1834: Brodie McGhie Willcox, a shipbroker from London, and Arthur Anderson, a sailor from the Shetland Islands, formed an association with Captain Richard Bourne, a steamship owner from Dublin.
1837: Willcox, Anderson and Bourne won a contract and began transporting mail and passengers from England to the Iberian Peninsula. This was the beginning of the Peninsula Steam Navigation Company.
1840: By 1840, the company had expanded their operations to the Orient and merged with the Transatlantic Steam Ship Company, becoming the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, also known as P&O.
1844: In 1844, P&O expanded into leisure cruising and began offering sailings from the UK to the Mediterranean.
1887: In 1887, P&O took pride in celebrating its golden jubilee.
1904: The time for cruising arrived in 1904 and P&O entered the business of pleasure cruises for the first time.
1955: By 1955, there was a need for not one but two new passenger liners. Together, P&O and Orient announced the construction of Canberra and Oriana - superliners of a speed and scale not seen on the Australian run.
1977: By 1977, there were four ships in the fleet; Oriana, Canberra, Arcadia and Uganda. In the years following, P&O Cruises made ongoing changes to its fleet and diverged its Australian operations which led to the formation of P&O Cruises Australia.
1987: P&O celebrated its 150th year of operation.
1995: The second and much-loved Oriana joined the fleet as P&O Cruises' first-ever new build. Built purely for pleasure cruising, she was one of the largest ships of her time. Two years later, a second Arcadia joined the fleet and in 2000 Aurora, designed similarly to Oriana, entered service.
2010: By 2010, Ventura and her sister ship Azura had joined the fleet. Two years later, the company celebrated the 175th anniversary of the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company.
2014: P&O Cruises introduced a new livery in 2014. Based on the Union Jack to emphasise the company’s British heritage, the livery made the ships recognisable the world over. A year later, the hugely popular Britannia joined the fleet.
2020: As the world ground to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, P&O Cruises joined other cruise lines in suspending operations. But it wasn’t all bad news as Iona, the cruise line's biggest ship yet, joined the fleet in October.
2021: P&O Cruises announced that Arvia would join the fleet in 2022 as the sister ship to Iona.
2022: Arvia was welcomed to the fleet with open arms.
Future: We can’t wait to see what’s in store for P&O Cruises - but one thing is for certain, they’ll continue to be the cruise line of choice for the holiday of a lifetime!
