Cut Price Cruises and a New Ship

P&O are building a new ship, not just any ship of course, the largest and most innovative ever built for the British market, she will carry around 5000 passengers and will arrive in the spring of 2015

 Do they really need a new ship? Well a couple of their ships are getting a little long in the tooth now, but these are much loved ships like Oceana, Oriana  and Aurora the favourites of traditional P&O passengers who do not necessarily want a floating city to sail on.

I remember the launch of Ventura in 2008, in a blaze of publicity and bookings, I nearly went crazy booking 80 cabins for clients myself on launch day. this was also hailed as a new, innovative ship and everyone couldn`t wait to see her in the flesh. Unfortunately she didn’t, originally, quite live up to the original fuss caused. She sailed full due, of course, to the  amount of advance bookings, but then came that dreadful Christmas sailing where prices were drastically reduced as she was half empty and some not so traditional P&O passengers caused havoc on board.

Azura, Ventura`s sister ship, was all ready under construction and arrived in 2010. She was basically the same but the idea was to create a ship that was more like a traditional P&O one, just bigger and sleeker. We all geared ourselves up for another crazy launch day but instead of a blaze of glory it was more like a damp squib. People were wary, and prices for late deals had started tumbling to silly levels, school holiday dates sold well but everything else was a real disappointment.

Its now 2013 and ” Getaway ” fares look like they are here to stay. Only this week we have had  prices for a 15 night Caribbean Transatlantic cruise on Azura, at the beginning of November, starting at £ 599pp – crazy! The only reason for this is that the ship is half, or more, empty, and this is not the only sailing where prices are tumbling at the last minute increasingly annoying those client who have booked months in advance. Ventura is now loved by many passengers but this has not stopped prices tumbling on her either.

The new ship will sail in 2015 – bookings will open around April 2014 ! Maybe the name ” Britannia ” will entice clients to book, as happened when Queen Elizabeth made her debut ( although lots of those bookings were from the US market who wanted to sail on a ” Queen “).  I wait with bated breath but something makes me think that clients will be very sceptical and 5000 beds is an awful lot to to fill especially when the comment most often made about P&O at the moment is ” why bother to book early ? ”

We`ll have to see what happens, my opinion is that whilst a massive ship sailing out of Miami to the Caribbean may be hugely popular with the American market, we are not American and somehow sailing through the Bay of Biscay doesn`t have the same appeal !