pacific explorer cruises from auckland

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• Pacific Explorer®

Pacific Explorer®

Something for everyone.

See why we love Pacific Explorer®. Whiz down waterslides by day, enjoy great restaurants, bars and edgy stage shows at night. There’s something for every member of the family.

When it comes to dining, you are spoilt for choice with our range of everyday dining venues including Modern Australian fare at WaterFront and Italian dining at Angelos. Treat yourself to something special at Luke's, our amazing celebrity chef restaurant in partnership with Luke Mangan. Enjoy a mouth-watering signature burger at lunch or a delicious 3 course la carte dinner with the sunset.  For a more casual bite-to-eat, enjoy a delicious pizza at P&O Trattoria or try some exotic Asian fusion flavours at Dragon Lady. The world is your oyster when you dine at sea with P&O.

P&O’s stylish yet relaxed modern Australian interior designs make Pacific Explorer the perfect place to holiday.

We can’t wait to welcome you onboard.

Disclaimer: Onboard offerings are subject to change. Charges apply for some activities, venues and menu items. 400 Gradi to be replaced by P&O Trattoria from September 2023.

Pacific Explorer will soon call New Zealand home

We’re excited to announce that Pacific Explorer will be sailing from Auckland in 2023 with new enhanced itineraries.

VIEW CRUISES FROM AUCKLAND

What did Hughesy get up to?

Check out some Dave Hughes adventures onboard Pacific Explorer. Plus, stay tuned for more exclusive Hughsey moments.

Onboard Activities

Get splashy and ride our Disco Diver and Super Slider Waterslides as many times as you like, splash out in our interactive waterparks or take a dip in one of the pools or spas.

Challenge your mates or family to a friendly game of Barefoot Bowls. Go on, just roll with it!

Choose your Adventure with P&O Edge. The P&O Edge Adventure Park is your ticket to action and excitement. Try Rock Climbing, The Flying Fox, Walk the Plank and more. Plus there's a special program designed just for kids.

Head to the Arcade and test your skills with the latest video games.

The Bonded Store

In partnership with Archie Rose Distilling Co.

Sit, swill and savour the finest liquors at warm and inviting The Bonded Store. Set your tastebuds free in this glamorous speakeasy as our mixologists serve up fantastic cocktails. Or get inspired during a gin or whisky masterclass.

Black Circus

Enjoy new levels of entertainment with exclusive dinner and show packages and a glamorous cabaret style show, Purple Rabbit . A five-star evening of mischief, magic and mind-blowing mayhem.

Sit back and relax while Luke Mangan takes care of the menu. Enjoy a casual yet mouth-watering burger for lunch or a delicious three course dinner with the sunset.

*Charges apply

P&O Trattoria

PIZZA & ITALIAN

Foodies rejoice! P&O Trattoria wil be your new favourite place to eat, serving rustic, home-style Italian fare and delicious freshly-cooked pizza. Buon appetito!

Complimentary Dining

When it comes to dining, you are spoilt for choice with our range of everyday dining venues. Dine a la carte at Waterfront, or if you after something more casual, choose from some deliciously different outlets at The Pantry, our food-court style restaurant.

• Pacific Adventure®
• Pacific Encounter®

The Trophy Case

Not to brag, but we've kind of cleaned up lately thanks to cruisers like you.

2018 Cruise Critic AU Editors’ Pick Award Best Ship Refurbishment for Pacific Aria

2018 Cruise Passenger Reader's Choice Award Best Contemporary Cruise Line (third year in a row) Best for Kids

Readers Digest Trusted Brands 2018 Gold Award - Cruise Operator category

Readers Digest Quality Service Awards Gold Award - Cruise Operator category

• CruiseMapper
• P&O Cruises

Pacific Explorer

Former name: dawn princess.

Cruise line P&O Australia (P&O Cruises)

• Melbourne (Victoria Australia)
• Auckland (New Zealand)
• Adelaide (South Australia)
• Fremantle (Perth, Western Australia)
• Brisbane (Queensland Australia)

Pacific Explorer current position

Pacific Explorer current location is at West Australia (coordinates -24.38971 S / 112.92438 E) cruising at speed of 19.6 kn (36 km/h | 23 mph) en route to Broome WA. The AIS position was reported 10 minutes ago.

Current itinerary of Pacific Explorer

Pacific Explorer current cruise is 12 days, round-trip Indonesian Adventure . The itinerary starts on 03 Apr, 2024 and ends on 15 Apr, 2024 .

Specifications of Pacific Explorer

•   Itineraries
•   Review
•   Wiki

Pacific Explorer Itineraries

Pacific explorer review, review of pacific explorer.

The 1997-built (as Dawn Princess) cruise ship Pacific Explorer was the second Sun-class vessel in the Princess Cruises fleet , with sisterships Sea Princess (now Dream Charming) and Sun Princess (now Pacific World) . The liner was transferred to P&O Australia in May 2017 under its current name "Pacific Explorer".

The vessel (IMO number 9103996) is currently UK- flagged (MMSI 232006603) and registered in Southampton .

In 2021, P&O Australia received two more ex-Princess boats - Golden Princess (Pacific Adventure) and Star Princess (Pacific Encounter) .

History - construction and ownership

P&O Cruises is a subsidiary company and two brands owned by Carnival Corporation - P&O UK and P&O Australia. In 2000, P&O Cruises became subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises, which merged with Carnival Corporation in 2003. P&O is the world's oldest cruise company, starting passenger shipping operations in 1822 on the routes connecting England with Iberia.

The ship's hull is adorned with the company's new livery - the Southern Cross, the national symbol of Australia and New Zealand, which is also incorporated in their country flags. Following a major drydock refurbishment in Singapore (at Sembcorp Marine Admiralty Yard), the boat was renamed in 2017 from "Dawn Princess" to "Pacific Explorer".

The inaugural cruise for P&O Australia departed from Sydney NSW on June 22 (2017). The vessel was a replacement for Pacific Pearl, sold to CMV UK and renamed Columbus .

