One of Australia’s favourite ships, the Pacific Eden will be departing the P&O fleet to make way for a new and updated Golden Princess which will increase P&O’s passenger capacity.

P&O’s beloved ship will be handed over to British company Cruise & Maritime Voyages in April, 2019, and the Golden Princess will be offering voyages by the end of the year.

CMV will be refurbishing the ship in Singapore, which will include a livery change and rebranding. She will then be repositioned to Northern Europe – but she will be back.

The new ship – the name is being chosen from four explorers – will operate from Fremantle and Adelaide on selected cruises.

Otherwise, she will be dedicated to the German and Australasian markets and will be homeported in Bremerhaven and Kiel. The Australian summer 2019-20 season will be released during autumn 2018.

Dean Brazier, Managing Director of CMV Australia said, “We are delighted to be introducing such a fine new ship in our market. Astor has been an enormously successful and very popular cruise product in Australia and the new ship will significantly broaden our distribution base, raise our profile and the capacity increase will help to service growing demand. Exciting times ahead!”

Sture Myrmell, President of P&O cruises said: “While we are always sad to farewell ships, this is an exciting step forward for the brand and consistent with our comments over the past six months that the P&O Cruises Australia fleet was ready to be refreshed over time.

“This development is proof positive that we are on the course of ensuring P&O Cruises Australia has the right ships for a contemporary brand operating in a competitive market.”

In September last year, Carnival Australia made a series of announcements about the local deployment across its brands, including a decision to refresh the P&O Cruises’ fleet over time.

Pacific Eden joined the local fleet at the end of 2015 and was one of the first ships to be transformed to reflect P&O’s modern Australian look-and –feel with actress and radio host Kate Ritchie dubbed the godmother.

“I have a lot of affection for Pacific Eden because of her important role in bringing to life the distinctly modern P&O product with its signature spaces and refined decor, which have since been reflected on Pacific Explorer,” Mr Myrmell said.

“Pacific Eden gave us opportunities to take our product in a new direction, and we are primed to keep transforming our fleet with the addition of Golden Princess in 2020.

“We are currently working on itineraries for Golden Princess and I am pleased to confirm these will be on sale before the end of the year, which gives our loyal guests much to be excited about.”

Pacific Eden’s final voyage will depart on 16 March 2019. P&O will assist those guests who are booked on Pacific Eden after this date to make alternative arrangements, including their choice of:

• Rebooking on an equivalent or near equivalent cruises on other P&O Cruises’ ships
• Providing a full refund to guests for whom no alternative cruise choice is suitable (any guest whose cruise is cancelled can choose to obtain a full refund).