P&O……….similar trouble, different ship……..again!

A New Zealand Press Association report says that Joan Wright had one big regret as she left the troubled cruise liner Pacific Star in Auckland today, with the 75-year-old Hawke’s Bay woman having only one free drink before P&O Cruises cancelled an eight-day voyage by Pacific Star when it could not finish repairs in time.

The ship was due to sail on Tuesday afternoon but P&O delayed the departure time until 11.30pm last night as engineers tried to fix a corroded ventilation duct, but they could not get it fixed in time and told passengers about 7am today the cruise had been cancelled.

The ship is due to sail to Brisbane later today and go into dry dock for repairs which may involve removing hull plates to get access to the corroded duct.

The company offered passengers a full refund and a 25 per cent discount on their next cruise and they also offered to refund in full any money the passengers had deposited on their on-board cruise smartcards, even if the cards had been used to buy drinks.

Mrs Wright said many passengers stayed up drinking last night to watch the departure, using the cards which the company was now refunding in full.

“Some of the guys must have racked up a huge alcohol bill and the company was paying for all this,” said Mrs Wright’s daughter, Jo Wright.

Mrs Wright and her daughter were doing their first cruise together and said many passengers had arranged other holidays around the cruise.  “The sad part of it was the kids.”  “They were so, so looking forward to it.”

Mrs Wright headed back to Hawke’s Bay today and said although the cruise company had treated them very well and she would take another cruise, it would not be with P&O Cruises.

The cancellation followed another incident involving the Pacific Star last month, when the 35,000 tonne ship ran into a gale shortly after it left Auckland and was damaged.

Passengers got off in Vanuatu, flew back to Auckland, were given full refunds and offered a 25 per cent discount on their next cruise.

Today’s cancellation was the second similar problem P&O had had with a cruise ship in Auckland, with in 2003 the Pacific Sky returning to Auckland listing after a corroded ventilation duct failed and allowed nearly 200 tonnes of water into the bilges.

A dam was built around the hull, part of it below the waterline, and steel plating was removed to give engineers access to the duct and engineers found the damage was so severe the bulkheads (internal walls) had parted from the hull on both sides of the ship. The hull plating had also corroded and there were reports that daylight could be seen through the hull.

The Maritime Safety Authority (now Maritime New Zealand) said the damage was “very, very serious” and P&O cancelled two voyages, offering the same compensation to Pacific Sky passengers as Pacific Star passengers were offered today.

Although only recently transferred from Carnival owned Costa to P&O Australia, Pacific Star has been sold to Spanish company Pullmantur but would stay in P&O livery until March next year.

The price of using older ships perhaps………a core element of P&O’s operation in Australia.

Report by The Mole

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