Decks and Cabins

Pacific Explorer staterooms (998 total, in 20 categories) include 38x Suites, 372x Balconies, 192x Oceanviews and 396x Inside, including 19x wheelchair-accessible. Most cabins are sized 140-160 ft2 (13-15 m2), with cabin balconies sized 30 ft2 (3 m2). Nearly 70% of all outside staterooms are with private step-out balconies. The largest accommodations are the Balcony Suites (375-430 ft2 / 35-40 m2, with terraces sized 85-275 ft2 / 8-26 m2).

The boat has 14 decks , of which 11 are passenger-accessible and 7 with cabins.

Review/Shipboard facilities and amenities

Pacific Explorer passengers can enjoy thrilling waterslides, kids' aquapark, extreme sports park (P&O Edge/climbing course and Zip Line across the top deck) and barefoot bowling on open decks. Popular leisure and relaxation options are a day spa, cabana-style pool deck, a total of 4 swimming pools and 5 Jacuzzies/hot tubs, live performances (music and shows).

Pacific Explorer's 2017 drydock refurbishment added two new for P&O AU casual dining venues - "Luke's Grill" (poolside food bar/evening restaurant by Australian chef Luke Mangan) and "400 Gradi" (traditional Neapolitan pizzeria by chef Johnny Di Francesco).

Other dining venues include Waterfront Restaurant (MDR-Main Dining Room), Angelo's (Italian), Dragon Lady (Asian), The Pantry (Lido buffet restaurant/marketplace with 9 fresh food outlets).

Also new is The Bonded Store (bar lounge) serving signature cocktails via partnership with Archie Rose Distilling Co (2014-founded in Sydney NSW), also hosting themed whisky- and gin-making classes and tasting events.

Deck 4 houses all staff/crew cabins, the ship's Tender Embarkation/Disembarkation areas and the Infirmary/Hospital/Medical Center (served by resident physicians and nurses on 24-hour call duty).

Deck 5 houses The Grand Atrium (4-decks high, with a stage for live performances), and the Lobby Hall (Reception Desk and Shore Tours Desk) served by Lilly's Bar and Charlie's Bar (specialty coffees, pastries, desserts, also wine and liquor). On Deck 5 is also the Waterfront Restaurant (complimentary Dining Room open for breakfast, lunch and dinner).

Midship-aft on Deck 6 are the Dragon Lady (Asian) and Angelo's (Italia) restaurants, as well as P&O Retail (duty-free shopping complex). Angelo's Restaurant is a complimentary Dining Room for Italian cuisine and specialties like slow-cooked pork neck, veal shank ragout, fontina, and pumpkin arancini balls, osso bucco, seafood cacciucco, pan-fried gnocchi and sweets like crispy cannoli. Bookings for dinner can be made at the Reception Desk. Dragon Lady has an origami-folded menu and offers non-alcoholic welcome shooters. Dishes are designed to be shared banquet-style. Dinner bookings are made at the Reception Desk.

Deck 7 houses Marquee Theatre (2-floor main show lounge for large-scale evening music and show productions, daily trivia games, bingo sessions, game shows, culinary demonstrations, workshops, seminars, kids' talent shows), Explorer Hotel (daily piano bar /evening English pub bar with comfortable seating, dance floor, stage for live performances, fine alcohol and craft beers), Future Cruise Sales Office, Blue Room (Atrium Lounge & Bar), Art Gallery, IMAGES Photo Gallery, HQ & HQ+ (club bars/large dance floor, evening DJ programming, daily karaoke, game shows, art auctions, various classes), Black Circus Theatre.

Blue Room is an Atrium Lounge & Bar with a dance floor and live music entertainment, and nightly transforms into a disco club with DJ programming. The lounge is served by its own piano bar. The late-night blues session named Blues@Blue features several very talented musicians getting together for a 1-hour-long jam, rotating with excellent guitarists and different singers.

Black Circus Theatre is an entertainment lounge with a stage for performances (by guest comedians, singers, illusionists, cabaret-style performances) and has its own full-service Bar. Intended for cabaret performances, the venue has a supper club vibe but there are no full-size tables to eat supper, so it's basically a theatre with rows of seats along with ledges to place drinks. During the day, the lounge is used for kids' TC&Skipper's Island Adventure Show, The Edge's laser tag gaming and as Cinema/early evening movies.

Deck 8 houses the Casino (gaming lounge with slot machines and gambling tables, including modern poker machines with large curved screens; served by its own Bar, also hosts Texas Hold'em tournaments and Pokies tournaments), and 400 Gradi (pizzeria by chef Johnny Di Francesco). 400 Gradi is open for Lunch (between 12-1:30 pm) and Dinner (between 6-11 pm) and provides takeaway pizzas for eating elsewhere on the ship as well as cabin delivery (via the room service).

Aft on Deck 11 is the Lawn Bowls (outdoor bowling green) open to all ages between 10 am - 5 pm. Singles and doubles tournaments are held at designated times scheduled/listed in the ship's daily newsletter. Bar service is available, featuring Pimms, white wine and beer sold from a yellow kiosk.

Deck 12 houses the Navigation Bridge/Wheelhouse, midship pool deck area (2x swimming pools - Main Pool and Family Pool), 3x Jacuzzies/hot tubs, Pool Bar (beverages), Band Stage (for live performances)) Ice Cream Bar (serving complimentary New Zealand Natural Ice Cream, also sells premium coffees and gourmet sweets), as well as the youth centers Turtle Cove (kids, with a Paddling Pool) and Shark Shack (teens), both with outdoor playground areas, Photo Shop, Card Room/Library, Level UP Arcade (21 gaming machines), and the ship's wellness complex (Spa and Gym).

The ship's wellness complex Elemis SPA (fka "Aqua HealthSpaFitness") consists of a round-shaped pool, 2x Jacuzzies/spa pools, Fitness Center (with a separate Aerobics Studio for classes), Elemis Day Spa, Thermal Suite, 2x Saunas, Treatments Rooms (for massages), Beauty Salon (manicure/pedicure/barber services). The aft-facing Spa Deck has a Virtual Golf Simulator.

