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"Iceland & The Fjords Cruise aboard P&O's Aurora"
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Aurora R615 2006 St Lawrence & New England cruise
-
Feb 18, 2010
- by xmaslisa
- posted in Everything Cruising
Rating:
Well after going down to soton on the thursday to get acclimatised
+5
to the good life at the De Vere, we found out that i had booked a
nice little balcony which we could see aurora from on the friday
morning which as you can imagine got me even more excited!!
check in at the QE2 terminal was really quick! we arrived at midday
and we managed to be in the crows nest (along with the goldies and
priority people) at about 1230!! dont know what happened but we just
walked straight on! dont think we were supposed to! so we had the
free champers and sarnies LOL!! we were in our cabin by 130 i think
and suitcases were waiting for us, amazing! we didnt bother going to
dinner 1st night as we got drunk with all the champers at sailaway!
so we had room service and a reasonably early night.
New York
WOW!!! on the info channel it said we would be going under the
verrazano bridge at 430am, so at 0430 we were up on the balcony
watching the sail in luckily we were on the side of manhatten. ive
never seen anything like it ever! apparantly statue of liberty was
on port side passing at approx 0445 so with wet hair and 1/2 my pjs
on legged it to the front of the ship but had missed it!!
Eventually we got off at 0830, hailed a yellow cab to ground zero
and just walked broadway and 5th ave,through soho and tribeca. we
stopped at washington state park before reaching the empire state.
wowthe views up there are fantastic! we had lunch in a pub next door
and carried on to macys, by this time i was that knackered i had to
force myself to buy something! we carried on to times square and had
a drink in the hard rock cafe, planet hollywood and numerous other
bars before getting back on board at about 2030 pissed!!
confession..tried maccies in times square!!
We carried on the party up at the pennant bar until after sailaway
which was fab and managed to see the statue of liberty this time!
Boston
Again no tours booked. we walked around the freedom trail, visited
both the replica cheers bar in quincy market and the original and
spent some time in boston common. Really nice place, very different
from NY.Had dinner at the pennant grill at 2030 before sailaway at
2300, really warm on deck.
Portland, US
Had a tour booked for fort scammel and lobster. had to use tender
boats to go ashore, that was an experience! think i got carbon
monoxide poisening!! then we took a short boat ride to the fort, it
was ok more steves thing, civil war fort but the island was stunning
and the lobster was great after i managed to crack it open!!
Bar Harbour, US
No tour booked, tender boat ashore again. we just walked around the
town and went shopping. very picturesque place and lots of xmas
shops!!
Saint John, NB
tour booked at 0800!!! jet boat ride at the reversing falls, not to
be missed it was a truly excellent day and well worth doing! we got
absoloutly soaked and s*** ourselves!! the scenery from the bay of
fundy at this time of year is stunning.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
No tour booked, we walked along the harbourside visited the atlantic
maritime museum to see the bits from the titanic and walked to the
halifax citadel.
Quebec
we booked the mountain bike ride to the montmorency falls! if you
can cycle 15 mile its well worth doing you get to see some great
fall colours and the falls are spectacular, shame i nearly died of
exhaustion and felt like i had the bike seat still glued to my
backside for 3 days after!!!
No Newfoundland due to hurricaine Isaac, Captain politely sped in
the other direction! ah well a lie in then instead of rum tasting!!
did beer and cocktail tasting instead later!!
Food
We dined most nights in the Medina on a table for 8 on table 88.
Godfrey and sunil were our waiters they were fab! we never had wine,
we saved the drinking til after!! no faults with the food at all. we
dined twice in cafe B, both times th food was also excellent and
once at the pennant grill which was our favourite. We also went to
the indian dinner in the orangery which was fab!
we used room service quite a bit and mostly had breakfast in our
cabin and used the orangery mostly for lunch.
Drinking!!
Yes we became fixtures in champions and masquerade!! never went into
Andersons looked too stuffy for us. went upto the pennant bar when
we didnt get our heads blown off with the wind!!!
