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Today we're here to celebrate P&O Cruises 90 years of providing amazing holidays to Australian's.
P&O started as a company that operated passenger shipping and freight services to the Iberian
Peninsula. It actually started at the dawn of the age of passenger ships, using steam power,
they were one of the pioneers in this area, but they had big ambitions this company and
it wanted to be able to create a network to connect Great Britain with all of the
parts of the British Empire, and so over the 19th century and into the 20th century they managed to
expand their fleet to touch all corners, and Australia was a huge part of that expansion.
I love the story that P&O started in Australia, the cruising didn't exist
like it did today, it was really just about good and passenger transport.
Well so many people who live in Australia now can trace their heritage back to a voyage on
a P&O ship. P&O was doing those line voyages that were bringing people to immigrate to Australia and
also very important in bringing people across and taking them home again, if they wanted to visit
friends and family, uh back in other parts of the world, so, so many people have that connection to
that uh the early voyage on board the P&O ships and the ability to trace that heritage back.
P&O actually did something that no other operator or Passenger Shipping Company
thought of at the time, and that was to use their passenger ships to do pleasure voyages,
and when they did this it was quite a pioneering move, it was not something
that people usually thought of to take a voyage on a ship for fun.
But P&O saw an opportunity there, 90 years ago, and did that first cruise up to Brisbane and
Norfolk Island out of Sydney and they found such a remarkable response that they committed in 1933 to
a full schedule of cruises which really started as the birth of the Australian Cruise industry!
It is the only cruise line that is designed with how Australians like to holiday in mind,
but I think secondly it really is a part of the Australian psyche, how many Australians
can trace their roots back to P&O when their ancestors or even when they came out.
Chris: So because of that P&O become Australia's homegrown line it's the cruise line that is linked
in with the heritage of Australia but also is the first name that comes to mind when people
think of those trips on board cruise ships and particularly in the 1970s and 1980s,
P&O had a really big presence here and so many people remember a voyage on board the P&O Fair
Star or a cruise on Pacific Sky and now of course bringing it through to the current
fleet with the three ships that they have it's a beautiful continuation on that heritage.
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Yeah so the ship's 90 years ago they were, they were working passenger ships they were designed
to take you from point A to point B, so even on those first cruises it was done for pleasure but
you didn't have the amenities that you have here so you know we've got water slides here
we've got Cruise Directors, entertainment Bingo, Trivia, Maritime History Lectures sometimes it's a
fantastic experience and all very immersive but on those early ships passengers had to make their own
entertainment, so the the crew on board the ship would put out an invitation to passengers on the
first day at sea to form a committee, and those on the committee could then work with the crew to
work out what entertainment we're going to do and we saw the most remarkable uh games being played,
one of my favourites that I've seen in photographs and video is 'push the bottle'
where they get beer bottles on the deck lined up and you push it along with the stick a bit
like a hockey stick and uh whoever got to the end first without knocking the bottle
over was the winner... now imagine doing that today people would be thinking 'what's going
on here?' but back then it was really about reinventing the idea of what a passenger ship
could be and trying out these new experiences and the passengers were a big part of that.
P&O prides itself on being a hundred percent Australian sourced in our produce and that
really extends to every community that we operate in, we really focus on finding local
suppliers that can provide those amazing meals and experiences to our guests,
we're excited about our 2025 summer season where we will be cruising from Fremantle on some of our
most popular cruises up the Kimberley Coast which is just an amazing place and probably
cruising is one of the only ways to see places like Kuri Bay we also go to Southeast Asia
our Asian Explorer and of course we have our fantastic signature cruises, our theme cruises
whether it be 80s or comedy Cruise there's shorter cruises when you need a little break.
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