Deck 14 houses The Pantry (Lido buffet/forward), Shell & Bones, Luke's Bar & Grill (previously Lobster & Burger Bar), Big Screen (outdoor cinema with a huge LED screen, complimentary popcorn-cookies-milk during the evening projections), Deck Games area (Shuffleboard, Golf Net/Cage), and the aft Oasis Pool Deck sunbathing area with 1x Jacuzzi/hot tub and served with beverages by the outdoor Oasis Bar).

The Pantry (self-service buffet restaurant/marketplace with 9 fresh food outlets) is complimentary and open for Breakfast (6:30-11:30 am), Lunch (11:30 am - 3:30 pm) or British Pub Lunch (11:30-1:30 pm /on selected days) and Dinner (5:30-11 pm). The buffet has its own bar for drinks, a stage for live performances, and a dance floor. At lunch and dinner, the food outlets include McGregor's Garden (salads), Stix (stir fry), Mexicana (tacos and burritos), Curry House, Hook's (fish-and-chips), Nic & Toni's (Italian), Fat Cow (carvery), Kettle & Bun (soups and sandwiches), and Sugar Bar (desserts). In the evenings, a 10th venue (Shell & Bones) opens as an a la carte priced restaurant. A kids' dinner for children between 3 and 10 years is held at 4:15 pm daily, with highchairs available upon request.

Deck 15 houses the adults-only sundeck (fka The Sanctuary, with a swimming pool and full-service Bar/fka Windjammers Bar for beverages and light meals), P&O Edge facilities (outdoor sports activities area), the Sports Court (multi-sports combined court for playing basketball, volleyball, football) and the aft Aquapark (Waterslides' entry level).

Pacific Explorer's AquaPark is P&O Australia's ever-first water park with slides. Its Twin-Racer (two/dual-racing slides) has length 80+ m (260+ ft) and features several twists and turns, in-tube LED lights and sound effects. The aquapark has a separate shaded area for kids (outdoor playground) equipped with a dumping bucket and oversized water toys.

Itineraries

Pacific Explorer's cruise itinerary program is based on roundtrips from Australia ( Sydney , Melbourne , Adelaide , Fremantle , Cairns ) and from New Zealand ( Auckland ). The voyages visit Tasmania, South Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, NZ. Also are offered short breaks/mini-cruises and cruises to nowhere (themed voyages without any call ports).

Following the Coronavirus crisis, the ship was paused for 2+ years (March 202 through June 2022) and scheduled to restart on May 31, 2022, with roundtrips from homeport Sydney. The boat's previous homeporting plans (from Adelaide, Fremantle-Perth, Cairns / February-June 2022) were canceled. However, in late-February 2022, P&O canceled the entire NZ season - all departures (20x total) from Auckland scheduled for the period July 5-Nov 27, 2022.

Pacific Explorer - user reviews and comments

Photos of pacific explorer.

Pacific Explorer ship related cruise news

24yo Australian solo rower rescued by P&O's cruise ship Pacific Explorer

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Seabourn Odyssey is the first cruise ship in 2+ years to dock in Nelson NZ

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Tasmania to welcome the first cruise ships of season 2022-2023

TasPorts (Tasmania) will soon welcome its first cruise ships for 2022-2023 season, with P&O Australia's Pacific Explorer (scheduled to visit Port...

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Princess Cruises' Coral Princess became the first cruise ship in 30+ months to visit Kangaroo Island (Penneshaw, South Australia). The arrival of...

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P&O Australia and Harding Retail agreed to extend their 13-year partnership, which will see the group manage all onboard retail concessions on P...

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Other P&O Australia cruise ships

• Pacific Adventure
• Pacific Encounter

Pacific Explorer Wiki

The Fincantieri Monfalcone -built Pacific Explorer ship has the longest and wildest waterslides found on an Australian-based cruise liner. Each of the slides stretches over 80 m (260 ft). During the drydock in Singapore , the P&OEdge Adventure Park (top-deck outdoor sporting facility) was installed. Decors of all onboard public spaces and venues (including Atrium, bars, lounges, restaurants) were changed.

Pacific Explorer (Monfalcone shipyard/hull number 5955) is powered by Wartsila-Sulzer marine diesel engines (models 8ZAV40S and 8ZAL40) generating total power output 46,08 MW.

The liner's Captain is Roger Bilton.

In March 2017, P&O Australia confirmed the company's exclusive partnership with the Sydney-based "Archie Rose Distilling Co". The Pacific Explorer ship became fleet's first liner with the new Archie Rose Bar. Part of the new premium cocktail bar is "The Bonded Store", where all cocktails are with Archie Rose spirits. There are also hosted gin making and whisky masterclasses.

On July 2, 2017, at Sydney 's Overseas Passenger Terminal was held ship's christening ceremony lead by godmother Dora the Explorer (fictional / Nickelodeon character). At the naming ceremony, Dora was joined by many Nickelodeon friends, including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob SquarePants, Skye / PAW Patrol). The "bottle smashing" part of the ceremony involved a papier-mache champagne bottle and the ship in front of the funnel. Dora was handed over a large stick, with which she smashed open the bottle and green goo spurted out and covered Sture Myrmell (P&O Australia's President). Before the naming ceremony, kids onboard enjoyed a Welcome Party where they met their Nickelodeon heroes.

In June 2018, P&O Australia launched on Pacific Explorer "The Big Laugh" onboard show program - advertised as "the biggest comedy festival at sea". The program included all 14 stand-up comedy celebrities performing a total of 36 shipboard live shows (combined over 33 hours live performances). The program started with the 4-day roundtrip Sydney cruise to Moreton Island (departure June 20). "The Big Laugh" program comprised of all 72 comedy- themed cruises in 2018-2019.

