Dan Senior sails with P&O Cruises to Oporto

I’ve certainly done a few interesting gigs in my time with C&B, but this one probably takes the biscuit…

P&O Cruises is a very important customer of ours and we proudly supply their cruise ships with a number of our wines.  With small armies of passengers setting sail just about every day, of course, there are a lot of thirsty holiday makers to keep happy.

So, partly because of my involvement in wine tasting events and courses at C&B , I was offered the opportunity to spend a couple of days aboard the good ship ‘Aurora’, as a guest speaker, over the August bank holiday weekend.  Accompanied by my girlfriend Holly (a glamorous assistant is always helpful in these sorts of situations!) I took the train down to Southampton early on Sunday morning.    

Boarding Aurora was an interesting experience in itself, as our taxi drew up alongside the biggest piece of metal I’ve ever seen.  More like a floating city than simply a ship, I began to understand something about the almost intimidating scale on which P&O Cruises does these things.  I also admit to panicking slightly when asked for my rank by the member of staff who met us at the crew office.  Stuck for ideas, we did briefly consider just making it up and signing in as ‘Field Marshal’ and ‘Starship Trooper’ but, with some clarification from the P&O Cruises representative, ultimately settled on the slightly circular ‘Guest Entertainer & Guest’. 

Once safely on board and settled into our cabin on Deck 5 (of 13), my mission for the voyage was basically twofold in leading some staff training and entertaining the passengers.  I was feeling reasonably confident about doing both, but soon realised that I had some competition:  a forensic archaeologist was a few cabins down from us (no doubt armed with dramatic stories of gruesome murders they had helped to solve) as was Joe Royle, ex-England player and Premiership manager. 

So, over the course of Monday morning, I do hope I lived up to expectations with both staff and passengers.  My time with the first of those groups on some of the wines on the new and improved P&O Cruises list certainly seemed well spent.  We talked through nine of our wines on the Aurora list, including The Lane Unwooded Chardonnay, Santa Florentina Pinot Gris and the much loved (as I was to learn from staff) P&O Cruises Prosecco from Le Colture.

My session with the passengers was a 40 minute talk, looking at different wine making regions around world (appropriately enough on board a ship sailing the globe) followed by a tasting of four of our wines.  James Franklin and I had worked hard on the maps and images to make sure we avoided any sense of a classroom lecture and, perhaps more importantly, Cranswick Smith Cabernet Merlot seemed to go down particularly well… 

I’ve done tastings many times before, of course, so it all felt quite comfortable.  I could never quite escape the slightly surreal feeling, however, of doing it at around 20 knots, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.  Combine that with the experience of being two cruise ship novices aboard this huge, seafaring metropolis, Holly and I felt not just privileged to have been invited, but also that we’d experienced something unique. 

And so, my professional missions complete, Holly and I had a little bit of time to explore the ship and to enjoy a particularly good dinner, including rump steak and a bottle of Argentinian Malbec in the evening.  We headed up to the top deck to enjoy the fresh air and sense of space you get from ocean sailing (always appreciated by two people who live in Central London) before heading down the gangway early on Tuesday, seamlessly trading places with the ‘whale and dolphin expert’ and his wife!    

A brief tour of Oporto (port cellars included, of course) and rounded off by another great meal at a fantastic local restaurant (Cafeina, recommended to us by Sandra Tavares, before flying home.  Great trip – and I really must check whether P&O Cruises will need a guest entertainer for its next cruise to Sydney…