The big day had arrived which P&O Cruises had been publicising since March 2011 - the Grand Event! 175 years of history celebrated in Southampton with a unique thing - all seven of their current fleet would be in together. I was on Ventura so the following as from that viewpoint. Originally the line-up had been Aurora at 4am followed by Azura for 5.30am, Adonia fifteen minutes later, us with Oceana also for 6.30am, Arcadia was 7am while Oriana was fifteen minutes after that. But that all changed. Aurora was still first then it was us and Azura for 4.30am, Oriana 5am, Arcadia and Oceana at 6am while Adonia was earlier than her 6.30am time. The weather was horrendous, showers with a few dry spells and quite windy, as shown in the following photographs. Because the forward observation area was closed (aka: dolphin's mouth), the only place to go was deck 16 where you were also dripped on so as Oriana came around Dock Head, I quickly returned to my cabin to get the umbrella. Many photos already online use Photoshop to clear the weather but I don't believe in it. The following pages show exactly what difficult and ever-changing conditions we had to contend with the entire day get decent pictures, which make the results far more satisfying.
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