Upon boarding AURORA I imagined her to be quite understated but I was shocked... she really is very elegant and a fantastic feeling of space. Upon arrival into my balcony stateroom, again I was very impressed...at 10years old, she is not the youngest of ships but everything was immaculate- gleaming carpets, polished wood, flat screen televisions and after bouncing around for a few minutes in the cabin excited... we wondered off to the buffet for a bite to eat and a well earned weekend drink. The buffet was incredibly busy, a completely different feel to everywhere else onboard but the food itself was fine. not mind-blowing but ok for a spot of lunch straight after 2000 passengers embarked with empty tummy’s! We then wondered past the various swimming pools, elegant teak decks dotted with Jacuzzis and headed to the one of the bars... the champions sports style bar reminded me of a pub in an airport, very busy with people very rapidly downing pints... we chose to move on passing through the casino and up to the Crows nest, this suited us a lot better, a really relaxed atmosphere and very pleasant surroundings with some light background music. By the time we had all relaxed we were almost ready to set sail across the channel towards our Belgian delight... Zebrugge, the gateway to chocolates, traditional buildings and sweeping Flemish fields.
The sail way was great, half price champagne (which was a really nice tasting champagne I have to say!)
and a band on the ground playing us out... the funnel made itself heard and off we went! Also the fact it was so cold outside gave everybody a bit of movement and we were all having such a great time already. The evening continued into the very early hours with the music playing, people laughing and everybody genuinely really enjoying themselves, myself so much I even took the plunge to serenade the sports bar with a karaoke version of The Killers, one passenger shook my hand after (He must have had a fair bit of that sail away champagne!) So later on, dancing the night away in Masquerade disco we had a great evening. Here are a couple of the Photographs including my slightly champagne fuelled karaoke! My colleagues found this quite amusing!
So, the next morning docking in a beautifully sunny and snow capped Zebrugge we headed to breakfast discovering more and more of the ship all the time before retiring for a chill out afternoon watching few movies in our lovely cabin and heading up to the spa. Now this is where I’m going to tell you about how we gasped for hours literally just wanting a lemonade with some ice, we contacted room service and it was engaged, so I left it 20 minutes and tried again, to no avail of course. Following trying several times I began to feel a little angry that I could not even pay to have a drink delivered to my cabin? So I contacted reception who "transferred me" to a dead line. Room service this weekend was completely unobtainable! This really annoyed me as we were just having a lazy afternoon, I really didn’t want to have to put all my clothes on and walk up to one of the bars. We really were thirsty though and joked how we didn’t know Belgium offered desert style attributes in December! This is one of the only things I didn’t enjoy about the ship, I found the service not up to what I have experienced before. The fact it is just a 2night cruise may have something to do with it in my opinion!
So with regards to the AURORA, I have had a great time. I think she’s a lovely ship but a few things were lacking this weekend. So anything you'd like to know more, just ask me! If not...
Happy Cruising
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