Out with the old & in with the new

Out with old and in with the new is what they say, and if you haven’t yet been told The Oriana is to be sold. Yes, that’s right P&O are selling The Oriana but not until August 2019 – I haven’t anymore details on this yet as to who she’s being sold to and what her new name will be.

Any sailings in the foreseeable future will go ahead as planned and for all those who are affected as of August 2019 will be informed.  Stay tuned and check back for updates on The Oriana.

P&O are also having a new ship and this will be the Iona. She will be the biggest ship to date in the P&O fleet. Rivalling some of the cruise lines like Royal Caribbean for guest capacity as she will be able to accommodate some 5,200 guests.

The new Iona will go on sale as of September 2018 and of course the itineraries are yet to be confirmed. I’m sure many loyal cruisers to P&O will be looking out for those.

I like the fact that P&O are having some bigger ships but do you think this will put off the their past loyal passengers. The Azura and Ventura were considered quite big and then along came the Britannia, the latest flag ship currently in the fleet. Now the Iona is going to be the biggest yet.

A lot of my loyal P&O customers tell me they book with P&O as they like the size of the ships and compared to some of the American fleet like Royal Caribbean, they find them just too big. We know the American’s like everything big. Don’t get me wrong I am a fan of the larger ships myself but I wonder if this is the right move for P&O to be selling the smaller ships and having new large ships.

Time will tell if they get the same repeat business from loyal customers or are they trying to attract a new clientele? What do you think?