| UPPER PASSENGER DECK - DECK 8 FORWARD © matt@hhvferry.com |
| The Club Lounge forward on Deck 8 is without doubt the most outstanding area of the Darwin sisters. Decorated in beiges, browns and deep reds, the lounge contains a variety of substantial furniture, including sofas, chaise longes, armchairs and plush stools. The bar counter is found to port, lined with high bar stools, whilst business desks are found in a quiet corner to starboard. The lounge offers impressive views over the bow, similar to those in the Horizon Lounge. Prints of old P&O liners grace the walls of what is a particularly elegant space with a capacity for 126 people. Prior to the Darwin conversion, the forward end of Deck 8 (then denoted C Deck) was the location of the main on-board facilites; little of the original interiors remain. Essentially the space now occupied by the Club Lounge was a 152-seat self service cafetera, Langan's on the port side was an open-plan lounge/bar taking 121 whilst the starboard space which currently houses the Harbour Coffee Company was the location of the galley and crew/officers messes. |
| Click below to return to the Darwin index |
| Below: Looking directly across to starboard from adjacent to the bar counter on Pride of Canterbury. |
| Top: The Club Lounge on Pride of Canterbury, looking aft/across to starboard from the large forward windows, showing the exceptionally high standard of finish in these lounges. |
| Below: The bar counter in the Darwin twins' Club Lounge is located to port - this is the view on Pride of Canterbury. |
| Club Lounge (Deck 8 forward) |
 |
 |
 |
| Below: Despite the high standard of finish in the Club Lounge, it still appears to have something of an identity crisis... Here a pair of new and old door tags happily sit alongside each other on Pride of Canterbury. |
 |
| Langan's Brasserie (Deck 8 forward, port side) |
 |
| Sharing a lobby with the Club Lounge, P&O's standard on-board restaurant brand, Langan's Brasserie, is located off to port. Seating 98 in exclusive and comfortable surroundings, the restaurant is a significant improvement on the rather improvised version found on the ship's predecessor P&OSL Canterbury, where the restaurant was essentially open-plan to the Horizon Lounge. Served from the same galley as the aft International Food Court, the restaurant features a mixture of high-backed seating around the perimiter and smaller chairs in the centre section, with maroon and off-gold colours employed. Black and white prints of movie stars and other celebrities line the walls, as in the original Langan's on Mayfair in London, and similar in style to the Metropolitan Restaurant and Food Cities of Stena Danica, Stena Europe and other new image Stena ships. |
| Above & Below: Looking forward and aft in Langan's on the Pride of Canterbury. |
 |
| Harbour Coffee Company (Deck 8 forward, starboard side) |
| This space was referred mysteriously on preliminary information as a Harbour Coffee Company (HCC) 'Express', in addition to a main HCC located on the deck below. This would have mirrorred the duplication of this facility on board previous new-starter P&OSL Aquitaine, but in the event P&O's designers managed to summon the imagination to finish the latter as Caffé Oliveto instead. This then left the smaller Deck 8 space to be finished as the sole representative of this brand on board. |
 |
| Above: Looking forward/to port in the Harbour Coffee Company on Pride of Kent. The servery is located inboard, whilst the furniture is in dark, earthy tones; just visible to the right of the picture is one of a pair of matching murals. |
 |
| Above: Looking aft, the second of the murals is seen. The laminate flooring which is used extensively on board marks out the walkways, including the upper starboard-side arcade which can be seen stretching aft in the background. This leads past the truckers' restaurant to the International Food Court and features the same furniture as the HCC. (Picture from Pride of Kent) |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Below: The original self-service cafeteria on board the European class as built, in the location of what is now the Club Lounge. This picture is from European Pathway (now Pride of Canterbury). |
| Below: The self-service servery was set back just aft from the seating area. |
 |
| e-mail: matt@hhvferry.com |