Pacific Explorer refurbishment 2020 review

During the ship's drydock 2020 refurbishment (February 12-27, in Singapore ) were conducted general maintenance works, hull cleaning and repainting, repairs. The USD 30 million drydocking project also included renovations of public areas (venues, hallways, staircases) and all cabins - including new carpeting, upholstery, artworks, lights. Both ship's theatres and several public spaces were renovated, new cabin categories and games activities for families were introduced. The project also resulted in the following changes.

• Completely redesigned were 400 Gradi (midship deck 8, Pizzeria by chef Johnny Di Francesco) and Luke’s Bar (deck 14, grill bar by chef Luke Mangan). Luke’s Bar now also functions as specialty restaurant for lunch and dinner but continues to operate as poolside food bar for premium burgers and seafood dishes (take-away option).
• A new games arcade was added. Among the 21 arcade machines is the popular VR game "Virtual Rabbids".
• For families were added two new 5-bed Suites, with perks like priority embarkation-disembarkation-tendering and complimentary laundry service. All the ship’s quad cabins were fitted with new beds, carpets, artworks, full-length luggage lockers.
• The Elemis Spa (deck 12, wellness complex) was redesigned and the Beauty Bar now has a nail studio.

Some of the main public spaces (The Atrium, The Pantry, Marquee Lounge) were also refreshed. Black Circus Lounge (deck 5) was renovated and updated with new artworks and upholstery.

Pacific Explorer refurbishment 2017 review

Before entering the P&O Australia's fleet, the liner underwent a multi-million drydock refit and refurbishment (May 30 - June 9) by Sembcorp Marine (Singapore). As Dawn Princess, the vessel was last refurbished in 2016 May.

Deckplan changes following the refit included:

• (deck 5) Florentine Restaurant was transformed into Waterfront Restaurant.
• (deck 6) Rigoletto Restaurant was redesigned into 2 new specialty restaurants - Dragon Lady (Asian / portside) and Angelo's (Italian / starboard).
• (deck 7 forward) Princess Theater was renamed to The Marquee.
• (deck 7 forward starboard) Wheelhouse Bar was transformed into Summer Pub.
• (deck 7 port side) Jammers disco was transformed into the Blue Room.
• (deck 7 port side) "Library & Writing Room" was transformed into HQ&HQ* (kids facilities). Internet Cafe was removed.
• (deck 7 aft) Vista Lounge was transformed into Black Circus Lounge & Bar.
• (pool deck 12 aft) Ice Cream Bar was transformed into P&O AU's signature "New Zealand Natural Ice Cream". Turtle Cove (kids lounge) was renamed to Youth Center. Shark Shack (teens lounge) was renamed to Teen Center. Lotus Spa was renamed to Elemis Day Spa. Platinum Studio was renamed to Photo Studio.
• (lido deck 14) Horizon Buffet was transformed into The Pantry (marketplace). Movies Under The Stars (outdoor theatre) was renamed to Big Screen. Seaview Bar (aft) was renamed to The Oasis (adults deck).

For the ship transformation were hired 1000+ contractor workers who spent over 200,000 hours fitting the vessel with 25,000 m2 of new carpets, painting 10,000 m2 of walls, installing more than 3,000 units of new furniture and around 1,200 pieces of artwork. The hull was adorned the P&O Australia's new Southern Cross livery, introduced on Pacific Dawn (now Ambassador Ambience) in March 2017.

The list of newly added (fleet's first) venues and facilities on MS Pacific Explorer includes:

• barefoot lawn (bowling green court)
• Aqua Park (deck 15) with 2 waterslides (stretching over 80 m / 260 ft) and a separate shaded area for kids (with dumping bucket and oversized water toys).
• top-deck P&OEdge Adventure Park (outdoor sporting facility)
• Luke’s fast-casual dining (poolside grill by Australian chef Luke Mangan)
• 400 Gradi (Neapolitan pizzeria by chef Johnny Di Francesco)
• The Bonded Store (new bar with signature cocktails menu via a partnership with Sydney -based Archie Rose Distilling Co, themed whisky- and gin-making classes and tasting events).

Inaugural cruise itineraries 2017

Follows the list of all departures from Sydney NSW during Pacific Explorer's inaugural cruise itinerary program in 2017:

• The "Inaugural Cruise" from Sydney started on June 22, 2017 - 10-night "Melanesian Discovery", round-trip to New Caledonia (Noumea, Lifou), Vanuatu (Vila, Mystery Island), New Caledonia (Isle of Pines).
• 3-night Cruises to Nowhere from Sydney were scheduled for July 28 (2017), August 4 (2017), September 21 (2017), October 28 92017), November 10 and 17 (2017), December 14 and 27 (2017).
• 4-night "Sunshine Coast" Queensland cruises to Mooloolaba were scheduled for 2017 - July 31, August 26.
• 4-night "Moreton Island" Queensland cruises to Moreton Island were scheduled for 2017 - September 17, October 31, November 13 and 30,
• 5-night "Australian Open Tennis" cruise round-trip from Sydney to Melbourne (Jan 21, 8 am - 8 pm) is on January 19, 2018.
• 7-night "Southern Barrier Reef Discovery" (to Mooloolaba, Gladstone, Moreton Island) is on August 19, 2017.
• 8-night "Getaway To Mare" New Caledonia itineraries (to Noumea, Mare, Isle of Pines) were scheduled for 2017 - July 2, July 20, September 9, October 4, December 30 (New Year 2017).
• 10-night "Barrier Reef Discovery" cruise to Queensland (Airlie Beach, Cairns, Port Douglas, Willis Island, Brisbane) is on August 30, 2017.
• 10-night "Melanesian Discovery"New Caledonia and Vanuatu itineraries (to Noumea, Lifou, Vila, Mystery Island, Isle of Pines) were scheduled for 2017 - July 10, September 24, November 20, December 4 and 17 (Christmas 2017).
• 12-night "Best Of The Pacific" New Caledonia and Vanuatu itineraries (to Champagne Bay, Vila, Mystery Island, Mare, Noumea) is on August 7, 2017.
• 16-night "Bounty Adventure" (to Norfolk Island, Nuku'alofa Tonga, Vava'u Tonga, Suva Fiji, Port Denarau Fiji, Dravuni Fiji, Mare New Caledonia) is on October 12, 2017.

