Oriana Review

-- / 5.0
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Great itinerary, shame about the ship!

Review for Transatlantic Cruise on Oriana
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SAMMIBLACK
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

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Cabin

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Sail Date: Jan 2016
Cabin: Outside Twin with Window

We booked this cruise as soon as it was offered, ie day one. This 'American Adventure' was P&O's first try at a 50 day UK to UK round trip, taking us to the Caribbean, Central America and the southern States, eg Florida, New Orleans and South Carolina, calling at Bermuda on the way home. A fab itinerary you will agree and we enjoyed the ports very much, calling at a few we had never visited before like Cartagena in Colombia and Miami to name but two. We also had great company on the cruise as so many old cruising pals had booked this trip too. It had been hyped up as a 'wonderful adventure' so we naturally thought that P&O would pull out all the stops to make it extra special. Well it would have been had it not been for the issues with the ship.

Cabins were shabby with the furnishings in some, ie sofas, having ground in dirt on the arms and tired, wobbly fittings in bathrooms. 99% of the recliner chairs on the aft decks were broken with the seat part breaking away from the frame and sagging so that you were sitting on the spars underneath. Very uncomfortable! You could not sit on them without at least a folded towel, or, as some passengers did, using the cushions and even the pillows from the cabin! We were on 2nd sitting dining with our friends and some nights service was so slow that we did not get our main course until around 9.50. The food, when it did come was at best fairly edible but at worst (too often) completely inedible. It was often lukewarm or congealed on the plate as if it had been sitting around for ages. One friend's chicken curry consisted of 3 lumps of chicken with a streak of dried up sauce on the plate under them! Another was served coq a' vin in which the chicken turned out to be still bleeding! There was hardly any variety of vegetables served with meals and the standing joke among pax was that they'd gotten a job lot of green beans because they were served up on just about every main course!

The entertainment was mixed. Some very good, some mediocre, some very very bad! I won't go into specifics but let's just say that I don't find a trumpet player who can't even play it very well, or a mouth organ player, very exciting entertainment for a 45 minute slot in the main theatre! We did have some very good speakers onboard and enjoyed them.

Cabin Review

Outside Twin with Window

Clean but shabby fittings. Rust on window frame. Bathroom fittings loose.

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