Azuras 2013 world cruise cancelled.

Lets face it who didn't see this coming? A world cruise on a ship this big was always going to be a mistake.
I'm going to generalise a little bit here but the average age of a world cruiser tends to be sixty five plus, (who else but someone that's retired can cruise for a hundred days or more?).
Older cruisers tend to prefer smaller ships, (see, I said I'd be generalising), and P&O have designated the Azura as their largest 'family friendly' ship.
A cancelled cruise was always on the cards.



The pity is that no one at Carnival head office realised this until people had already started to book the cruise. Fortunately there hasn't been loads of bookings for this sailing, (one reason for the cancellation), but it's still left quite a few people disappointed with P&O at a time when the industry needs to be doing everything it can to keep regular cruisers happy.
In an officially released statement an official from P&O based the decision on 'economic troubles' saying......

"Due to current economic circumstances however, we are seeing a growing preference for shorter cruises which leads us to believe that it could become more difficult to fill an enlarged world cruise programme next year. In order to recognise this situation, we have taken the decision to redeploy Azura from her scheduled world cruise in 2013 and instead operate her in the Caribbean."

Anyone already booked onboard has been offered either a full refund of all monies paid or a free of charge transfer to a different world cruise.

What do you think though? Have you or do you know someone that has been affected by this?
Did P&O make a mistake from the start offering a world cruise itinerary on such a large ship or in different times do you think they could have booked all her cabins?

Happy cruising