Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[Selbourne]

Just now, zap99 said:

Another day that would suit us fine. Prawn cocktail and roast beef. What's not to like.😉

Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I’m having 😋 

[Selbourne]

Day 14 - Tuesday 16th January - Sea Day

 

The first day where we’ve had warm and (reasonably) sunny weather all day! We continue to plod along at a very slow pace and the sea remains very calm so, although there’s nothing to look at other than the ocean, it’s the sedate cruising in warm weather that people have craved ever since we left Southampton. 

 

There wasn’t as much of interest on during the day as there had been yesterday, but we attended a moderately interesting talk on Elvis Presley in the theatre at 10.30am. We then stayed in our seats for the port talk on New Orleans, which followed afterwards. The pre-cruise research that I’ve done means that I rarely glean anything from these talks, other than where we are berthing, but I guess that means that I’ve done my research properly!

 

At 1.15pm we went to the first Tiffin Lunch in Sindhu. They had previously called us about a slot on the next tasting dinner, but it was at a fixed time of 6.15pm which is far too early for us, so we declined. It was good to have a different lunch experience to the MDR, but we weren’t particularly enamoured with it. My wife only liked one of her 3 main course choices and I wasn’t particularly taken with any of my 3. The deserts were better. We remembered from before that there’s a menu A and menu B. Today was menu A. We have said that if they do a menu B later in the cruise we shall give it a go. 

 

At 3pm I attended William Joyce’s second talk in the Playhouse, this time on the outer planets. I said yesterday that he didn’t have the presenting skills that the previous speaker, Dick Taylor, had but I’ve changed my opinion today. Whilst Dick Taylor had a more commanding voice, the subjects that he talked about, whilst very interesting and enjoyable, could have been presented by anyone who was a confident speaker and had done their research on the internet. By contrast, William Joyce knows his (extremely complicated) subject matter inside out and presents without the use of notes. He has a fantastic knowledge and is very impressive. A true expert. 

 

My wife has enjoyed a couple of sessions reading her Kindle (now that I’ve worked it all out thanks to my CC buddies) on our balcony. That’s not really my thing, but I managed 10 laps of the promenade deck instead. When I returned I was able to say to my wife with a straight face that I’d just seen a lovely pair of Booby’s whilst on the promenade deck. After a pause for dramatic effect (I get no reaction now - she just ignores me 😂) I followed it with “they were diving down to catch the fish disturbed by the ship”. I thought it was funny, but all I got was 🙄

 

Pre dinner entertainment in Carmens was the comedian who also sings. As he doesn’t appeal and we don’t particularly like the venue either, we skipped that. Dinner in the MDR was better than the last few nights. If I was nit picking, there was virtually no Marie Rose sauce on the prawn cocktail, but the beef was lovely and I requested (and got) some of the veg listed on the other dishes, as I’ve had my fill of the obligatory green beens that they seem incapable of serving a meal without! The pud, an apple and orange strudel was the best pud in the MDR so far and I had a result with the daily comedy ice cream description. Last night I’d had “Honey and Comb” ice cream and tonight’s menu choices were “Vanilla charred, Coconut, Champagne Sorbet”. I asked for Coconut and when it arrived it was black. I questioned what it was and the answer was “charred coconut” 😂 Anyway, it was delicious!

 

For several reasons that I won’t go into on here, we have asked if we can move tables in the MDR (2nd sitting club) to a table for 2. They are going to look at it, but if it’s going to take as long to get a resolution as it is taking to get an answer on our US immigration question (chased twice now, still no answer) or it took to get someone to look at the creaking in the cabin ceiling (4 requests) then I can see me having to request a meeting with the Food and Beverage manager. They don’t seem very sharp on problem resolution on this ship. 

 

The evening show was the Stephen Mulhern show Astonishing, but we’ve seen it once when it first came out and once was enough. I went up on to deck 13 to see if William Joyce was there star gazing (he said he would be) but it was deserted. I need to check what times he’s up there. Tomorrow we reach our third port, Nassau in the Bahamas. Weather forecast looking a bit iffy. 

[Eddie99]

I hope you get your table move Selbourne.  Fingers crossed it can be done swiftly.  The catering faction seem a bit better at speedy resolution

We had a minor thing yesterday, when our invitations to the loyalty lunch hadn’t arrived.  I went to reception to find out where and when it was, and we got to Coral restaurant and a very short queue at ten to 12, 10 minutes early.  The obliging chap with the hand sanitiser pump heard my tale of woe, trotted off to find someone with the list and Presto! (wonder how they’re doing) our table number was found and we were escorted there.  Name cards in attendance, just to prove we had been invited

The invitations were in our pigeonhole when we returned from supper last night btw 🙄

Sorry - that’s a lot of My Story in Your Story.  Good luck with the move!

 

[pete14]

Regarding your request to move table in the evening, is Cleopatra still onboard in the Head Waiter team? We found her to be excellent in November and I am sure she would try to help you out quickly.

[mercury7289]

56 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Regarding your request to move table in the evening, is Cleopatra still onboard in the Head Waiter team? We found her to be excellent in November and I am sure she would try to help you out quickly.

100% agree

[Selbourne]

Just now, pete14 said:

Regarding your request to move table in the evening, is Cleopatra still onboard in the Head Waiter team? We found her to be excellent in November and I am sure she would try to help you out quickly.

I don’t believe so. I’ve asked two people now so we’ll see what happens. 

[Eglesbrech]

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

I don’t believe so. I’ve asked two people now so we’ll see what happens. 

It’s always a delicate thing trying to move, regardless of the reasons for it. We have only had to do it once and we asked to be moved to a different sitting so that we were not just a few tables away. In our case it was the behaviour of our table mates (every third word was an f or c used colourfully and freely as nouns, verbs and adjectives. They didn’t mean any harm by it but it wasn’t nice to hear) so we really didn’t want to see them again.

 

I hope you get sorted. It’s your holiday so you should not have to remain in a situation that does not suit you or your good lady for whatever the reason.

[Clodia]

We had William Joyce last time I was on Oriana to Northern Lights; he was brilliant!

[Selbourne]

Just now, Eglesbrech said:

I hope you get sorted. It’s your holiday so you should not have to remain in a situation that does not suit you or your good lady for whatever the reason

Thank you. They are not being terribly helpful so far. This morning we were told that we could move to another shared table, which I had made clear is exactly what we don’t want to do. I have asked for a table for 2 in second sitting (which is never more than 75% full) or switch to Freedom. Apparently neither is possible. I have asked to speak to Ben the F&B manager but was told his deputy would see me later.
 

Given that the ship is far from full, it’s a shame that everything is proving to be a battle. it does rather take the shine off things. 

Edited January 17 by Selbourne

[posford]

Keep at it Selbourne. If you don’t give up you will get there in the end.

I can’t tell you how many fights I’ve had to put things right.

I did once demand to speak to the Captain. Things happened quickly after that.

Dont give up.

 

 

[Selbourne]

Todays MDR menus. 

[Ardennais]

This William Joyce is making me think of Lord Haw Haw. Imagine Mr and Mrs Joyce deciding to name their newborn son William, unless your speaker was born before 1946! 

[Purdey16]

Hopefully selbourne your dining experience turns better soon with just a table for you both 🤞.

I would like to know if you have booked a ship’s excursion for New Orleans or you are just doing your own thing ? We are also going to New Orleans next January and like you a over night stop so I’m interested in what you might be doing, as with Cape canaveral & hope you get to the space station after all that custom stuff you have to go through 🤯

[Selbourne]

Just now, Purdey16 said:

Hopefully selbourne your dining experience turns better soon with just a table for you both 🤞.

