Whatever happened to the fun ship?
The demise of P&O isn't the end of cruising in Australia, but it is the end of an era.
It was the late 1980s or very early 1990s and I was standing at the Ansett Australia transfer desk at Sydney Airport when my negotiations with the man behind the desk were interrupted by a passing crowd of raucous young people.
“I see the Fairstar is in port,” the Ansett attendant sniffed.
He was referring to what was, at the time, Australia’s best-known cruise ship, and remains a beloved part of our recreational maritime lore.
The Fairstar had already had an interesting history. It was launched in 1957 as a troop carrier under the name Oxfordshire. It later became an ocean liner, bringing migrants from Southampton to start a new life in Australia.
By 1964, it was renamed Fairstar and began operating cruises in the South Pacific for Sitmar, which was taken over by the then well-established P&O Australia.
A cruise on “the fun ship”, as it was known, was a rite of passage for thousands of young Aussies.
The vessel — tiny by today’s standards — plied the seas until 1997, when it was retired because P&O deemed it too expensive to upgrade to meet new government standards. (Ansett didn’t last much longer. It folded in 2002.)
The Fairstar sailed off into the sunset — full marks if you predicted that was going to use that phrase in this story — but P&O Australia continued to operate a fleet of cruise ships plying the South Pacific.
I didn’t sail on the Fairstar, but I have been on P&O’s Dawn, Aria and, most recently (and probably finally) Encounter.
Parent company Carnival — an American behemoth that also operates the Holland America, Seabourn, Princess, Costa, Aida, P&O UK and Cunard lines — has announced it is closing down the P&O Australia brand early next year, ending a relationship that began in 1932, and rolling two of its three ships (Encounter and Adventure) into the parent company. The other ship, Explorer, will be “retired” (which is usually a euphemism for “sold for scrap”).
So Carnival, which already has a presence here — I sailed on the Luminosa in 2022 — will be the dominant cruise line in Australia.
The move should not come as a shock to followers of cruise news. Carnival has already rebranded some Costa ships as “Carnival — Italian style”, and retired many of the older, smaller vessels across its fleet.
This decision has to be seen in the context of a company playing catch-up after the pandemic shut down the entire cruise industry for the best part of two years.
Even though there were significant outbreaks of COVID-19 on cruise ships — that’s how I got it! — the demand is greater than ever. Just as well, as Carnival and its competitors borrowed biggly to ride out the outbreak.
By making savings where it can, Carnival hopes to pay off all the debt it incurred a few years ago. And then some.
The closure of P&O is also a result of the cruise companies trying to get the measure the Australian market. While Australians are cruising in record numbers, and there are many people elsewhere wanting to come and see our attractions, we’re still a small fish in a big pond.
The main game is in the United States, where the Caribbean beckons in winter and Alaska in summer, and Europe, where cruise itineraries can be packaged with excursions to world-famous bucket-list destinations and attractions.
Royal Caribbean, which operates the megaships that many cruisers love, has cut back its commitment in Australia, with smaller vessels heading our way in the coming summer season. And, after a disastrous debut plying between Melbourne and Tasmania last year (whose idea was that?), Virgin Voyages has no plans to base a ship Down Under anytime soon.
As a person who enjoys just being on the ship, I’m not so fussed about the destinations. But the features of the ship do matter, and the newer, bigger ships tend to have better food, drink and entertainment options.
I worry that the choice of sailings out of Brisbane in future will be restricted to third- or fourth-rate vessels nearing the end of their life cycles with few of the mod cons.
In which case, they may as well bring back Fairstar, the fun ship!