A BiG day

I was wondering whether to call the title of this post "A BIG day" or "First impressions" - but I decided that it was indeed a BIG day yesterday when boarding Oriana for the first time and it is a bit early
yet to even think about stating what our first impressions of the ship are. By the time we got to bed last night around 10PM after dinner and a show in the Theatre Royal, we were exhausted. Checkin and boarding the ship at the Grain Wharf in Brisbane was relatively easy and took around an hour once the process actually started. The facility at the wharf is
quite good - but we would recommend to others that they should delay their arrival for checkin to get over the initial rush. Our checkin time was 12 Noon to 3.30PM - and (of course) we turned up at 12Noon - bad idea, because everybody else boarding in Brisbane turned up at that time as well - all couple of hundred of them. Probably the main reason I wanted to get onboard early was to have some lunch - but it would have been much better, less tiring and stressful to have a sandwich at home and arrive later after the others have been checked in.
There are obviously a large number of British people onboard -having cruised from Southampton - but there is also a LOT of Aussies, having boarded in Sydney and Brisbane. Our table for dinner last night were all
Aussies - and the only British people that we have spoken to so far have actually been on holiday in Oz and are cruising home. Dinner last night was very nice - of the same standard that we have had on P&O Australia ships (although subtly different). It is a bit difficult to describe the difference - except to say that some of the dishes are things that you would not see in Australia - eg. we had Monkfish.

OK -maybe just one "first impression" from our first day - a very early one which I reserve the right to change at some later time. We had been told that we would notice quite a difference between the P&O UK and P&O Australia ships. Last night we had a piano playing English comedian entertain us in the theatre ( which by the way is BRILLIANT - much better than any we have experienced on P&O AUS ships, except perhaps for the old Pacific Star. - very well designed with no obstructions to the view from any seat). The comedian was VERY English, and his routine was also very English ( some of it went straight over my head) - but very entertaining and a change from the usual for us. One thing that we noted about the audience is that everybody seated themselves from the back of the theatre - rather than from the front seats . Hence when we arrived the seats at the back were full and the seats at the front were empty. This appears a bit strange to us - but we hope it continues.