Camel races on the agenda as P&O Cruises announces it will base Oceana in Dubai in 2019
P&O Cruises’ clients can look forward to camel racing, dune rides and shopping in souks with the revelation that Oceana will be based in Dubai in the early months of 2019.
P&O Cruises is to base family-friendly Oceana in the Arabian Gulf for a programme of five 10-night cruises from January to March 2019. The cruises, from £1,399pp, will start and end in Dubai, and visit Sir Bani Yas Island, Manama, Khasab, Abu Dhabi, the Suez Canal, Salalah and Muscat.
Although P&O Cruises has visited the region before, this is the first time the line will base a ship in the region for an entire season.
The programme will go on sale to the line’s top tier guests from March 23 and released on general sale along with the remainder of the 2018-19 winter season from March 27.
P&O Cruises senior vice-president Paul Ludlow said the programme had been driven by customer demand for more exotic destinations: “Very few of our customers will have ventured into the region beyond Dubai,” he said. “They know they can trust us to deliver this fantastic experience in surroundings that are both comfortable and secure.”
The cruises are book-ended by two positioning cruises of 20 and 14 nights respectively, with the first round-trip cruise departing Dubai on January 10.
Connections from major UK hubs with Emirates will be supplemented with other carriers to ensure a wide choice of departure points. P&O will also offer land packages for those wishing to extend their stay in the region.
Along with overnights in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the itinerary includes a transit through the Suez Canal and offers a varied programme of shore activities and excursions, from kayaking through the mangroves forest of Sir Bani Yas and souk shopping in Manama, the capital of Bahrain to relaxing on the unspoilt beaches of Muscat, Oman.
Ludlow added: “These cruises will be a sultry, sensuous experience, and we fully expect them to be incredibly popular in year one, enabling us to expand the programme in subsequent years.”
Oceana will follow this winter deployment with a summer season in the Med.