Next table shows the ship's inaugural cruise (itinerary June 22 - July 2, 10-days, themed "Discover Vanuatu") as ports of call sequence and port times. Prices started from AUD 880 pp (double-occupancy inside cabin rates).

4 nights / 5 days (Inaugural short-break cruise (roundtrip to Moreton Island) - prices from AUD 580 pp

On September 21, 2017, was the 3-night / 4-day Inaugural "cruise to nowhere" from Sydney (themed "Food and Wine") - prices started from AUD 400 pp.

Pacific Explorer's Cruise to Nowhere deals are on specially themed Australian roundtrip itineraries with no additional ports of call along the route. These short breaks are usually themed "Food and Wine", "Music" (various styles/performers), "Comedy", "Sports".

P&O Australia "cruises to nowhere" prices are inclusive of all special activities and themed entertainment on the ship, including classes and workshops, lectures, presentations, guest performances, theme parties.

Dawn Princess ship

• Cabin grades number: 25
• Dining Rooms: Florentine, Venetian
• Restaurants and food bars: Sterling (steakhouse), Horizon Court (buffet), La Scala (Pizzeria), Balcony Grill
• Lounges & Bars: Theatre, Atrium, Vista, Jammers (nightclub), La Patisserie (lobby), Wheelhouse, Windjammers, Magnums, poolside bars
• Adult retreat areas (The Sanctuary), Oasis & Lotus Spa, Basketball court, Swimming Pools (3 - Lotus Spa pool, Riviera pool, Kid's splash pool), Gym, Jacuzzis (4), Shuffleboard, Golf simulator, "Movies Under The Stars" (outdoor theatre), ship around promenade (deck 7).
• The Princess Dawn ship is from the line's Sun-class series (oldest). Her Princess sisters are Sea (now Dream Charming) and Sun (now Pacific World) .
• Princess Cruises Dawn ship was constructed in 1997 by the Italian company Fincantieri. The christening ceremony was held in Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades, Florida) on the 8th of May, 1997. The vessel has a long list of godparents. These are Gavin MacLeod, Fred Grandy, Ted Lange, Bernie Kopell, Jill Whelan and Lauren Tewes - all-stars of the 1970s-1980s TV series "The Love Boat". The naming ceremony was the first time to gather all artists, since TV series ended in 1986, and they had not met for about 10 years. Love Boat had 9 successful seasons and the ceremony was a brilliant occasion to recall the old times. All actors were dressed in their original Love Boat costumes and burst out a real media explosion when appeared on stage for the joint christening of Dawn Princess.

In 2009, Dawn Princess was repositioned in the South Pacific Ocean for cruises around Australia and New Zealand.

In 2017, Dawn Princess was transferred to the fleet of P&O Australia (Carnival Corp brand) - after 20 years of service for Princess. P&O Australia received in Fall 2015 two ships from Holland America Line (also a Carnival Corp brand) - MS Ryndam (now Celestyal Journey) and MS Statendam (now Vasco da Gama Nicko) .

Dawn Princess's last voyage was on May 14, 2017 - the 12-day repositioning itinerary from Australia to Asia (Fremantle to Singapore). Next, you can see the relocation cruise (May 14 - 26), as well as the ship's last Australian "Princess itinerary" (15-day Brisbane to Fremantle, April 29 - May 14) as ports sequences and times.

Repositioning from Australia to Asia for the refurbishment.

Dawn Princess ship review

Dawn Princess itinerary program was based on Australia and New Zealand itineraries departing from Sydney, Fremantle, and Melbourne.

The 77,441-ton, 1,950-passenger Dawn Princess ship was constantly based in Australia. It offered itineraries in Australia-New Zealand, South Pacific Islands, Hawaii, as well as World Cruises . Onboard prices were in AUD, Vegemite replaces peanut butter at breakfast, and the fitness center runs classes like "legs, bums, and tums". As opposed to other Princess ships, Dawn was far more intimate. This also meant that facilities are neither as large nor as well equipped as those on the fleet's newer vessels.

The size is particularly felt in the Horizon Court buffet restaurant (where options are not as varied as in other lido buffets), the cramped workout room and the teen lounge. On the other side, having 2 show lounges was a good way to give passengers more entertainment opportunities every night. Princess really utilized the onboard space with a wide diversity of onboard activities, everything from ceramics to dance classes, game tournaments to computer workshops.

The Florentine and Venetian Dining Rooms aboard Dawn Princess are virtually identical, differing only in their decor color and in the exquisite murals depicting Florence and Venice. Both rooms contain etched glass panels and lovely wood, creating a feeling of intimate dining. The food preparation is of very good quality, beautifully presented and varied. Vegetarian selections are excellent, desserts - superb. A good selection of healthy items is provided every night. Waiters are friendly and helpful. The popular dining venue, Horizon Court, is open 24 hours a day. Horizon Court is situated one deck above the swimming pool area. The buffet is tiny by new-ship standards but offers excellent breakfast options from 4 am to 11:30 am, along with an abundance of fruits and bread, and European specialties.

Follows the complete list of Dawn Princess restaurants and food bars.

• Florentine Restaurant (dinner only, aft Dining Room, with 2 fixed seatings - 5:45 and 7:45 p.m.)
• Venetian Restaurant (aft Dining Room open for Breakfast 7:30 p.m. - 9:30 a.m., Lunch 12 p.m. - 1 p.m., Afternoon Tea 3:30 p.m. -4:30 p.m., with 2 fixed Dinner seatings- at 5:45 p.m. or 7:45 p.m.)
• La Scala Pizzeria (complimentary)
• Horizon Court (self-service buffet restaurant, complimentary)
• Sterling Steakhouse (specialty restaurant)
• Balcony Grill Bar (fast food bar, complimentary).

