Travellers planning to book a cruise on the P&O Pacific Explorer around New Zealand may want to hold tight after an announcement by the brand. P&O Cruises revealed the Australia brand will be sunset in February. All sailings on the Pacific Explorer will be cancelled from March 2, while Pacific Adventure and Pacific Encounter will be integrated into the sister line, Carnival Cruise Line.
The announcement was made via P&O’s website, which stated the company was “immensely proud of P&O Cruises Australia’s 90-year heritage”. Carnival Corporation & plc, the cruise ship line’s parent company, announced the news on Tuesday and confirmed P&O would be integrated into Carnival Cruise Line. From March, it would no longer exist, but Pacific Encounter and Pacific Adventure would continue to sail under the Carnival Cruise Line brand.
It’s not unusual to see smaller cruise lines being restructured into larger lines. “There’s been a lot of restructuring — a lot of bigger cruise lines, you take over smaller ones,” she says. This does not mean P&O Cruises Australia is insolvent or business is tanking — rather, the parent company saw more efficiencies by restructuring the brand into its larger line.
A statement from Carnival Corporation CEO Josh Weinstein suggested the strategic move had been made to divert resources to where the most demand was. “Despite increasing Carnival Cruise Line’s capacity by almost 25 per cent since 2019, including transferring three ships fro.