I would like to know if you have booked a ship’s excursion for New Orleans or you are just doing your own thing ? We are also going to New Orleans next January and like you a over night stop so I’m interested in what you might be doing, as with Cape canaveral & hope you get to the space station after all that custom stuff you have to go through 🤯

We are DIY in New Orleans. We will look around the French quarter etc and may do a paddle boat trip (not sure if it’s worth it - not interested in going to a plantation or having a buffet lunch on board) but booking direct and not through P&O. Not sure about the second day yet. I believe that there’s a good aquarium near the cruise port and I fancy trying the street cars

[Selbourne]

Day 15 - Wednesday 17th January - Nassau, Bahamas

 

I have a map of the Caribbean stuck to our cabin wall and was pleased to see that the island that Nassau is on is well within the Bahamas and involves passing other islands to get to it. This was particularly good news, as we weren’t due to dock until 8am, so with it getting light an hour or more before that we would have a lovely scenic transit in. How wrong I was! By 6.30am, when it was still dark, we were manoeuvring onto our berth in Nassau 😔

 

We weren’t in a rush to get off as we were in port until the evening and I had no excursions booked, so it was just DIY. On our way out of breakfast the manager I had spoken to yesterday about changing to a table for 2 stopped us and said that they could change our dinner table to another shared table. Either our request got lost in translation or they weren’t listening. As I was getting nowhere fast, I asked who the Food and Beverage manager was (Ben) and went to reception to request a meeting with him. Either reception or Ben (or both) weren’t keen on me meeting him, so I was offered Savio, one of Bens team. As there was a crew drill due, Savio would come to our cabin this afternoon and 5pm was agreed. 

 

After a deck 12 orientation tour, we got ourselves ready and decided to go ashore. It was dull and cloudy but humid, so we decided that a bit of rain wouldn’t hurt us and might keep us cool. There were 5 cruise ships in port, so the cruise terminal and surrounding areas were heaving. 

 

On all our previous cruises on Aurora I have always felt proud that we are on her as she looks such a classy ship. However, today I felt almost embarrassed. Not because she was the smallest ship of the 5 in port (that’s a positive in my eyes) but because she looks so shabby on the outside compared to all the other ships in port. The outside of the ship is covered in rust patches and grubby marks and frankly looks very neglected. I mentioned this in my review of Bermuda (having first noticed it in Madeira) but I’ve never seen a P&O ship look this bad. The maintenance crews usually do a far better job of keeping on top of this. There had been plenty of touching up being done on the promenade deck during our sea days, but a distinct lack of attention to the hull of the ship on the days we’ve been in port. I hope that this is addressed during our cruise as it will only get worse. 

 

The area around the cruise terminal was absolutely heaving, so we cleared the area as quickly as possible and made our way to the main square and government buildings. Very quickly we realised that Nassau is absolutely dreadful for wheelchairs. I’m braced for some of the Caribbean islands to be bad but I had naively thought that the Bahamas, being very American influenced and bigger, would be better. Where do I start - lack of dropped kerbs, high kerbs, massive holes in pavements that you can’t get through, no pavements at all on many roads, severe cambers. I could go on. In spite of this (and don’t ask me how) I eventually managed to get ourselves up to the Queens Staircase. The final walk down to it is like walking through a jungle and as we did this it started raining. Not to be deterred, I abandoned my wife at the bottom under a large palm leaf and walked up and down the steps. 

 

The light rain that we were “OK about as it would be cooling” didn’t materialise. It poured down and on the way back towards the centre we both got absolutely drowned. I wanted to see more of the town but my wife was hating it all (the combination of being soaked and not feeling safe in her wheelchair) so we went back to the ship. We had to change into dry clothes and went to lunch. Afterwards, I decided to go ashore again but on my own. I first headed up to Goverment House, which I’d visited 35 years ago, but the statue of Christopher Columbus was missing and the plinth looked badly damaged. I was glad that my wife wasn’t with me, as it was on a very busy road with no pavement (makes you realise how backward some of these places are). 

