Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[Clodia]

THe Hop on Hop off bus in Funchal does virtually the same tour. On Iona last November P and O sold tickets onboard and took over 3 buses. I was glad I bought one because others complained that the 3 reserved vehicles led to a shortage of buses for people who just wanted to do it independently. I took the entire tour and fortunately it was a sunny day with great views. The bus brought us all the way back to the ship too.

 

BTW I am really enjoying your posts and following the cruise as it's one I'd like to do too.

Edited January 8 by Clodia

[Lickylips]

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

[Angel57]

8 minutes ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

Oh no. I’m so sorry to hear that. What a great shame. I hope she recovers swiftly.

[Beckett]

17 minutes ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

What a dreadful thing to happen.  Poor lady. I hope her operation is a success and she makes a good recovery. Best wishes. Jane xx

[purplesea]

24 minutes ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

What a horrible thing to have happen. Hope she makes a speedy recovery.

[Selbourne]

Just now, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

I’m so sorry to hear that. Having seen an ambulance go up to Ventura first thing  in the morning, I noticed one several times outside Aurora during the day. I’ve seen a lady walking around the ship with her arm in a sling and that was as a result of fall during the bad weather. There was also a medical emergency one night where someone lost their balance in the shower during the rough seas and cut themselves badly. 
 

Oddly, it looks flat calm now and is only force 2, yet the ship is still swaying quite a bit, which I’ve never known on Aurora before at anything below around force 5. I imagine that the stabilisers aren’t being used, as we are going at 21 knots to try to avoid the worst of the mid Atlantic storm system. 

[Eddie99]

51 minutes ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

What an awful thing to happen

Hopefully the surgery goes well and her recovery and return to the UK are uneventful 

[Slugsta]

@Lickylips I am very sorry to hear about your friend. I do hope that her surgery, recovery and repatriation go smoothly.

[Neecy1]

22 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks guys. My wife doesn’t read classics. She like all the current crime authors. Will take a look though. 

We have Amazon prime so there's a lot on there for free. Also there are daily book deals. Ive just downloaded a top crime thriller for 99p. The deals are usually on the home page

[Selbourne]

Todays MDR menus for those who like to see these things. 

[Selbourne]

….and some sunset shots to compliment this mornings sunrise ones.

[P&O SUE]

8 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

….and some sunset shots to compliment this mornings sunrise ones.

Gorgeous Selbourne.

 

Im following with interest as usual. Thanks for taking the time to do this and I hope you manage to miss the storm.

 

By the way, you really confused me dating some of your posts as March!!!

[P&O SUE]

6 hours ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

Oh no, hope she recovers well. What a sad ending to her cruise.

[Selbourne]

Just now, P&O SUE said:

Gorgeous Selbourne.

 

Im following with interest as usual. Thanks for taking the time to do this and I hope you manage to miss the storm.

 

By the way, you really confused me dating some of your posts as March!!!

Thanks Sue. What an idiot I am 😂. I’m surprised that nobody else has pointed that out. I have it ingrained in my brain that we are on this cruise until March and that has obviously got me muddled. I‘m grateful that you pointed this out. 

[grapau27]

6 hours ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

Oh no I'm so sorry to hear this.

On our 14 night Canary Islands cruise on Iona in November there was an emergency ambulance with blue lights on at every port stop.

[mrsgoggins]

1 hour ago, Selbourne said:

Todays MDR menus for those who like to see these things. 

 

Again for those interested, I can confirm that these were the same menus on Ventura today.

[P&O SUE]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks Sue. What an idiot I am 😂. I’m surprised that nobody else has pointed that out. I have it ingrained in my brain that we are on this cruise until March and that has obviously got me muddled. I‘m grateful that you pointed this out. 

I’m still not entirely sure what day it is after Christmas etc so I genuinely worried I was looking at an old thread 😂

[Selbourne]

Day 6 - Monday 8th January - At Sea

 

The clocks had made their first one hour change overnight, so I woke up very early and was able to watch the sunrise which, as with sunsets, are always magical at sea. 

 

The daytime entertainment on this cruise has been significantly better than any of our other 3 post Covid P&O cruises and, most unusually, there are a number of things on that we’d like to see today. BTW, there are lots of ‘meets’ for various groups (armed forces, solo travellers, LGBTQ+, Friends of Bill W etc) and I’m pleased to see that these exist for those who are interested. However, one caught my eye today and rather got my goat - “Oxford and Cambridge graduate get- together”. Perhaps it’s just me, but that seems so….(fill in the gap). When I was working and anyone pompously asked me which university I went to, it always threw them when I replied that I wasn’t a graduate myself, but I employed several thousand of them 😂 

 

Breakfast in Medina was uneventful, just as we like it. As we returned from breakfast I noticed our steward (who I’m warming to more now) working in a cabin way down the corridor. I asked him how many cabins he looked after and he replied 22. I said to him that I was sure it used to be just 12 when we first started cruising and he confirmed that was true (he’s done 25 years with P&O). He said it started with 12, then went to 15, then 18 and is now 22. In fairness to him, he didn’t make any comment about that. 

