The British Royal Wedding at Sea

Pacific Ocean – 4 May 2011.

Hello Nigel with you once more.


We are out in the North Pacific Ocean on our run up from Acapulco (which we left yesterday), to San Francisco where we arrive on Saturday. The Pacific is the world’s largest ocean; it extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. Arcadia will be in the North Pacific Ocean 38 days in all from when we did our transit of the Panama Canal on 28 April to when we re-transit it on 2 June.

Today I am going to tell you all about our Royal Wedding celebrations on Arcadia and what a fantastic time our passengers had. P&O Cruises is Britain’s number one cruise line and it was only fitting we celebrated the wedding of His Royal Highness Prince William and Kate Middleton in style onboard Arcadia and throughout the seven ships in our fleet.

P&O Cruises and her sister companies have a long association with the British Royal Family.

The ‘Ophir’ on 9 November 1900 was chartered by the Admiralty to act as Royal Yacht to take the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George V and Queen Mary) to Australia for the opening of the first Commonwealth Parliament.

The ‘Medina’ on 11 November 1911 sailed for Bombay to act as Royal Yacht to carry King George V and Queen Mary to the Delhi Durbar.

His Royal Highness Prince William’s mother The Princess of Wales named Royal Princess in Southampton on 15 November 1984.

These are just a few of many Royal connections to P&O Cruises and the cruise industry.

Through the wonders of modern technology we managed to broadcast the entire live coverage of the Royal Wedding on the BBC World Service, this was shown in our 736 seat Palladium theatre and also on the passenger TV system. On 29 April we were six hours behind UK time so our live coverage of the big day started at 4.00am!!!! We broadcast the entire six hours of the Royal Wedding live, recorded it and then repeated it again from 10.30am to 4.30pm. The Palladium has a cinema screen and two large side screens so our passengers really had a fantastic front row seat for the day of celebration.

Apart from the TV coverage we had many other events and activities happening throughout the day; at 10.30am our Executive Chef Trevor Connolly did a ‘Wedding Cake Demo’, this was to standing room only in ‘The Globe’, which is our multi-purpose entertainment lounge.

We had two Royal related quizzes throughout the day, an individual quiz in the morning and a syndicate quiz in the evening.

For most of the afternoon we had a old fashioned ‘Street Party’ at the Aquarius Pool area, my team ran some traditional fête games, the band played, the sun shone down and everyone had a very good time!!!

On 28 April we screened the award winning British film ‘The King's Speech’ and on the day of the Royal Wedding the film ‘Young Victoria’.

At 3.30pm we had a ‘Royal Tea Dance’, and during dinner service complimentary champagne was served and Captain Kevin Opray gave a Royal Wedding Toast. Apart from dinner service in our main Meridian Restaurant, a special Royal Gourmet Dinner was available in our Gary Rhodes restaurant and a Royal Curry Dinner in the Orchid Restaurant.

In honour of the Royal Wedding our Headliners Theatre Company performed their production show ‘True Brit’ - this lavish musical celebrates the very best of British Musical Theatre. We gave all passengers a British flag to wave during the show, and I can inform you they sure did a lot of waving!!

We also had a Great British Pub Night in the Rising Sun Pub, and a Royal Gala Ball for our keen Ballroom and Latin American dancers.

We decorated a number of the ship's areas for the big day.

As you see there was a great deal going on but throughout the entire day we made sure at least two of our public lounges and bars were kept free of activities for those passengers who did not necessarily want to join in the celebrations.


I do hope you enjoy the photographs today!

We had some stowaways for the Royal Wedding Celebration on board, some very good looking birds!!! The Brown Booby is a large seabird who obviously likes holidays with P&O Cruises!!!

This wonderful cake was created to mark 100 ships in the fleet of the 10 Carnival companies which includes P&O Cruises.

This is our wedding cake created by just some of our talented team of chefs on board.

The wedding cake team, led by Executive Chef Trevor Connolly.

Executive Chef Trevor Connolly, Deputy Cruise Director Nikki, and Entertainment Officer Paul about to start the ‘Wedding Cake Demo’.

Our good looking front of house team at their decorated reception desk! Left to right Sudeep, Shayonara, Front of House Manager Kylie, Rosalie and Francisco.
 

Myself, Chief Engineer Charlie Hill, Captain Kevin Opray, Deputy Captain Derek Grey in the Meridian Restaurant prior to Captain Opray giving the Royal Toast.

The ‘Street Party’ at the Aquarius Pool Area.

The Happy Couple even arrived at the Street Party!

Myself and the Executive Purser David Hall at the Street Party.

DJ Wayne and Entertainment Officer Anton enjoying the fun, sun and games!

Entertainment Officers Lucy-Emma and Lisa.

Entertainment Officers Kylie and Jane.

Entertainment Officer Kylie having a really good time!!

Ship scenes on the Royal Day.
 

The Shore Excursions Desk all decorated for the big day.


Bye for now, I will be back with you from San Fran in a few days.

Nigel