This day has been a little emotional doing our regular activities for the final time and saying goodbye to people we have got to know over the last seven weeks. It is also a little strange as about 600 new people boarded (mostly Aussies and various ages now) so the ship feels like a cruise with 2 separate parties/groups onboard especially as most of the new arrivals are doing shorter cruises to other parts of Australia or 23 days to Singapore.
However, before we go over our day, we have one last ship area to describe. How we managed to time this in such a way was definitely more luck than judgement or maybe sheer journalistic skill? Our area is the Crow’s Nest at the forward part of the ship on deck 10. It has some of the best views on the ship and we believe the biggest bar. It also includes a piano plus a separate stage area for a band to play on. Unlike places like the Rising Sun pub or The Globe, this venue is aimed to be classy so the music is either a cocktail pianist (Hannah - the one Mark likes) or the Arcadia Orchestra. There are also hosted group meeting events held here such as LGBTQ or Knit & Natter or Facebook meets etc… Anyway, here are some pics. We realize that we never took any of the bar! That is us all over.
Our day started with Pam doing our final laundry wash and having breakfast and doing a trivia quiz with Lesley and Chris whilst Mark had breakfast and played his last Shuffleboard game and said goodbye to all the regulars. It is a ship with now around 2000 onboard so no guarantee we will see any of them again before we disembark.
The rest of the morning was spent filling out paperwork and sorting out stuff for packing as well as relaxing. We had lunch in the buffet for the last time together where we both had Mousakka. Then it was the afternoon music quiz and Mark popped down to the lecture on Bob Marley by the lecturer who now sings.
We then met up with Chris to play Canasta. Yet again he was winning until right near the end until Mark swooped in and won. It was at this stage Mark noticed people were looking a bit glammed up for an evening casual. Yes, you guessed, P&O inconsistent comms strike again. Remember the mutiny and we went to 1 black tie event a week and this was communicated with the dates and this was included to everyone. Well, they don’t fully their own rules and we cannot blame it on Captain Shaggy as he left in Sydney and we have a new Captain and many new senior crew members. Mark kept a tie and shirt back and Pam has a decent dress but all the good evening wear is scattered around Sydney.
Anyway, Pam went off to her last classical recital- Pam here, the last recital was a mixed of musical theatre songs like “ I feel pretty” and “ Somewhere over the rainbow” to classical pieces from German, Hungarian and American composers. Very enjoyable and hope I might see them again on future cruises.
Then it was showers, packing and getting ready for dinner.
We arranged for a 7:30 farewell dinner with Chris & Lesley followed by our final Spinnaker bar quiz which we obviously lost. This was followed by some emotional goodbyes with host Stevie and our quiz partners.
Then, with our suitcases outside the cabin, it was off to the late 10:30 theatre show which was Tenori, a trio of Aussie Opera singers who have performed at the Sydney Opera House (we’ve been there you know) and they sang songs from musicals and pop songs, including a highly entertaining Bee Gees medley, plus some opera songs ending with Time to say Goodbye which was very emotional.
We gain another hour tonight which we need as we are still recovering from Sydney.
We will end this blog, and this whole segment of the holiday with our overall rating and thoughts.
It is very difficult to rate this. We had certain expectations but are regular cruisers so understand things can change and some flexibility is needed but this cruise went way beyond that. As the departing Captain said, in his final announcement, “it has been a challenging cruise and he understood the many letters of constructive feedback that he had received”. We too will be writing a letter of complaint to the head of P&O as it was definitely not good value for money and we would give it 5/10 and that is probably being generous.
So the good were the wide range of activities and the entertainment hosts; The Headliners theatre group and resident band and musicians and many of the other guest performers and lecturers; The food in the Meridian restaurant; the wonderful Promenade deck; Our cabin (we have heard some horror stories about other ones); Our fellow passengers - there are what made it for us.
The average was the food in the buffet; Our cabin steward; Giovanni and Jane (the heads of the entertainment team); the general layout of the ship - their Aurora is smaller but has a much better layout.
The poor was of course communication and at times being lied to and the only consistency about the messaging was it always inconsistent; The decisions by the Captain were at times baffling; The itinerary (enough said); The state of the ship at the start of the cruise due to lack of proper cleaning plus buckets and minor floods everywhere.
Have we written off P&O completely for future cruises. Probably not as that means we would never go on our beloved Aurora again but they have definitely lost us as our go to cruise line and we will easily find better value for money elsewhere or pay extra to sail with other cruise lines.
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