Fireworks and Four Ships – P&O Celebrates Australia Day
Sydneysiders will be able to enjoy the spectacle of four cruise ships on Sydney Harbour tomorrow as well as stunning fireworks in the evening, with the nation’s largest cruise line P&O Cruises joining in Australia Day celebrations in the city.<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>
The P&O Cruises Fireworks display will light up the skies over the city at 9.30pm, with the five-minute display happening east of Fort Denison.
Four P&O ships – Pacific Aria, Pacific Eden, Pacific Pearl and Pacific Jewel – will spend the day on the Harbour with more than 6500 guests onboard the ships enjoying a day of festivities in the city.
Meanwhile Channel 7’s Sunrise show will broadcast live from Pacific Eden in the morning giving all of Australia the opportunity to enjoy a front row seat on the Harbour.
Tomorrow will be the first time P&O has had four ships on the harbour for Australia Day, and follows the expansion of the cruise line’s fleet to five ships last November with the addition of Pacific Eden and Pacific Aria.
A major sponsor of Australia Day in NSW, P&O is also bringing a ship to land, giving Sydneysiders the chance to build a giant LEGO® ship in the city.
The cruise line has joined forces with the Museum of Sydney to invite LEGO fans to help LEGO certified professional Ryan McNaught as he builds a model of P&O’s Pacific Eden in the forecourt of the museum between 9am and 3pm tomorrow. A model of Pacific Eden’s sister ship, Pacific Aria, is already on display inside the museum as part of its stunning Sydney Harbour Icons with LEGO® Bricks exhibition.
All four P&O ships will berth in the Harbour between 4am and 9am. Pacific Pearl and Pacific Eden will enjoy their day anchored at Point Piper and Athol Buoy respectively as part of their three-night roundtrip Australia Day cruises from Sydney. Meanwhile, Pacific Jewel will be at White Bay Cruise Terminal as part of a four-night roundtrip cruise from Melbourne, alongside Pacific Aria which is on a five-night roundtrip cruise from Brisbane.
Both Pacific Jewel and Pacific Aria will anchor east of the bridge near Bradleys Head and Neutral Bay in the evening to enable their guests to enjoy the fireworks.
The four ships will sail from the Harbour after the fireworks display, with Pacific Aria the last to leave at about 11pm.
Note to editors: The region’s largest and longest-serving cruise operator, P&O Cruises Australia leads the way in cruising as Australasia's only 'home brand' and its favourite cruise line. P&O Cruises has been sailing the region for more than 80 years, and has pioneered new destinations around Australia, the Pacific and Asia including Papua New Guinea, as reported in the New York Times’ 52 top destinations for 2015. P&O Cruises is the nation’s largest cruise line with five ships cruising from eight home ports in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. In November 2015 Pacific Aria and Pacific Eden were added to the cruise line’s existing three-ship fleet and in 2017 P&O Cruises will welcome its latest ship – Pacific Explorer. In another milestone, P&O will become the first cruise line to build a ship specifically for the local market, launching a brand new 135,500-tonne ship in 2019 - the biggest cruise ship ever to be based fulltime in Australia.
