Big Girls You Are Beautiful?

So it seems September can now be renamed P&O month.  They surprised us all in late August my announcing that they would be launching their 2018 programme in September rather than the traditional March (6 months after they had launched their 2017 programme I might add), and this week they have announced a new 180,000 tonne ship for delivery in 2020.

Whilst the announcement of any new ship is brilliant for the industry as it shows confidence in the growth in the market especially with a ship of 180,000 tonnes that will carry 5,200 people, when it comes to P&O, is this just too big for them?  I speak to customers all the time who absolutely love P&O, and they have travelled with them for a number of years and refuse to travel with any other line.  This is fantastic for P&O as this is what every cruise line dreams of, a large loyal customer base who won’t go elsewhere.

One thing that does come up quite often in conversation with these customers, is I will ask them have they yet had chance to sail on their newest ship Britannia?  I will ask this, as I was lucky enough to experience her first hand when she first launched and I was wowed by the experience on board, and I do love to share that experience with my customers.  When talking about Britannia, quite a lot of the feedback lately has been, from both customers who have been on her and customers still yet too, is that she is too big for them!  A lot of my customers have said they wouldn’t be planning to travel on her, simply because she is too big.  They prefer the smaller ships, where they can get to know people better and they feel they get a more personal experience from the staff. In fact, I remember quite clearly a few weeks ago, one lady did say to me ‘if I wanted to travel on one of those humongous ships, I would travel with one of those American cruise lines with the floating cities.  I prefer the smaller ships as it keeps things British.’  So I certainly don’t think that this lady will be rushing to the phone to purchase a cruise on the new girl when she goes on sale!

This statement does highlight something to me though.  Are P&O building larger ships, since the arrival of Royal Caribbean, specifically Independence of the Seas, to Southampton?  No one would doubt that Independence is a big girl, in fact since her arrival she has long been the largest ship to sail from the UK.  But with her arrival she brought change, she brought for the first time the newest innovations at sea the Royal Caribbean can offer that simply wouldn’t fit on a traditional P&O ship.  And P&O will certainly have noticed the attention she gets she will have stolen a few of their customers over to the ‘dark side’.

Could this be why in recent years P&O are starting to compete in size with their newer ships? I do agree that the larger ships bring a lot of attention, and can certainly fit a lot more facilities on to attract new people to take a cruise holiday.  But is this the P&O way?  I do hope, if they continue to expand with larger ships, that they do keep the smaller mid-size ships that have come to be renowned P&O favourites, so that they don’t alienate their long standing passengers.

What are your thoughts, is the new ship too big for you or will you be booking your cruise on their newest arrival when she eventually goes on sale?