RUMOUR - New addition to P&O Australia fleet

[reeves35]

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

And that would keep Pacific Explorer as a P&O Australia ship till 2027. I am not sure what they have in mind for Grand but I can't see how 3 very similar ships sailing for P&O would make any sense ...... oh wait, Princess did that here already with Sun/Dawn/Sea. I would like to think that come 2027, one of those Dam vista ships would look great in P&O colours, Zuiderdam will be 25yrs old in 2027.

Yes, like me, you tend to see Dora being replaced by something around 90K tonnes rather the larger and, by then, quite aged Grand Princess. 

 

Given P&O Australia could theoretically draw a new fleet member from across the wider Carnival Corp fleet, there are quite a number of early 2000's vessels that may be available to them.  This could include Carnival Spirit class, Princess Coral class, HAL Vista class which also includes things like P&O UK Arcadia and Costa's Luminosa class which is really a subset of the Spirit class.

 

What is almost certain is Dora won't be replaced by a newbuild.  No one, except the premium lines, are building sub 100K ships anymore and P&O Australia never gets newbuilds anyway.

 

[cruisingrob21]

1 hour ago, reeves35 said:

Yes, like me, you tend to see Dora being replaced by something around 90K tonnes rather the larger and, by then, quite aged Grand Princess. 

 

Given P&O Australia could theoretically draw a new fleet member from across the wider Carnival Corp fleet, there are quite a number of early 2000's vessels that may be available to them.  This could include Carnival Spirit class, Princess Coral class, HAL Vista class which also includes things like P&O UK Arcadia and Costa's Luminosa class which is really a subset of the Spirit class.

 

What is almost certain is Dora won't be replaced by a newbuild.  No one, except the premium lines, are building sub 100K ships anymore and P&O Australia never gets newbuilds anyway.

 

Valid points.  As Carnival and Princess add a few more large ships, they will unload one or two smaller ships to cut costs and still provide the same number of berths to their various geographical trades.

 

While the HAL Vista's are certainly getting there in age, I think its unlikely any will be heading to a sister line anytime soon.  HAL has nothing on the orderbook and is still down about 3 ships from pre-pandemic levels but not that far off in total berths (although its difficult to tell where to make that "cut" given that the NS and Rotterdam were planned builds before C-19, but with a different name for the R).

 

Carnival Corps building spree in the aughts certainly represents a large portion of the fleet.  Most of the current HAL, Princess fleet are from that era, and a fair size of the Carnival fleet is as well.  Those ships are all built with the older SOLAS requirements also (lifeboats above an exterior promenade) but I'm not sure if that figures in to things as much.  With few newbuilds on the horizon per CCL filings, it will be interesting to see if what happens to many of these ships as they approach the 25-30 year age.

[arxcards]

1 hour ago, reeves35 said:

Yes, like me, you tend to see Dora being replaced by something around 90K tonnes rather the larger and, by then, quite aged Grand Princess. 

 

Given P&O Australia could theoretically draw a new fleet member from across the wider Carnival Corp fleet, there are quite a number of early 2000's vessels that may be available to them.  This could include Carnival Spirit class, Princess Coral class, HAL Vista class which also includes things like P&O UK Arcadia and Costa's Luminosa class which is really a subset of the Spirit class.

 

What is almost certain is Dora won't be replaced by a newbuild.  No one, except the premium lines, are building sub 100K ships anymore and P&O Australia never gets newbuilds anyway.

 

😂 Remember this one. P&O Cruises to Build New Cruise Ship for Australia | Carnival Corporation & plc

 

Then the spin that made it seem that getting Dawn Princess into P&O colours and Carnival "upgrading" to Splendor was a better deal for us.

[ceeceeDee]

Go the Spin Doctors!!!

[Ondine]

2 hours ago, arxcards said:

😂 Remember this one. P&O Cruises to Build New Cruise Ship for Australia | Carnival Corporation & plc

 

Then the spin that made it seem that getting Dawn Princess into P&O colours and Carnival "upgrading" to Splendor was a better deal for us.

 

Ah I remember that.  I was on Pacific Jewel when that announcement came out and all the crew including Captain Gavin Pears were over the moon.  Big smiles every where. 

Then reality set in and it was downgraded to be "Carnival Splendor would be a better fit".  The brand new ship would be too big for us.

But even that got downgraded again and they ended up with Dawn Princess.

Ah - the stuff of dreams.

[ceeceeDee]

In other words, don't get your hopes up

[reeves35]

1 hour ago, Ondine said:

 

Ah I remember that.  I was on Pacific Jewel when that announcement came out and all the crew including Captain Gavin Pears were over the moon.  Big smiles every where. 

Then reality set in and it was downgraded to be "Carnival Splendor would be a better fit".  The brand new ship would be too big for us.