Dawn Princess daytime offerings include all the cruise standards: trivia, art auctions, board, and card games, cocktail-making demos. However, Princess also provides a variety of themed "@Sea" events. Computers@Sea is the main, teaching photo editing, beginning computer and even movie-making. Common Interest@Sea features social get-togethers by profession, interests or lifestyle. Ballroom@Sea classes teach passengers to dance. Scholarship@Sea offers educational lectures on diverse topics as astronomy, destination information, bridge play. There are also @Sea events for games, ceramics, scrapbooking and book discussions. A special offering is Dawn's Ultimate Ship Tour, taking guests behind the scenes onboard to places like the bridge, galley, backstage of the theater, funnel and engine control room. The 3-hour tour costs AUD175 and participants receive a luxurious bathrobe, personalized stationery, official chef's jacket and a framed photo with the captain.

Follows the complete list of Dawn Princess lounges, clubs and other entertainment venues for kids, teens, and adults.

• The Grand Piazza Atrium (4-deck open floor area; features live performances entertainment and lobby Bar Piazza)
• La Patisserie Bar (offers specialty coffees, desserts, pastries, wine, liquor)
• Atrium Boutiques (Regatta Shop)
• Art Gallery; Photo Gallery & Shop; Platinum Studio
• Internet Cafe (24-hour), Card Room
• Princess Dawn Theatre (musical and show productions; hosts workshops, seminars, game shows)
• Jammers Disco & Nightclub
• Princess Dawn Grand Casino
• Vista Lounge & Bar
• Wheelhouse Bar (piano bar during the day and an English pub nightly)
• Magnums Bar (wine bar); Sundaes Bar; Oasis Bar
• Dawn’s Oasis Spa complex; Beauty Salon; Fitness Center (with Aerobics Studio)
• Movies Under the Stars (LED screen outdoor cinema)
• Video Games Arcade; Teen Center; Youth Center with Paddling Pool and outdoor playing areas
• The Sanctuary (adult-only open-air area); Riviera Pool area
• Sports Court (volleyball, basketball, European football)
• Shuffleboard, Golf Net, Princess Links (mini-golf course)

Pacific Explorer

P&O Cruises

Pacific Explorer Cruise Schedule

10 night bounty discovery, 10 night new guinea island encounter, 10 night tongan discovery, 12 night asia explorer, 13 night bounty adventure, 13 night new year's eve cruise, 14 night bounty adventure, 14 night queensland explorer, 2 night classic short break, 2 night comedy cruise, 3 night 80's themed cruise, 3 night aussie classics, 3 night comedy cruise, 3 night country, 4 night 90s, 4 night bay of islands, 4 night comedy cruise, 4 night hobart, 4 night kangaroo island, 4 night melbourne, 4 night picton, 4 night southern getaway, 4 night whitsundays cruise, 5 night a taste of tasmania, 5 night classic short break, 5 night southern discovery, 5 night southern getaway, 6 night barrier reef discovery, 6 night classic short break, 6 night southern getaway, 7 night barrier reef discovery, 7 night new year's eve cruise, 7 night pacific island hopper, 7 night southern explorer, 7 night southern getaway, 8 night christmas cruise, 8 night fiji encounter, 8 night pacific island hopper, 9 night fiji encounter, 9 night pacific island hopper, pacific explorer schedule by departure port, pacific explorer schedule by month, cruise updates.

Our choices for the top 10 cruises departing from Los Angeles in October include three mega-cruises that will tour the Pacific plus a trip through the Panama Canal that ends in Florida.

Explore the great cities of northwestern Italy before or after one of these week-long Mediterranean cruises from Genoa

Genoa is a port city in the northwestern part of Italy, about 70 miles southeast of Turin and 75 miles south of Milan

Now is a good time to reserve a spot on one of the autumn cruises out of Boston that will explore New England and Canada

Leaf-peeping, Norwegian fjords and transatlantic cruises highlight our list of the top cruises in the world departing in September

P&O Pacific Explorer to operate Pacific cruises out of Auckland in 2022

Recently you may have seen ads popping up in your social media feed offering something that, given the current status of the COVID-19 pandemic, seems too good to be true.

The ad features an image of a beautiful cruise ship cutting its way through the smooth Pacific Ocean. 

Surely we can't book a cruise amid a raging pandemic, you might think. But think again.

P&O Cruises' Pacific Explorer is scheduled to call Auckland home from July 5 to November 27 of 2022. To paraphrase the Vengaboys, the sky is blue and the sea is waiting for you. 

The Pacific Explorer's cruise season is targeting Kiwis keen to dip their toes back into the pool of cruising, but don't want to travel too far away from the safe bubble of Aotearoa.

Pacific Explorer cruises in 2022:

Pacific Explorer cruise:

This nine-night cruise will head to Noumea, a Mystery Island and Port Villa. Fares start from $1099 per person, departing Auckland on August 5. 

A four-night cruise to Marlborough Sounds in the South Island. Picton is said to offer some of the world's best water views and natural scenery for travellers to enjoy. Customers who book before August 10 can receive up to $600 onboard spending money per room. Departs Auckland on October 12.

Kiwi Explorer:

This eight-night cruise is said to highlight Aotearoa's best ports. It offers wine and cheese tastings, adventure sports and World Heritage-listed wonders. Customers who book before August 10 can receive up to $600 onboard spending money per room. Departs Auckland on November 3.

Comedy Cruise:

This three-night cruise will provide both daily and nightly shows including the Comedy Cruise Gala, adults-only shows in the Sit-Down Comedy Club. Those looking to take the stage themselves can enter the Comedy Gong show. Fares start from $429 per person, quad share, departing Auckland September 2.

Cruises On Pacific Explorer 2025

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Author Interviews

'the wide wide sea' revisits capt. james cook's fateful final voyage.

Dave Davies

"A lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning," historian Hampton Sides says of Cook's last voyage, which ended in the British explorer's violent death on the island of Hawaii in 1779.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies.

You may remember the story of the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, when an explosion in the spacecraft of three astronauts forced them to summon the courage, focus and ingenuity to rescue the situation and return home safely. That story came to me often as I read the latest book by our guest, historian Hampton Sides. It's about an 18th-century sea voyage around the world, led by Captain James Cook, an explorer so accomplished that in the 1770s his was a household name in England.

