Megan Singleton: Bloggeratlarge.com writer on the closure of P&O Cruises

P&O Cruises revealed the Australian brand will be docked for good come February 2025.

The P&O Pacific Explorer, which operates for some months of the year out of New Zealand, is being retired - with refunds on the way for customers.

BloggerAtLarge's Megan Singleton explains what the future holds for cruise-based trips.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks atb Travel with Wendy wo Tours unique
fully inclusive tours around the World.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Blogger at large dot com Meghan Singleton joins me. Now,
how are you.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm very well. How's your boys holding up? I'm getting there.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm getting there, yes, good girl. Now P and O
are pulling out of New Zealand. Is that is that
a big issue? Is that an issue for our portse,
for our businesses, for people who want to, you know,
jump on a cruise.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Well, they're actually going to be taken over by their
parent company, Carnival Corp. And refitted, rebranded, and they are
going to tour. The ships are going to come back
in again. One of the ships won't and that will
actually have an effect on the businesses that you know,
see cruise passengers come into their destinations and things. But

(01:13):
so P and I had a certain demographic that they
catered to. They were sort of low cost, all inclusive,
off for a good time, you know, cruisers to know
where sometimes you know, with like a country music theme
or comedians or whatever it was. You know, So they've
been sailing here for a very long time, about manenty
odd years or something. So I was at a panel

(01:36):
discussion lunch this week on cruising, and we looked at
cruising trends, but of course this was the elephant in
the room that we had to talk about. So, you know,
it's been hit by the high costs of basing a
ship in our waters, the fuel costs, the government regulations
and red tape, and we're a small population. So for

(01:57):
a big company like that to serve just these waters
for such a long time, the costs were just getting
a bit out of control. So look, Carnival actually are
the parent company of Holland America Line Q and Princess
Costa Seaborne, and so they go to absorb two of
those ships and still put them back into our waters.
The price will probably change. So this is the you know,

(02:18):
the forums I've been reading, people are going, oh, I
won't be able to get my cheap all a day,
So you know that will remain to be seen. But yeah,
it is going to have an impact on people that
did like those little short, cheapy cruises.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
And hugely disappointing for people who have tours or planned
and are going on a cruise for a particular reason,
whether it's you know, over the intergenerational trip maybe or
a wedding or something like that, that's really tough on them.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
That's hugely popular. Well, you know, and they're going to
get a refund they can they had a book and
other cruise maybe even on these Cannibal ships when they
come back in. I'm sure the gap between P and
O pulling out and the rebranded ships coming back in,
so that yeah, that you've got to point there those
there will be a gap where people are oh yeah, lots.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Of but people are focusing a lot more on sort
of expedition cruises the days, aren't they.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, well that's what that's the trends that were starting
to come through. We were listening to them say people
are booking out to twenty twenty six already for cruises.
They loving the edition cruises, the Antarctic. I I guess
multi generation holidays are loving cruises because they're all inclusive
and there's something for everybody. And actually, one of the
funny things they pointed out was there's even you can

(03:29):
even avoid people on a cruise, like if you're the
big family group and that's multi generational, and you don't
particularly want to hang out with the in laws all day.
You don't have to. There's so much to do on
these ships. And then off the ships, of course, people
will be potentially doing different excursions and then maybe you
just meet up before dinner or during dinner or whatever.
And they really are great and even for people that

(03:53):
need a little bit of extra mobility help, a cruiser
is excellent. Excellent for people like that that don't want
to necessarily drive and walk great distes and that thing
so huge cruising airs, you know more than a doesn't.
I a plan to do another one next year, and.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Thank you so much. Closer to home, Thank you so much, Megan,
good to talk to you. You can find Megan at
blogger at large dot com.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudgin, listen
live to news Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio