This cruise took us to St Peter Port, Scrabster, Kirkwall, Stornoway and Dublin through the Irish Sea. This cruise would be a maiden call for Oriana at Scrabster.
We were on P&O Oceana just a few months before she gets a major refit so we were a little anxious as to what condition the ship would be in.
Day 1 Friday 2nd September Southampton
After a relatively short wait in the terminal we boarded Oriana and went straight to our cabin at the stern of the ship. From the cabin we were only a few steps away from the stern of the ship. The sail away was damp as you can see from the decks at the stern of the ship.
We went forward to the Crows Nest to watch as Oriana made her way out. The ship was initially held up waiting for a tanker to come through the channel and then after we started moving again we sailed into mist.
In the Crows Nest we listened to the house band and I had my first beer on-board while we waited to go down to dinner.
Dinner was at the second sitting in the Oriental which was a few decks below us at the stern. We had requested a table for eight and there were six of us on the table. The two missing passengers never did attend the second sitting. One of the passengers was from the USA, just in the UK for this cruise. She was originally from Pennsylvania and had lived at Valley Forge which was close to where we had lived. I had my default meal of of steak preceded by salad lyonnaise and followed honey and ginger ice cream.
Day 2 Saturday 3rd September St Peter Port, Guernsey
We arrived off St Peter Port to a beautiful morning which was a pleasant surprise after our departure from Southampton.
After an early breakfast we joined the queue in the Peninsular restaurant to board a tender to go ashore. This was much quicker than we’d experienced before because Oriana was using a pleasure boat that could take 100s of passengers as an extra tender. St Peter Port is very well organised to take passengers off cruise ships and once off the tender we were greeted and given a map of the town.
This visit I took the opportunity to go and do some shopping to take advantage of the VAT-free prices. Then it was time for a coffee at Dix-Neuf and take advantage of the free wi-fi there. The tide was out and I went for a walk around one of the quays to have a look at the beached boats there.
After walking through the pedestrian precinct in Market Square we decided to walk towards Castle Cornet to investigate the engine noises and screeching tyres.
La Valette was closed to traffic and was being used as a hill climb circuit.
Lunch at Octopus
After walking passed the pits along the South Esplanade we turned left to the Octopus restaurant.
We had lunch on the outside terrace, with views of Castle Cornet across the way. Lunch was very relaxed and was a Croque Monsieur accompanied by both local and imported Czech beers.
Hill climb up La Valette
I joined the handful of spectators at the start to watch the cars and bikes set off up the hill.
And further down the Esplanade were the pits with interesting old cars such as these.
We had a brief wait to catch a tender back to ship the Albert Pier. The queues were kept short as the local pleasure boat was still helping to ferry passengers.
The afternoon did cool down but we took advantage of the classic cruise ship stern on Oriana and sat in the sun and watched the world go by from Deck 9.
By the time the ship was recovering its tenders the wind had increased and I watched a yacht tacking back into St Peter Port.
At the sailaway the Captain updated us on the expected weather for the next 24 hours. The overnight run around Cornwall promised to be exciting with weather fronts coupled to the ship planning to run fast at 22 knots on its way to Scrabster. We went to the theatre to see and hear Annette Wardell sing.
The post left the ship at 13:30 and the cost of a postcard was £1.