AURORA ON THE WHOLE VERY GOOD

We booked this cruise on recommendation from friends and also as we had not visited the Canaries before. This was a ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ themed cruise and offered guests opportunities to meet key characters from the series and to enjoy the many dancing opportunities aboard.

The ship is 14 years old and will undergo a major refit in November. In general the ship is still looking good only visible signs of age were paint peeling from roof on our balcony and general tiredness of the cabin furniture. The toilet plumbing broke-down twice but was soon rectified. Otherwise the ship’s main rooms remain well-fitted out and comfortable with many places you can just ‘escape’ and enjoy privacy.

We dined 2nd sitting ‘Silver Service’ in the Alexander restaurant, with the seated Medina open for breakfast/lunch and the Orangery for self-service/informal dining. The ‘Bordeaux’ restaurant applies a supplement for evening-dining but not for breakfast/lunch. The food is excellent although the menu choice is limited and you may have to wait to be seated at busy times. There is also a Costa Coffee bar aboard (chargeable). Waiter service was satisfactory throughout and although the waiters seemed rushed at times we had no real complaints.

Note: We do understand however that the ‘Silver Service’ may be withdrawn by P&O on future cruises/ships and replaced with ‘plated’ meals which may be more economic but definitely is a reduction in the level of service we come to expect from P&O.

The fellow cruise-passengers were generally aged 60 plus with one chap over 90. There were several wheel-chair bound passengers aboard but all seemed to enjoy this cruise.

Weather was generally great only one rainy day at El Ferrol (N.Spain) not a Port we would chose as the main attraction was the excursions to Santiago del Compostella cathedral. El Ferrol generally sleepy little town with no attractions. Otherwise Lisbon, Lanzarote, La Palma, Gran Canary and Madeira were great. Excursions were made to the Fire Mountain (Lanzarote) – lke being on another planet and Gran Canary (including Maspalomas which looks fantastic – huge sand-dunes, modern resort). Maderia and Lisbon were ports that we toured with the hop-on/hop-off buses, reasonable and informative.

The ship did encounter a bout of ‘novovirus’ the exact number of cases was never disclosed although we did wonder if it was brought aboard by passengers/crew or previously existed. The electric hand-dryers in the public toilets had been switched off before we left Southampton. The outbreak was professionally-contained by the crew and Captain Vago gave us daily up-dates, the outbreak was more or less over by the time we returned to Southampton. The outbreak did affect the service in the restaurants where the self-service became staff-service and even the salt/pepper shakers were removed and everything delivered by gloved-waiters.
The ‘Headliners’ dancers only provided 2 performances, we do not know the exact reason why they did not perform again but P&O quickly substituted other performer’s including a male vocalist, who unfortunately had a similar repertoire as the existing vocalist.
The outbreak was never severe as we would not have been allowed to berth at all the Ports and the itinerary was kept as scheduled.

Nevertheless performances from the ship’s orchestra and performers including ‘Caravan’ ( a 5 piece band) and Lyn Frederiks, vocalist were excellent and the Entertainment Director ‘Michael’ did a great job of keeping us informed and entertained.

It was perhaps unfortunate the most guests chose 1st sitting which meant that after dinner, there were more passengers visiting the theaters than seats were available. On one occasion P&O placed a live TV ‘feed’ into the disco for those who could not be seated. Pity that many 1st sitting passengers chose to complain rather than wait until the 2nd performances later in the evening although this would have ended around mid-night and perhaps a little too late for some. However 2nd-sitting diners were able to eat at leisure and had no problem deciding upon what to see.

We enjoyed Aurora and would certainly sail with her again although I’ll wait for a few more reviews after her ‘refit’.