Busy week for P&O!

So after announcing a second new ship in the pipeline a couple of weeks ago, P&O have been hogging the cruise headlines again, for varying reasons.
The Carnival owned group currently have 8 ships sailing under the P&O flag.

* Britannia – Large family ship.
* Azura – Large family ship.
* Ventura – Large family ship.
* Oceana – Medium family ship.
* Aurora – Medium family ship.
* Oriana – Medium adults only ship.
* Arcadia – Medium adults only ship.
* Adonia – Small adults only ship. (Until March 2018)

With Adonia being sold to Azamara to be rebranded as the Azamara Pursuit, and the 2 ships on order being targeted as large family vessels, it left the company with a bit of a shortage of offerings on the adult only variety.

With This in mind, they have decided to make Aurora an adults only ship from 2019. Personally I think it’s a great idea, what with Aurora being a ship that spends 3 months of the year on a World Cruise, which you don’t tend to get many children on, it makes sense to plug the gap with the Aurora.

The 2nd headline they have managed to grab, may not be as warmly welcomed. Everyone’s favourite subject. Gratuities!! Not content with raising the charge last year from £5 to £6, they have decided to raise them once more to £7 per person per night. Whilst across the industry, this is still cheaper than the likes of Royal Caribbean and Celebrity (approx £10pppn) it will still not be a welcome move. It means they have increased the automatically added charge a whopping 40% in less than 2 years!

This is obviously not compulsory and can be amended/removed all together with a chat to guest services, and will surely make those thing more about tipping when budgeting for their cruise with the cost of a couple increasing for £140 to £196 for a 14 night voyage.