 

I then cut down through the town and headed to Junkanoo Beach, where I walked along the sand. On the return walk I visited the Straw Market. That was an eye opener. Row upon narrow row of items stacked around 12 feet high, with stallholders sat on stools every few yards. 

 

I wasn’t impressed with Nassau. Aside from the fact that it was a nightmare with a wheelchair, the place was over crowded, noisy (all the bars had loud music blaring from them), very congested with cars, lack of suitable road crossings and so on. A lady in the lift back on the ship summed it up well - “I’m glad that I’ve been, but I wouldn’t rush back”. When I returned to the ship my wife and I went to Raffles. My wife had her usual fruit tea and I had a frozen drink. A minor irritant is that they don’t have the cups for the larger cold drinks, so you have to buy a small one which is only about 30p less than the much bigger Medium. I had a mixed berry one which wasn’t as nice as the salted caramel one that I’d had the day before and I got brain freeze. God, I’d forgotten how painful that can be 😂 

 

5pm came and went and no sign of Savio, then at about ten past the phone rang. Apparently they don’t come to guest cabins. Anyway, there are no spare tables for two. However, there is a table for 8 that we might be able to have to ourselves. He’s going to confirm tomorrow, but we really hope that this happens as we went down and checked it out and it would address a couple of the issues that we have with our current table, as it’s in a completely different area of the restaurant. 

 

Tonight was our first of four planned visits to the Beach House. We were greeted warmly by at least 4 different staff and given a choice of tables. We took one in the window, anticipating that there might be something to see, but there wasn’t. I was immediately struck by the heat in the restaurant. There are huge temperature variations around this ship. Some areas feel quite cool and other areas are quite hot. The Beach House was the latter. I asked a waitress if the temperature could be cooled down but she didn’t understand me. I had the nachos with chorizo to start, the fillet steak on Lava stone for main and the Key Lime Sundae for dessert. All were very good. My wife just had the steak (no starter or desert) and handled it better than me, as she took it off the stone so as not to overcook it and pointed out of course that steak should be rested before eating it. I failed on both! 

 

The theatre show was another singer, which we didn’t fancy, so an early night. Tomorrow is a sea day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18 by Selbourne

[Purdey16]

Fantastic that you have made a improvement on possibly getting another table albeit a table for 8 but you’re be on your own , that was what it was like on our December cruise lots of large tables with only 4 or 2 people on ( second sitting) we were sat in the middle section on a table for 4 but our table guest only turned up 3 nights out of the 17 . 
It’s a shame Nassau was not wheelchair friendly and it poured down with rain .

Glad you had a nice dinner in the beach house which we also enjoyed but my husband to didn’t quite like the cutting and cooking and resting his steak, he wanted to eat it all at once and said it was too  busy / work for him 😂 , he’s never cooked a steak before.

[jh1809]

11 hours ago, Ardennais said:

This William Joyce is making me think of Lord Haw Haw. Imagine Mr and Mrs Joyce deciding to name their newborn son William, unless your speaker was born before 1946! 

I thought of Lord Haw Haw too. I suppose if his parents weren't born till after the war, or were only small children at the time, then if they weren't too well up on their history they might not have heard of him.

[TigerB]

Thanks for the update👍🏻

It looks like the Bahamas is one that won't make it on to our 'to do' list.

 

I hope you get sorted with your new table. I suppose one thing about it being a larger table is that you won't be sat at one of those pesky two-seaters where your neighbours are just a few inches from you.  I really don't want to tempt fate, but I hope that when you sit down at your new table for the first time,  they then don't start showing six others to it. That would no doubt be the straw that broke the camel's back!

[terrierjohn]

11 hours ago, Selbourne said:

We are DIY in New Orleans. We will look around the French quarter etc and may do a paddle boat trip (not sure if it’s worth it - not interested in going to a plantation or having a buffet lunch on board) but booking direct and not through P&O. Not sure about the second day yet. I believe that there’s a good aquarium near the cruise port and I fancy trying the street cars

Hope you're more successful with the trams than we were, after queuing for about 30 minutes the disabled hoist on the tram was out of action,  so we had to walk. However the  stroll, initially through the shopping mall, and then along the riverbank promenade and boardwalk was very easy and very pleasant.

