Origins In 1834,
Brodie McGhie Willcox, a ship broker from London, and
Arthur Anderson, a sailor from the Shetland Islands, formed an association with Captain Richard Bourne, a steamship owner from Dublin. In 1837, the trio won a contract and began transporting mail and passengers from England to the
Iberian Peninsula, founding the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company. In 1844, P&O expanded its passenger operations from transportation to include
leisure cruising, operating sailings from England to the
Mediterranean that were the first of their kind. Consequently, in the 1970s, P&O dedicated its passenger operations entirely to leisure cruising and, in 1977, relisted its passenger ships under the new subsidiary P&O Cruises. and
Arcadia from
Sydney, serving the
Australian market, while
Uganda operated educational cruises. All of these ships had previously operated for P&O and had been transferred to the new subsidiary. There were several changes over the following years. In 1979,
Arcadia departed the Australian fleet In 1981,
Oriana relocated to serve the Australian market, More ships departed the fleet in the following years;
Uganda in 1983, and
Sea Princess in November 1986. Unlike the older
ocean liners the company had inherited from P&O, which had originally been designed to transport passengers from one place to another, the new
Oriana was a
cruise ship, built purely for pleasure cruising. At 69,153 gross tons, she was one of the largest cruise ships in the world.
Sea Princess also returned to the fleet in 1995, now renamed
Victoria. although she suffered a disappointing start when she was forced to abandon her maiden voyage due to mechanical problems. and
Arcadia departed in 2003.
Adonia, formerly
Sea Princess and a
sister to
Oceana, replaced
Arcadia the same year, before being replaced by a newbuild
Arcadia in 2005.
Arcadia was joined by
Artemis, formerly
Royal Princess for Princess Cruises.
2008–present: expansion and modernisation ,
Netherlands in 2019, bearing the company's post-2014 livery The fleet expanded and modernised with the addition of the 116,017-ton newbuild
Ventura in 2008 and her sister
Azura in 2010.
Artemis also departed the fleet in 2011 and was replaced by a second
Adonia, which like
Artemis had formerly been
Royal Princess for Princess Cruises. In 2012, P&O Cruises celebrated the 175th anniversary of the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company by staging a 'Grand Event', in which the entire fleet was assembled in Southampton. The company's modernisation continued with the introduction of a new
livery in 2014 based on the
Union Jack, to emphasise its British heritage, and the arrival of the 143,730-ton newbuild
Britannia in 2015. More departures followed;
Adonia transferred to Carnival's new
Fathom brand between 2016 and 2017, before departing permanently in 2018, and
Oriana, the company's first newbuild, departed in 2019. In March 2020, P&O Cruises joined every cruise line worldwide in suspending passenger operations as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic. This led to the departure of
Oceana in July 2020, as Carnival sold older ships across its fleets in order to increase
liquidity. Operations would not resume until fifteen months later, in June 2021. The company continued to expand with the addition of the 184,089-ton newbuild
Iona in 2020, although her maiden voyage was delayed until the following year by the pandemic, and her sister
Arvia in 2022. These became the first ships built for the British market to be powered by
liquefied natural gas (LNG), rather than
fuel oil, in an effort to make them more
environmentally friendly. In March 2022, P&O Cruises suffered a public backlash following a
mass firing of staff by
P&O Ferries, another former subsidiary of P&O. They subsequently embarked on an
advertising campaign in national newspapers and on social media to clarify their separate ownership. ==Golden Cockerel==