Entertainment
There was the Miles Forman Trio which were a jazz type band mostly
in champions as they turned it into a NY piano bar most nights this
is where we usually saw Malc and Jan.Our favourite staff in there
was norma and vilton. We had a great british pub night in champions
also which was sooo funny! Only went to the theatre on the last
night for threats of having our legs broken by the theatre co who we
made real good friends with, we saw wicked wacky broadway and we
were gutted we didnt see any of the others cause they were
fantastic!!! Inspiration were also a good band but they ended up
having to play for the dancing in carmens most of the time or round
by the pool in the day.
Spent most of our time when we had no ports the next day in
masquerade, DJ Andy is true car crash DJ but we had such a laugh and
usually met up with friends we made and the theatre co and usually
never ended up getting out of there til 430 ish!
Didnt really do anything in the day as it wasnt really our thing
plus we were usually still hung over!! no deck quoits it was too
windy!!! the weather at all of the ports was warm and sunny, it was
a little rough crossing for the 1st couple of days force 7/8 but we
werent sick and the same on the way back for a day or 2 but it was
never a problem.
Were definately going back to do this cruise again in 09/10 but only
on Aurora!! we loved her!!
cant think of anything else! no complaints at all! everything was
just brilliant, oh and a little invite from the chief technical
officer! that was nice! ive never drank so much in 30 minutes!
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About the reviewer
xmaslisa
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Ranked #23
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Feb 15, 2010
Last Login: Mar 8, 2010 09:04 AM UTC
Last Login: Mar 8, 2010 09:04 AM UTC
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About this topic
The MV Aurora entered service in April 2000 and is owned and operated by P&O Cruises (now a part of Carnival Corporation). She was built by Meyer Werft in Germany and has a Gross Registered Tonnage (GRT) of 76,152 tonnes and is 270 metres long, with a beam of 32.20 metres. Her draught of 7.9 metres means that she can enter and exit most commercial ports around the world without much difficulty. At full capacity, she can carry up to 1,950 passengers in 939 cabins and also carries around 850 crew.
Aurora is powered is provided by four MAN B&W engines generating 14,700 kW each, powering two 20,000kW STN AEG motors that are used for propulsion. This gives her a service speed of around 24.5 knots (45.4 km/h) , with peaks up to 26.5 (during 2007 World Cruise), even reaching 29 knots (54 km/h) in trials.
History
2000-2003
After entering service in May 2000, the ship suffered several setbacks. When being christened on 27 April 2000 by HRH Princess Anne, the champagne bottle did not break — a sign of bad luck among seafarers. She also suffered from engine problems during her maiden voyage, which was aborted after eighteen hours. In March 2001, she was involved in a rescue of eleven Russian seamen after their ship capsized and sank in the South China Sea. During the rescue attempt, her crew bravely battled horrendous weather in small rescue boats trying to rescue the Russian seamen and the vessel sustained propeller damage caused by floating debris. In July 2003, she...
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Aurora is powered is provided by four MAN B&W engines generating 14,700 kW each, powering two 20,000kW STN AEG motors that are used for propulsion. This gives her a service speed of around 24.5 knots (45.4 km/h) , with peaks up to 26.5 (during 2007 World Cruise), even reaching 29 knots (54 km/h) in trials.
History
2000-2003
After entering service in May 2000, the ship suffered several setbacks. When being christened on 27 April 2000 by HRH Princess Anne, the champagne bottle did not break — a sign of bad luck among seafarers. She also suffered from engine problems during her maiden voyage, which was aborted after eighteen hours. In March 2001, she was involved in a rescue of eleven Russian seamen after their ship capsized and sank in the South China Sea. During the rescue attempt, her crew bravely battled horrendous weather in small rescue boats trying to rescue the Russian seamen and the vessel sustained propeller damage caused by floating debris. In July 2003, she...
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