The first leg of dream holiday to the other side of the world has ended in disappointment for a Tenby couple. Retired hoteliers, Shirley and Bryn Draper, were due to have sailed to New Zealand on the £200 million luxury liner 'Aurora', a 46-day trip that was to have followed the route taken by Shirley's grandmother when she emigrated a century ago. Instead, the couple, who had planned the trip to celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary, were back at home after spending only 10 days on board the liner, which suffered persistent problems with its propulsion system and led to P and O cancelling the voyage. "We were due to take in 15 ports on the way to Auckland, but instead we only made it round the Isle of Wight twice on test runs and went on day trips to Southampton and Portsmouth," said Shirley, who also celebrated her birthday while on board. "We are disappointed as we booked the trip a year last November and we were really looking forward to sailing around South America, and visiting Rio de Janeiro, where there is a harbour very much like that of my home town of Wellington," she continued. "We had also booked to have a Welsh afternoon tea in Patagonia and were also looking forward to sailing around the Easter Islands and the Cape Horn which was the route my grandmother took when she went out to New Zealand for the first time over 100 years ago. "It would have been the first time that we would have gone to New Zealand that way and going on a cruise like that is really the only way to go." The couple, who decided to come home after P and O revised the itinerary last Tuesday night which sadly would have cut out a lot of the places we wanted to see, have been offered a full refund and 25 per cent off another cruise. "Apart from the disappointment of not getting any further than the Isle of Wight we have got no other complaints," said Shirley. "There was a great atmosphere on the ship, the facilities on board were wonderful and we had a lovely cabin. The crew really could not have done more for us, nothing was too much trouble, and when it was my birthday, I had a lovely cake and all the waiters sang to me." Now the couple have decided to fly to New Zealand to visit Shirley's mother and go on the South Island trip they booked three years ago. "The South Island trip gets booked up very quickly so we really didn't want to miss out on that," said Shirley. "If we had stayed on the ship we would not have got to New Zealand until after it had departed and we really didn't want to miss out on that too so we decided to fly out to New Zealand instead. At least if there is a problem with the plane, they can put another one on," said Shirley.