We did a scenic tour of the area by bus, one of those with a hoist at the rear and space for some wheelchairs, it had a few photo stops where I got off but Mrs TJ stayed on the bus, and it took in the levees and the pumping stations that prevent the Mississippi from flooding the low lying areas. We thought it was well worth doing.

Edited January 18 by terrierjohn

[Gettingwarmer]

31 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

However the  stroll, initially through the shopping mall, and then along the riverbank promenade and boardwalk was very easy and very pleasant.

I agree this was very nice and we ended up in a small park with a cafe. We then walked to the French Quarter and then back to the ship. The next day we walked to the area with the large houses and the graveyard, stopped at a Starbucks for loos on the way. Nice coffee place at the end and then took tram back. The area we walked through on the way was a bit dicey though. 

[brian1]

12 hours ago, Purdey16 said:

 hope you get to the space station after all that custom stuff you have to go through 🤯

Is there no end to this mans talents,a supercarer AND an astronaut😉.

[Somerset Cruiser]

On 1/6/2024 at 12:56 PM, Selbourne said:

Todays lunch and dinner menus

The menus are very similar to those on Iona. We're just back from a 2 x 14 nights and they are, as expected, repeated during the 2nd cruise. 

I will be interested to see what happens in your case. 

 

Really enjoyed the blog so far. 

[Selbourne]

Just now, TigerB said:

I hope you get sorted with your new table. I suppose one thing about it being a larger table is that you won't be sat at one of those pesky two-seaters where your neighbours are just a few inches from you.  I really don't want to tempt fate, but I hope that when you sit down at your new table for the first time,  they then don't start showing six others to it. That would no doubt be the straw that broke the camel's back!

During the conversation with the manager he was at pains to say that we couldn’t have a table for 2, but then mentioned the empty large table. I guess he was taking me literally because, of course, what I was after was ‘a table on our own’ and a larger table for sole occupancy is much better anyway. At breakfast and lunch we are often shown to a 4 top for sole use. 
 

It crossed my mind that we might be joined at some stage, but we would assess the situation at that time rather than instantly ask to move again. There were several reasons for requesting the move and sharing was only one of them. We are back in the MDR tonight (black tie night) so are really hoping that we get confirmation today. However, we still haven’t had confirmation about US border control and that’s now tomorrow 🤔

[Selbourne]

Just now, terrierjohn said:

Hope you're more successful with the trams than we were, after queuing for about 30 minutes the disabled hoist on the tram was out of action,  so we had to walk. However the  stroll, initially through the shopping mall, and then along the riverbank promenade and boardwalk was very easy and very pleasant.

We did a scenic tour of the area by bus, one of those with a hoist at the rear and space for some wheelchairs, it had a few photo stops where I got off but Mrs TJ stayed on the bus, and it took in the levees and the pumping stations that prevent the Mississippi from flooding the low lying areas. We thought it was well worth doing.

As we are in New Orleans for 2 full days, I will most likely try the trams at a time when I’m off the ship on my own. Was the tour that you went on a P&O organised one or something you found independently? I don’t believe that there are any accessible tours like that on our cruise. 

[mrsgoggins]

44 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

As we are in New Orleans for 2 full days, I will most likely try the trams at a time when I’m off the ship on my own. Was the tour that you went on a P&O organised one or something you found independently? I don’t believe that there are any accessible tours like that on our cruise. 

 

We are doing the 35-night January Ventura cruise next year, and I've lost count of the number of 'regulars' who have told me that when New Orleans is your first US port of call, as it will be for us, book an early tour to minimise the immigration wait, followed by some horror stories.

 

I realise this might not be easy/possible for you so I wish you well with your ordeal and hope that you are able to post that I was wrong and that the port is now a model of efficiency 🤞