Sides' book is an account of what it took for a ship full of men to sail for months in uncharted waters with only what they had on board to survive, how they coped with hunger, thirst, disease and weather so fierce it could snap a ship's mast in two and still found ways to keep going. It's a tale of fearless exploration, which greatly expanded our understanding of the world's geography. And it's a story of remarkable encounters with Indigenous people, some of whom had never seen Europeans before. All such encounters were unique and most friendly, but one rooted in deep cultural gaps and misunderstandings would lead to a tragic outcome remembered for centuries.

Hampton Sides is a contributing editor to Outside magazine and a historian who's written five previous books on subjects ranging from the exploration of the American West to the Korean War. His latest is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook."

Hampton Sides, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

HAMPTON SIDES: Yeah, it's a real pleasure to be back with you.

DAVIES: Let's just begin by giving you a bit of a thumbnail profile of James Cook. What was he known for back in the 1770s?

SIDES: Captain Cook was arguably one of the greatest explorers of all time - you know, the quality of his observations, the sheer number of nautical miles that he traveled, the incredible volumes that emanated from his voyages with beautiful art and descriptions of flora and fauna never before seen by Europeans. He had three voyages around the world, any one of which would have put him on the map and put him in the pantheon of great explorers like Magellan. But there was just a kind of a probity and a kind of almost scientific approach that he applied to his voyages that was unusual for his time.

And, you know, I think you would describe him as a product of the Enlightenment, someone who - yes, of course he understood he was working for the empire. He was working to advance the aims of the crown of England and the admiralty. But he also was a citizen of the world who knew that he was supposed to publish. He was supposed to describe objectively what he saw. And he was supposed to contribute to the global knowledge of the makeup of the planet - what does it look like? How does it look on a map? Who are these people that he was encountering? - and to try to describe them fairly and fully and without a lot of, you know, the typical stuff that you would see prior to his generation where it's like, they're savages. They're heathens. He was - he really approached it in a very different manner.

DAVIES: And what was his style as a commander?

SIDES: His style?

DAVIES: His personality...

SIDES: OK. So this was an age...

DAVIES: ....His approach - you know, we think of these...

SIDES: Yeah.

DAVIES: ...You know, commanding a ship - tough guys, right?

SIDES: Especially in his age. I mean, they were tyrants. They were - it was master and commander. They were absolutely in control of their ships. And so many of the British captains - and, for that matter, almost all the other European captains - were brutal tyrants. Cook, in that context, was quite - at least during his first two voyages, quite lenient, quite tolerant, quite concerned about ship conditions and hygiene and diet, very worried about scurvy and other diseases and had a kind of scientific approach to how to deal with diseases. He seemed to kind of have an almost intuitive understanding of germ theory, cleanliness, all these kinds of things.

Now, I'm not trying to say that he was a soft guy. He was stern and dour and tough and, you know, it was not - you know, he would dole out the discipline. But he was also mindful of the morale of his men. And for those first two voyages, you see a very different captain from his generation.

The third voyage, he begins to change, and you start to see a temper come out and a - just an absolute inflexibility. He starts to apply the lash to his own men and to treat some of the Native folks that he encounters along the way with increasing severity and cruelty. And so it's caused a lot of people to wonder, well, what's up with Cook in this third voyage? What - does he have a parasite? Is there some kind of mental or even spiritual problem that he's dealing with? Is he just simply exhausted from all the hundreds of thousands of miles he's traveled? It's one of the kind of forensic questions that comes up repeatedly in my book - is what's ailing the captain?

DAVIES: You mentioned scurvy. You know, scurvy was a disease, which is caused by a lack of vitamin C, I guess, which could kill up to half of - you know, a half of a crew on many voyages. He had a remarkable record on this - right? - by - I think on his last voyage, which was more than four years, not a single sailor died from scurvy.

SIDES: Yeah, and this was unheard of. Any voyage over a couple of hundred days, men started to drop like flies from scurvy. It was just kind of considered an occupational hazard of long-distance voyaging that most European navies seemed to be willing to tolerate, even though it was so horrendous, such a horrific way to die. Cook seemed to have figured it out, but he didn't really know precisely what was doing the trick. He had all kinds of weird things on board his ship that were supposed to be anti-scorbutic, meaning, you know, combating scurvy.

But what he fundamentally did understand was that eating fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and even fresh meat as opposed to just the constant typical diet of salt, pork and hardtack biscuits - that something in that was the trick, you know, that fresh stuff that he always had his men out hunting and fishing and gathering vegetables and berries and things like that. And that was a major factor. You know, it was only - you know, it was, what, a couple hundred years later before we definitively understood that it was actually vitamin C - a lack of vitamin C.

So when he comes back from his first and then his second voyage without anyone dying of scurvy, people at the admiralty - people at the Royal Society in London - think he's conquered this horrible malady. He hasn't exactly conquered it. He has figured something out. It will take generations before they absolutely figure it out. But - so he's hailed as a hero for this accomplishment.

DAVIES: There are so many writings from not just Captain Cook - he kept journals - but from other members of the crew. Some of them were quite literate. It's sort of remarkable that was - they wrote - a lot to draw on here, wasn't there?

SIDES: Yeah. You know, I think that by the time Cook went out on his third voyage, you know, so many people wanted to be a part of these voyages. They understood that this was a great captain and something interesting was going to happen. And so a lot of really interesting officers came aboard the ship, and they all kept journals. They wrote very well. Captain Cook wrote well but in a kind of stodgy, very emotionless way. But there were some other officers on board who just wrote beautiful, beautiful accounts of things, like, you know, our first detailed description of tattooing, of surfing, of a human sacrifice that was performed on Tahiti - these sorts of things. And I definitely view this story as an ensemble story, not just Cook's account but all these officers on board who wrote their own journals. Sometimes they were approved journals. Other times they were kind of done under the table and published without the approval of the admiralty. But it's a kind of an embarrassment of riches, all the different accounts that I had to draw from and to sort of triangulate them and to come up with this three-dimensional account.

