P&O Cruises will add two more ships to its Australian fleet next year, giving it the largest number of cruise ships ever homeported year-round in the country.
The company’s Australian operator, Carnival Group, said the additional ships will transfer to P&O from Holland America Line, delivering “much needed capacity in the world’s fastest growing cruise market”.
“This is a very exciting development for the Carnival Group, P&O Cruises and for our shipside and shore-side teams who have worked so passionately and effectively to build the business and the cruise category,” said Ann Sherry, CEO of Carnival Australia.
“With the P&O expansion, Carnival Group will have 12 ships homeported in Australia with fleets from P&O Cruises, Carnival Cruise Lines and Princess Cruises calling Australia home.”
The two ships will join P&O Cruises in November 2015 and Carnival said that it is currently working on the itineraries and homeporting arrangements for the expanded fleet.
Both ships will be of a similar mid-range size to P&O’s three existing Australian ships, Pacific Dawn, Pacific Jewel and Pacific Pearl, which can each carry approximately 2,000 passengers.
“The ships are a perfect size for the Australian market. They are intimate, offering space, comfort and style, giving passengers more destinations to choose from, more onboard experiences to indulge in and more reasons to cruise,” said P&O’s senior vice president, Tammy Marshall.
“We face a very busy time in preparing for the arrival of the two ships and their integration into the existing P&O Cruises fleet and look forward to announcing the exciting new itineraries, onboard features and other great additions over the coming months.”
Carnival said the five-ship fleet would enable it to offer cruises to “new destinations such as Papua New Guinea and Asia”.
Comments are closed.