Azura on the threshold of her Maiden Voyage

On reflection - what an elegant ship on the threshold of many an adventure to exotic ports of call.

My thanks to Elliott Pritchard for sending me this photo which I believe was taken by Andrew Miller from our Product Team at the shipyard in Italy.

We on Arcadia send our best wishes to our colleagues on AZURA - one ship - endless stories....

For more information on AZURA please visit

http://www.pocruises.co.uk/azura





Good Day All,

On the 20 March 2010 Arcadia was berthed in Singapore. It was an extremely busy day for me which will explain why I did not have any time to get into the City to take any photographs for the blog. What was I doing? Why was I so busy?

I spent the first three hours of the day in the Foyer helping passengers to disembark as we were only able to have one gangway in operation due to the tidal conditions. As is often the case in Singapore it was pouring with rain but this did not deter the Arcaidans as with umbrellas at the ready they set off to explore the exciting city of Singapore.

There were 10 tours available in Singapore which took you from the highlights of Singapore exploring all of the most popular sights to the Battlefield Tour which visited Kranji War Memorial where the graves of thousand of allied troops can be visited.

Other Arcadians choose to visit the Heritage of Singapore and this took them to China Town, Little India, and Arab Street which are three famous districts of this City.

No visit to Singapore would be complete without following the footsteps of Raffles. Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore, first built his Government Residence at Fort Canning Hill. At this vantage point Raffles could overlook the trading boats that used to call at Singapore river.

Of course some Arcadians found themselves having Afternoon Tea at the world famous Raffles Hotel which opened it's doors in 1887. Not only can you go to the Tiffin Room to enjoy afternoon tea, but of course a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar is a must!

I have many fond memories of our call here last year when we were out to dinner at Raffles with Paul and Chris Gould. Chris arranged that I could play the piano in the Lobby which was a rare treat. Anybody wishing to see photographs from last year can visit the older posts in this blog as we had two calls at Singapore in 2009 as part of our Grand Voyage.

Singapore is also one of our large storing ports and 8 containers ex UK were waiting for us on the dockside. Despite the heavy rain our stores team did an excellent job of emptying, loading and storing our supplies.

Singaporean Immigration Officials take their job very seriously and travelled with us from Thailand. Whilst on board they checked every passport of passengers and crew, then completed a face to face inspection at the gangways prior to allowing anybody to set foot ashore.

One retuning to Arcadia all passengers and crew had to hand their passports in and these were then rechecked by the officials and a disembarkation stamp was put into each and everyone of them before Arcadia was allowed to sail. A special thanks to Adam Sharpe from our Operations Department in Southampton for all his assistance on the day.

Must dash,

All the best,

James.



Many hands make light work