But even that got downgraded again and they ended up with Dawn Princess.

Ah - the stuff of dreams.

The only thing that turned out to be true was it would be too big for AU.  The newbuild originally allocated to P&O AU that ended up going to P&O UK is now the Arvia.  At 180K tonnes, it is hard to see how it could be used down here and achieve anything approaching good loads year-round.

 

[arxcards]

41 minutes ago, reeves35 said:

The only thing that turned out to be true was it would be too big for AU.  The newbuild originally allocated to P&O AU that ended up going to P&O UK is now the Arvia.  At 180K tonnes, it is hard to see how it could be used down here and achieve anything approaching good loads year-round.

 

The new P&O Australia ship that was swapped out became Carnival Panorama in 2019 at 134K. Still a bit big for the islands.

[Royalty X]

P&O have always gone to great efforts to update public areas, but in terms of soft furnishings in cabins, these tend to be updated as a very last resort.

 

They have operated a fleet of similar ships previously, which Pearl, Dawn and Jewel all being very similar, so I don’t doubt they could/would put Grand with Pacific Adventure and Pacific Encounter (ex- Golden and Star Princesses).

 

I know pax on the 3 day comedy cruise (following my parent’s cruise) were emailed 48 hours prior to departure and told that the ship wouldn’t be sailing for a lot of their time “at sea”. She was set to anchor so that work could be done on the hull. I’m uncertain what sort of work would be done, but perhaps she’s really not in good shape, and not just cosmetically. Mind you, if it were in really terrible shape, they should be cancelling cruises and putting her in to dry dock.

 

At any rate, as I said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this news was more than a rumour.

[MMDown Under]

2 hours ago, Royalty X said:

P&O have always gone to great efforts to update public areas, but in terms of soft furnishings in cabins, these tend to be updated as a very last resort.

 

They have operated a fleet of similar ships previously, which Pearl, Dawn and Jewel all being very similar, so I don’t doubt they could/would put Grand with Pacific Adventure and Pacific Encounter (ex- Golden and Star Princesses).

 

I know pax on the 3 day comedy cruise (following my parent’s cruise) were emailed 48 hours prior to departure and told that the ship wouldn’t be sailing for a lot of their time “at sea”. She was set to anchor so that work could be done on the hull. I’m uncertain what sort of work would be done, but perhaps she’s really not in good shape, and not just cosmetically. Mind you, if it were in really terrible shape, they should be cancelling cruises and putting her in to dry dock.

 

At any rate, as I said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this news was more than a rumour.

This type of thing - setting to anchor, rather than cruising on 3 day cruise - seems to be becoming more frequent.  Will passengers receive a suitable discount? 

[arxcards]

3 hours ago, Royalty X said:

P&O have always gone to great efforts to update public areas, but in terms of soft furnishings in cabins, these tend to be updated as a very last resort.

 

They have operated a fleet of similar ships previously, which Pearl, Dawn and Jewel all being very similar, so I don’t doubt they could/would put Grand with Pacific Adventure and Pacific Encounter (ex- Golden and Star Princesses).

 

I know pax on the 3 day comedy cruise (following my parent’s cruise) were emailed 48 hours prior to departure and told that the ship wouldn’t be sailing for a lot of their time “at sea”. She was set to anchor so that work could be done on the hull. I’m uncertain what sort of work would be done, but perhaps she’s really not in good shape, and not just cosmetically. Mind you, if it were in really terrible shape, they should be cancelling cruises and putting her in to dry dock.

 

At any rate, as I said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this news was more than a rumour.

The hull issue is about cleaning of fauna & flora from it, which has affected several ships this season. Some ports in NZ, particularly the fiords and Bay of Islands, require the ships to certified to be "clean". NZ put more restrictions in place for this just before the pandemic, and during the pause most of the ships got "dirty" at anchor and subsequently failed their compliance inspections.

 

With Explorer heading-off soon for a season based in Auckland, it appears that there are even more restrictions, and they scheduled for divers to clean the hull while at anchor off Bussleton. Alas, conditions were too rough, and the job is yet to be completed.

[Kiwi_cruiser]

On 5/10/2023 at 6:15 AM, reeves35 said:

YRealistically, with the inexorable growth in the size of their ships, you would expect that Princess will look to jettison Coral Princess or Island Princess in the next few years and these would make a more logical replacement for Pacific Explorer. 

 

I cannot see Princess jettison Coral Princess or Island Princess any time soon as the Coral is going back to its roots in 2025 with doing Panama canal cruises.

[Amaroo Andrew]

On 5/19/2023 at 3:43 AM, Kiwi_cruiser said:

 

I cannot see Princess jettison Coral Princess or Island Princess any time soon as the Coral is going back to its roots in 2025 with doing Panama canal cruises.

I see Ruby Princess is booked in to do quite a few canal transits.

