The END of an era

March 23 2025

The end of an era has arrived. P&O Australia has now closed its doors.

P&O Australia was the only cruise line that serviced our Australian waters year round.

The cruise line was established 90 years ago as a subsidiary of P&O U.K. and operated passenger sailings from the U.K. to Australia.

Over the next 90 years, these passenger voyages evolved into cruise holidays that led to P&O adopting the brand name of P&O Cruises, with the Australian service eventually becoming P&O Cruises Australia.

In the 1980’s, P&O consisted of the Oriana and in 1988, the company purchased Sitmar Cruises who owned the Fairstar. This ship was rebranded P&O and was to become the first ship permanently based in Australia.

Fairstar was replaced by the Fair Princess in 1997, which was obtained from Princess Cruises and sailed til 2001

In 2000, P&O Group split up all of it’s cruise ship operations into separate cruise lines and the Australian subsidiary was no exception. P&O Australia along Princess Cruises, AIDA Cruises and P&O Cruises all became part of the P&O Princess Cruises company.

in April 2003 the new P&O Princess Cruises company merged with Carnival Corporation.

in June 2024, an announcement was made that would mean the closure of P&O Australia as we knew it. P&O Australia would be absorbed by Carnival Cruise line from March 2025.

Of the current fleet, only the Pacific Adventurer and the Pacific Encounter, would be rebranded and the final ship, the Pacific Explorer, was to be sold off.

Australians have enjoyed 90 years of permanent cruising downunder, and we hope that the new Carnival Cruise line Australia will live up to the same standard and bring cruising back to the lucky country.

Please G-d the various Governments (State and Federal) assist in bringing Australia back to being the second largest cruising community per capita as it was prior to the pandemic.