P&O Australia announced that the fleetmates Pacific Aria and Pacific Dawn leave the fleet in 2021 as Pacific Encounter (currently Star Princess) joins the cruise line. The 3000-passenger Pacific Encounter will be P&O Australia's largest vessel and starts operations from homeport Brisbane Queensland in November 2021.
Star Princess will be drydock refurbished before joining P&O AU. Pacific Dawn and Pacific Aria will leave the fleet in, respectively, February and April 2021.
Pacific Dawn is scheduled to depart from Melbourne on February 8, 2021, heading to Singapore via Brisbane. Three options are offered to passengers to farewell the ship:
- short-break cruise (Melbourne-Brisbane)
- Asia and Explorer cruise (Brisbane-Singapore)
- ‘full farewell’, a 17-night B2B voyage (Melbourne-Brisbane-Singapore)
Pacific Aria is scheduled to depart from Melbourne on April 9, 2021, heading to Singapore via Fremantle. Three options are offered to passengers to farewell the ship:
- 6-night ‘Southern Discovery’ (Melbourne-Fremantle) visiting Esperance and Albany
- 12-night Asia and Australia Explorer (Fremantle-Singapore)
- ‘full farewell’, an 18-night B2B voyage (Melbourne-Fremantle-Singapore).
All P&O Australia vessels are owned by Carnival Corporation - world's largest cruise shipowner.