My wife and I were excited about our trip aboard the Oriana. However, our trip was very nearly spoiled before it had even commenced because we made the mistake of excitedly reading reviews of this ship which proved very often to be damning. I do not doubt that some unfortunate passengers will have genuine grievances against P & O or believe that elements of the ship were not up to standard. However, after reading many reviews, I can happily report that we failed to identify with the majority of negative comments. For clarification, we have nothing to do with the cruise industry or P & O at all, so there is no bias.

In brief, here is a review of our week on the Oriana.

Embarkation was flawless. Our valet car parking was swift and the baggage handling was efficient. We waited a few minutes to be ‘processed’ at check-in and then were having something to eat on board ship after about 20 minutes. Read more