

 

A couple of years after Oriana launched, one of the women at work went on Oriana with her husband and children, and when I saw the photos, I thought it looked great.  It put the idea of cruising in my head, and we first sailed on Aurora in 2001.  Aurora remains my favourite ship. We didn't sail on Oriana until 2007, and although not my favourite, still found plenty to like on Oriana.

 

 

[Dermotsgirl]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

. We distinctly recall all the seasoned cruisers complaining that “she’s not a patch on Canberra”, which having seen the deck plans of Canberra and the antiquated facilities seemed ludicrous, but I guess the same sort of views still exist today with the dislike that many have for the bigger ships.
 

 

One of the memories of my early cruising years are the 'it wasn't like this on Canberra' brigade' being out in force! 

As a result of this, I have made a vow, never, ever, to say ' It wasn't like this on Aurora', whilst on any cruise ship 

[Adawn47]

19 minutes ago, Britboys said:

Thank you for a fascinating post - they really knew how to name a ship then. I would much prefer that style of ceremony to the somewhat 'Hollywood-style' ones of today. I loved Victoria, my first P&O ship and also Oriana, which remains my favourite - just above Aurora.

Our first ship was Arcadia then Oceana and we love both. We've  sailed on Aurora 3 times now as is our favourite. We thought Oriana being a sister ship would be the same, but somehow we couldn't take to her. She had a different 'feel' about her, I just can't explain it. 

Avril

[Chrisdriving]

Vibration? 

Oh how we laughed in the Oriental restaurant. 🙂

Edited August 31, 2020 by Chrisdriving

[AnnieC]

8 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

Our first ship was Arcadia then Oceana and we love both. We've  sailed on Aurora 3 times now as is our favourite. We thought Oriana being a sister ship would be the same, but somehow we couldn't take to her. She had a different 'feel' about her, I just can't explain it. 

Avril

Ditto. Don't know if it was bad luck, but many of the main thoroughfares around the public rooms on Oriana had water buckets etc. lurking about catching leaks plus huge expanses of wet carpet where there'd been some sort of flood. Oh, and no hot water for three days and no apology either. Oh yes, and every time we had a shower (on the odd occasion we had hot water) the fire alarm in the cabin went off.😲 

 

 

 

[AnnieC]

23 minutes ago, Dermotsgirl said:

One of the memories of my early cruising years are the 'it wasn't like this on Canberra' brigade' being out in force! 

As a result of this, I have made a vow, never, ever, to say ' It wasn't like this on Aurora', whilst on any cruise ship 

Ditto on Cunard: "nothing like QE2" over and over again. True, mind you.😂

[Britboys]

19 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

Our first ship was Arcadia then Oceana and we love both. We've  sailed on Aurora 3 times now as is our favourite. We thought Oriana being a sister ship would be the same, but somehow we couldn't take to her. She had a different 'feel' about her, I just can't explain it. 

Avril

Yes, we all have our different feelings about the ships. On Oriana, I loved Tiffany's Bar, the Lord's Tavern and Harlequins. Champions and Masquerade on Aurora just weren't the same and there is no decent bar around the atrium on Aurora. I do still very much like Aurora though. Oceana just never did it for me at all.

[Britboys]

22 minutes ago, Chrisdriving said:

Vibration? 

Oh how we laughed in the Oriental restaurant. 🙂

Yes, that could be a challenge at times but must say it never really bothered me - just part of her charm 😀

[Britboys]

11 minutes ago, AnnieC said:

Ditto. Don't know if it was bad luck, but many of the main thoroughfares around the public rooms on Oriana had water buckets etc. lurking about catching leaks plus huge expanses of wet carpet where there'd been some sort of flood. Oh, and no hot water for three days and no apology either. Oh yes, and every time we had a shower (on the odd occasion we had hot water) the fire alarm in the cabin went off.😲 

 

 

 

Oh dear. I was lucky, quite a few cruises on Oriana and the only problem I ever had was no cold water in my cabin and they moved me to another cabin. Funnily enough, that was one of the new cabins put into the children's area when she went adult-only.

[bee-ess]

Thanks for this - was our favourite P&O ship, loved the tiered stern. We did more cruises on Oriana than any other P&O ship.

[Angel57]

45 minutes ago, Chrisdriving said:

Vibration? 

Oh how we laughed in the Oriental restaurant. 🙂

Ha ha. The wine used to move from side to side in the glass as she left port (maybe I had too much in there tho 🤣.......)

[Hampshire Steve]

The following pages are also from the Oriana programme, nothing to do with the ship directly but a nice snippet of history of P&Os connection with the Royals (Rainy day reading perhaps)

 

I had promised to find something positive to post next after whinging on about lack of my refund for over 100 days, am I forgiven now?

 

 

 

[P&O SUE]

Thanks for sharing Steve, only went on Oriana once but loved her.

[Britboys]

6 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

Thanks for sharing Steve, only went on Oriana once but loved her.

To my mind, she really was a prime example of the evolution of Ocean Liners into cruise ships. P&O talk about their ships evolving but with the introduction of Iona, it really is a sea-change rather than evolution imho. For some that is great news for others not...

[Adawn47]

4 hours ago, Britboys said:

Yes, that could be a challenge at times but must say it never really bothered me - just part of her charm 😀

Umm, I would't call it charm exactly. maybe it depended where your table was situated. We had a flamenco dance troupe board in Spain and  when we went to dinner that evening the flamenco dancers could be heard in the dining room below. Between the constant rattling of the cutlery, shaking of our table and the thunderous noise above our heads it was the worst evening we've ever experienced on any ship, even on RCI. We ate in the buffet that evening.

Avril

[Britboys]

13 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

Umm, I would't call it charm exactly. maybe it depended where your table was situated. We had a flamenco dance troupe board in Spain and  when we went to dinner that evening the flamenco dancers could be heard in the dining room below. Between the constant rattling of the cutlery, shaking of our table and the thunderous noise above our heads it was the worst evening we've ever experienced on any ship, even on RCI. We ate in the buffet that evening.

Avril

I'd have been fine - the charm of Oriana's rattle and some fabulous flamenco! 💃🕺🇪🇸

[Selbourne]

4 hours ago, Chrisdriving said:

Vibration? 

Oh how we laughed in the Oriental restaurant. 🙂

Oh yes. I remember that. As I recall, they had to take Oriana out of service briefly after her maiden year to change the propellors. We were on a cruise immediately after (with the new propellers) and I remember the captain taking the ship up to speed during dinner the first night and everything in the restaurant started rattling like crazy. A few frantic phone calls ensured and we slowed slightly, so the new propellers hadn’t solved the problem! I still recall that we cruised at around 25 knots for the whole cruise, with long days in port, rather than the somewhat slower speeds (with associated less time in ports) that tends to be the norm these days.