P & O CRUISES LTD

We wouldn’t be where we are today, Britain’s favourite cruiseline, if it wasn’t for our team. Regardless of how impressive our ships are, if we didn’t have the high levels of service that we do on board, our passengers wouldn’t come back, but they do. Time is invested in our carefully selected staff. Before they step on board, they are inducted into P&O Cruises through a comprehensive on shore training programme. Once on board the training continues with On Board Trainers visiting each ship for up to a month at a time to ensure your holiday cruises with us are truly special. You will find a passenger to staff ratio of 2:1 on board equalling an intuitive, but unobtrusive service at all times. From our British Officers to skilled galley staff, all are completely professional and nothing is ever too much trouble.

P&O Cruises can trace its colourful history all the way back to 1837. On 1st September that year, Arthur Anderson and Brodie McGhie Wilcox, founders of the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, were awarded a contract from the British Government to carry mail from London to the Iberian Peninsula. At that time passengers were also carried on these routes, but initially it was more a case of business than pleasure. As the company picked up more contracts with more varied destinations, they also put Anderson’s idea for leisure cruise travel into action. They offered round trip tickets to some of the more exotic destinations along their routes like Malta, Athens and Egypt. Needless to say this new holiday phenomenon well and truly took off. P&O Cruises set the standards for quality, service, reliability, comfort, safety and innovation. And this forward-looking approach ensures that we remain at the forefront of cruise holidays. 1835 Arthur Anderson runs a dummy advertisement in the first edition of his Shetland Journal publication for ‘cruises’ around the Shetland Isles to the Faroes and Iceland. 1837 The Peninsular Steam Navigation company – owned by Arthur Anderson and Brodie McGhie Willcox – is awarded the contract to deliver the Royal Mail to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). 1840 Name is changed to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) when its Royal Mail contract is extended to the East. 1844 William Makepeace Thackeray is given a free cruise to Egypt, which involves travel on a succession of P&O ships. Although his review is mixed, to say the least, it brings P&O welcome publicity. 1904 P&O buys the liner Rome and turns it into its first full-time cruise ship, Vectis, and offers its first cruise holiday programme – a first class only cruise with shore excursions arranged by Thomas Cook. 1918 P&O acquires Orient Line.