 

We have been noticing that some parts of the ship seem to be uncomfortably warm. We assumed that this was P&O being a bit stingy with the air con, as we presumed was the case on some of our other cruises last year. However, at the 11am lecture on alcohol (yes, you read that right) the presenter apologised for the heat in the Playhouse and said that there was a problem around the ship that engineers were trying to fix. As the interior warmth was sapping my energy, as soon as the talk finished I went outside and walked 10 laps of the promenade deck, which is 3 miles. We are on a strange track across the Atlantic, so it’s weird not seeing a single ship in any other direction. 

 

Thankfully we have very calm seas today and the wind is down to force 2. Much to our surprise though (having been on Aurora loads of times), the ship is still moving around quite a bit, so much so that it’s still difficult to walk in a straight line at times. It’s not enough to make us feel ill, but is still causing issues for my wife (who has poor balance at the best of times). We can’t recall movement like this at anything below force 4 on Aurora before, but there appears to be a persistent swell. We are going along at a reasonable pace though (21 knots, which is only 3 knots below Auroras designed operating speed), which might also explain it. Perhaps the Captain is keeping the stabilisers tucked in to hasten our progress and minimise our exposure to the looming storm? It certainly feels quick compared to the plodding 15 knots that the newer ships seem to stick to. It’s been warm and quite sunny today at around 23 degrees, which I believe is in stark contrast to the UK at present? 

 

We have received invites to the Caribbean loyalty lunch. It’s a bit confusing as it says that it will take place on Friday 12th and Monday 15th. Presumably we get told nearer the time which one we will attend. It seems quite early in the cruise. I wonder if there will be another one next month?

 

After lunch in the Medina restaurant we attended the talk by Touch of Frost actor John Lyons. We haven’t come across him before and he seems to be a very good and engaging speaker. We shall definitely attend his subsequent talks. At 5pm there was another classical recital with the flautist and pianist in the still stiflingly hot Playhouse. Very talented but they are getting off in Bermuda and a different classical artist(s) board. I’m hoping it’s a different instrument as I’m done with flutes now 😂 

 

At 7pm we went to see Laura Magann in Carmens. She’s a diva singer and belted out a wide variety of songs from musicals, opera and so on. Shock of shocks, at dinner one of the two missing couples turned up! Had they been denied boarding and had to fly out to join the ship or had they wanted first sitting and been dining in the buffet? Neither it seems, they just didnt fancy a formal dinner until now. I sense they might be infrequent visitors. 

 

After dinner we went to the 10pm Everly Brothers tribute, although they actually played a lot of music from other artists. I thought they were pretty good but Lady S wasn’t terribly impressed 🙄😂. 

 

All in all a full and enjoyable day and the Horizon paper for tomorrow looks equally encouraging. 

Edited January 9 by Selbourne

[david63]

7 hours ago, Selbourne said:

We are on a strange track across the Atlantic, so it’s weird not seeing a single ship in any other direction.

When crossing the pond and not seeing anything in any direction for days it always brings home to me how insignificant we are on the planet.

[sogne]

15 minutes ago, david63 said:

When crossing the pond and not seeing anything in any direction for days it always brings home to me how insignificant we are on the planet.

On QM2  enroute Barbados  Jan 22 no ships were sighted  also none on 2 TA crossings on QM2 until Grand Banks and just passed Bishop Rock on east crossing..

[Eddie99]

22 minutes ago, david63 said:

When crossing the pond and not seeing anything in any direction for days it always brings home to me how insignificant we are on the planet.

On one of our transAltantics the captain gave us the number of vessels sighted en route - I don’t remember but  know it was a single digit.  He said the guys and girls on the bridge often run a sweepstake amongst themselves 

[zap99]

13 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks Sue. What an idiot I am 😂. I’m surprised that nobody else has pointed that out. I have it ingrained in my brain that we are on this cruise until March and that has obviously got me muddled. I‘m grateful that you pointed this out. 

I have been so engrossed in your reviews that I didn't even notice the date. Thanks for taking the trouble, much appreciated.

[Harry Peterson]

8 hours ago, Selbourne said:

However, one caught my eye today and rather got my goat - “Oxford and Cambridge graduate get- together”. Perhaps it’s just me, but that seems so….(fill in the gap).

It’s called the old boys network, and it’s still very much alive. Likewise with certain schools. Impossible to defend, of course, but a fact of life. Like Freemasonry. I was expecting a really tough time at an interview once, back in the 70s. As soon as we got on to which degrees and which university though, magically everything changed.

[paulatsea]

15 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

It’s called the old boys network, and it’s still very much alive. Likewise with certain schools. Impossible to defend, of course, but a fact of life. Like Freemasonry. I was expecting a really tough time at an interview once, back in the 70s. As soon as we got on to which degrees and which university though, magically everything changed.

Because they are (were) the top universities - proven track record.

Obviously makes a difference in an interview as they are (were) the hardest to get into.

 

Absurd to object to anyone from anywhere wanted to arrange a meet up with anyone they want to.

 

Freemasony has nothing to do with anything in this context.

 

Simply people with common interests.

 

[CarlaMarie]

21 hours ago, Lickylips said:

Sadly my friend boarded Aurora on Wednesday and on Friday with the terrible weather she fell and broke her shoulder and hip. She is now in Hospital in Madeira having surgery. Take care everyone. 

 

I am so sorry to hear about your friend. I do hope the surgery has gone well and that she makes a good recovery.