Worthing woman’s cruise ship holiday ends early

A PASSENGER on a two week P&O cruise to the Canary Islands, which experienced technical problems causing the trip to be cut short, has spoken of her experience.

Gillian Bown, of The Boulevard, in Durrington, was one of 1800 passengers, on board the cruise ship Oriana, offered a complimentary cruise after her holiday was ended prematurely.

The ship set sail from Southampton on February 15 and did not start experiencing problems until it sailed around the Bay of Biscay, off of the West coast of France.

Mrs Bown was in a room on the top deck of the ship.

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She said: “There was a bang in the night, everything shook. We started going very slowly the next day. Nobody would say exactly what it was. They kept insisting we weren’t in danger.”

Christopher Edgington, P&O Cruises director, flew out to speak with passengers on the ship on February 21.

He issued a letter to each passenger apologising for the disruption to their holiday and said the issue was with one of the ship’s stern tube bearings.

The ship returned to Southampton three days earlier than planned so that a specialist team could carry out repairs.

Passengers were offered either a 40 per cent refund or a free P&O cruise up to the same value of the Oriana trip.

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