Entertainment – Food and Beverage

Greetings from the gorgeous Mediterranean Sea! We are here now until the 12th November, what lucky people we are!

The title of this blog does imply that all the entertainers eat all the food and drink all the drink on Oriana! What this blog is about is the very close collaboration between these two departments on onboard. The Food and Beverage Department do outnumber us just a little bit; there are 433 of them and 89 of us!

Let’s look at the breakdown of the F&B Department, it is really impressive, 83 work in the bars, 9 work in stores, 101 work in the galley, 157 in the restaurants and 83 in what we call ‘the back of house’. This breakdown must be giving ‘boutique hotels’, small hotels and B&B owners palpitations!

Entertainment and Food and Beverage departments onboard have to be on the same wavelength, here are a few examples; we tie in the restaurant menus with our ‘Theme Nights’. When it is our Formal Black and White suggested dress code and theme night, we have a Black and White theme restaurant menu cover, when it is our Tropical Party night, (which is a Casual Tropical suggested dress code); the dinner menu is a tropical theme.

We also have a number of themed sailaway parties from ports, the biggest being our ‘Great British Sailaway’. this is always the same day as the restaurants have their Best of British dinner menu, like everything else onboard our ships we strive to make everything effortless for the passengers, but there is a great deal of thought behind everything we do, and Food and Beverage and Entertainment do work as one big team.

Heading up the F&B Department is Food and Beverage Manager Amanda Barnes. Amanda is from Bristol and has been at sea nearly nine years working so far on 6 of our P&O Cruises ships. She joined the company as a Junior Assistant Purser and has worked her way up through the ranks up to her present position, the next step up for her is Executive Purser who happens to be my boss onboard - I am personally always charming to Amanda!!

Our Executive Chef is Andrew Yuill who heads up a galley team of 101 personnel; his right hand man is Premier Sous Chef Darren Deegan. Andrew is from Glasgow and spends his leave now between Scotland and the Philippines with his wife. Darren is originally from Ballymote in County Sligo but now lives at Letterkerry, County Donegal Republic of Ireland. The galley is sub divided into different areas, and is a 24 hour operation.

The choice of bars and restaurants onboard our ships is outstanding. On Oriana we also have one of two Gary Rhodes Restaurants on P&O Cruise ships, the other one is on Arcadia.

I am always in awe of the Food and Department Department onboard, it is hugely complex operation incorporating bars, restaurants, stores, galleys, and the team of administration personnel who gel it all together.


Left to right is Myself, Premier Sous Chef Darren Degan, Food and Beverage Manager Amanda Barnes and Executive Chef Andrew Yuill.

I did manage a walk in Cadiz yesterday, it was cloudless and 25c!

We have another relaxing day tomorrow at sea, I will be back then.

Cheers

Nigel