[reeves35]

On 5/19/2023 at 3:43 AM, Kiwi_cruiser said:

 

I cannot see Princess jettison Coral Princess or Island Princess any time soon as the Coral is going back to its roots in 2025 with doing Panama canal cruises.

Following the widening of the Panama Canal (opened in 2016) the old Panamax restrictions no longer apply with ships up to 160K tons now able to transit.  This means both Grand Class and Royal Class ships are able to go through the new locks. 

[SinbadThePorter]

29 minutes ago, reeves35 said:

Following the widening of the Panama Canal (opened in 2016) the old Panamax restrictions no longer apply with ships up to 160K tons now able to transit.  This means both Grand Class and Royal Class ships are able to go through the new locks. 

 

But for purists it's the old locks or nothing. 🙂

[MMDown Under]

48 minutes ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

But for purists it's the old locks or nothing. 🙂

😀

[reeves35]

4 hours ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

But for purists it's the old locks or nothing. 🙂

Probably, but for most cruisers, they wouldn't know the difference or care.

[arxcards]

On 5/21/2023 at 2:24 PM, SinbadThePorter said:

 

But for purists it's the old locks or nothing. 🙂

I agree. The new locks look boring in comparison. Way too efficient.

[arxcards]

On 5/19/2023 at 3:43 AM, Kiwi_cruiser said:

 

I cannot see Princess jettison Coral Princess or Island Princess any time soon as the Coral is going back to its roots in 2025 with doing Panama canal cruises.

I agree. We will do the Panama on Crown's 2025 world cruise but are already aware it will be 2nd prize vs the old locks.

 

The lives of Coral and Island are not indefinite, but there has been a fair clean-out of the fleet to cover for a few more years. The newbuild schedule has also slowed. Grand or Sapphire will be next, but who knows where and when.

 

P&O Australia ships are, well, old. They tend to retire around age 30, which puts the shelf life of Pacific Explorer at around 2027. Given there are no current issues apart from looking old and tired in places and having a dirty hull, she will serve most of her remaining sentence with P&O.

[MMDown Under]

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

I agree. We will do the Panama on Crown's 2025 world cruise but are already aware it will be 2nd prize vs the old locks.

 

The lives of Coral and Island are not indefinite, but there has been a fair clean-out of the fleet to cover for a few more years. The newbuild schedule has also slowed. Grand or Sapphire will be next, but who knows where and when.

 

P&O Australia ships are, well, old. They tend to retire around age 30, which puts the shelf life of Pacific Explorer at around 2027. Given there are no current issues apart from looking old and tired in places and having a dirty hull, she will serve most of her remaining sentence with P&O.

Re P&O Australia ships, Are they well maintained?  I have cruised on a lot of old well maintained cruise ships, which are a joy to cruise on.

[arxcards]

5 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

Re P&O Australia ships, Are they well maintained?  I have cruised on a lot of old well maintained cruise ships, which are a joy to cruise on.

Yes. It takes lots of TLC to keep older ships running. Age is a relative thing, but they are required to pass the same compliance inspections as the newer ships.

[MMDown Under]

41 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Yes. It takes lots of TLC to keep older ships running. Age is a relative thing, but they are required to pass the same compliance inspections as the newer ships.

I was wondering if it was more financially viable to maintain old small ships because they can charge a premium for cruises?

Some of the small ships I’ve cruised on are owned by one company and leased by another company which runs the cruises.

 

[arxcards]

17 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

I was wondering if it was more financially viable to maintain old small ships because they can charge a premium for cruises?

Some of the small ships I’ve cruised on are owned by one company and leased by another company which runs the cruises.

 

A bit like a car I guess. For most, the money goes to the bank when they are new, then to the mechanic when they are older. There is a sweet spot in the middle, but also a point when they get to be unreliable or cantankerous and eventually sent off to become razor blades.

[MMDown Under]

1 minute ago, arxcards said:

A bit like a car I guess. For most, the money goes to the bank when they are new, then to the mechanic when they are older. There is a sweet spot in the middle, but also a point when they get to be unreliable or cantankerous and eventually sent off to become razor blades.

Yes, but I have old cars.  My girlfriend is currently getting her house repainted  Her painter said she was wise to get her house painted before the paint deteriorated.  If my house was a ship, it is approaching the razor blade stage!   Hate to think what my painting quote will be.  

[arxcards]

2 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

Yes, but I have old cars.  My girlfriend is currently getting her house repainted  Her painter said she was wise to get her house painted before the paint deteriorated.  If my house was a ship, it is approaching the razor blade stage!   Hate to think what my painting quote will be.  

My car is as old as Diamond Princess, and the same country or manufacture. I love the drive, but it is starting to cost a bit more to run. I certainly wouldn't part with it just because it needs a good clean though.