DAVIES: You know, it's interesting - Cook's third voyage, which is the subject of your book, begins in July of 1776, which, you know, Americans will note coincides with another big moment on this side of the Atlantic, right? That's when the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. And a lot of attention was focused on the war in America, which, as you write it, meant that his ship didn't get quite the care it should have when they were preparing it for the voyage. The kind of caulking and reinforcing of the ship was done poorly. What impact did that have?

SIDES: It had a huge impact, because the Resolution was leaking like a sieve much of the voyage. It seemed like - this is a ship that had just returned from Cook's second voyage, so it was a tired ship, captained by a tired captain, and it seemed like a lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning because of - the shipwrights at Deptford had been focused much more on this war that's brewing in the colonies. And they leave.

And as you mentioned, in July of 1776, just as the American Revolution is getting started, it's interesting that, although this is very much a British story with a British captain, it's also very much an American tale, because so much of the action ends up in the present-day United States, whether you're talking about Hawaii or Oregon, Washington, Alaska. They're exploring the Northwest coast of North America just as the revolution is getting started. And by the time they return to England, the revolution is basically over, and it's a whole new world.

DAVIES: So Cook was a famous mapmaker and seaman. He'd done two around-the-world voyages. He didn't want to do another one, but he was kind of talked into it. King George III wanted it. And the Earl of Sandwich - the guy known for inventing the sandwich, who was...

DAVIES: ...In the Admiralty, wanted him to - Cook to command another expedition. What were the goals? What did they want him to do in this round-the-world trek?

SIDES: Well, the British had been obsessed for a long time with the idea of finding the - what they called the Northwest Passage - a shortcut over North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean - for trade reasons, for reasons of commerce. But at a certain point, it had become kind of a geographical obsession. And every time they poked into the pinched geography of Canada, they found ice, right?

So this time, the idea was go around to the other side, to the Pacific side, go up through the Bering Strait - which we had some very vague ideas about because of Bering's voyages - and to try to find that Northwest Passage from the Pacific side - the backside of America, as the English called it. It was one of the holy grails of British geography and exploration. And if Cook could have found this elusive Northwest Passage, it would have been the crowning achievement of his career. This was such a tantalizing voyage, with such huge ambitions and rewards behind it, that he decided, oh, I'll go back out.

DAVIES: Let's take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF GOGOL BORDELLO SONG, “NOT A CRIME”)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with historian Hampton Sides, whose new book is a gripping account of an 18th-century round-the-world sea voyage led by British Captain James Cook. You know, many of the fascinating stories in this book - and there are a lot of them - involve these two ships in Cook's expedition, you know, dropping anchor on an island and interacting with Indigenous people. You open the book with one of them. This was in January 1778, where he visits Kauai, which is in the Hawaiian Island chain. And there's some - you know, some accounts from Hawaiian historians about what the people ashore thought when these two, you know, tall, masted ships showed up. How did they react? What did they think when they saw this?

SIDES: They worried that their world was forever changed. There was a sense of exhilaration and terror and rapture. They talked about maybe these are manta rays that have emerged from the sea. Maybe they are gods. That does come up, even at Kauai, that idea that these may be manifestations of the god Lono, which will come up later in the story. They could tell instantly that these were very different people.

And what they most were fascinated by was all the metal that was on board the ship. They could see it gleaming in the sunlight. It was a substance that they had a very, very faint knowledge of only because some pieces of driftwood had landed on Kauai with - you know, sometimes with nails in it. And they understood this was a magical substance. And they wanted a piece of it and very quickly started to tear the ship apart, trying to get at the nails and any other piece of metal they could find. But they understood this was a new world. This was a new people. And it was very - the initial greeting was quite peaceful, but things escalated in a hurry. A hothead officer fired a musket and killed a Hawaiian man. And things went downhill very quickly.

DAVIES: Now, you write in that case that these were not people who had seen Europeans before, and they mistook their garments for their skin and the tricorn hats for their - for the shape of their heads.

SIDES: Yeah. They thought they had deformed heads that - you know, three-point heads. And they had never seen pockets before and thought, you know, look, they stick their hands into their bodies and they come out with treasure. And there's a lot of really bizarre and wonderful oral history that was done by some Hawaiian - Native Hawaiian historians about these reactions. They didn't understand smoking, and when they saw these white men smoking, they thought they were - they called them the volcano people because they seemed to just be constantly seething smoke.

DAVIES: Yeah. You know, it's kind of as close as you could get to imagining what it would be like for Martians landing on Earth, I guess, if you see someone that - with no preparation...

DAVIES: ...And no context, to see something in these vessels with those garments and all that. You know, you write that Cook's attitude towards and descriptions of the Indigenous folks he encountered was very different from other European explorers, right? More tolerant...

SIDES: I think, you know...

DAVIES: ...More curious?

SIDES: ...I call him a proto-anthropologist. He certainly had no training in that regard, but he was interested in getting it down in a very level and kind of agnostic treatment of just, like, this is what they wear. This is how they converse. This is what the rituals look like. He never tries to convert them to Christian faith, never uses the word heathen or savage, to my recollection, so yeah, he's unique in that regard, and some of that he had learned from his first voyage. A famous scientist, Joseph Banks, was on that ship, and he had learned a little of the language of, you know, science, I guess you would say, and language of the enlightenment. But he was quite fair in his assessment of these people, I think.

DAVIES: And what would be his approach when first going ashore? I mean, you know, one might think, I better bring, you know, he had a platoon of marines onboard with - who were armed with muskets. Do you bring them? Do you bring one or two? Do you go by yourself? Did he have a standard approach?

SIDES: Most of the time, he would march ashore unarmed. He liked to be the first one ashore. He had this kind of, what I call, a minuet of first contact, this sort of dance that he did with the locals, where he, you know, yes, it's probably dangerous, but if I look them in the eye and, you know, present myself in - as a peaceful person, maybe they won't kill me. And it was a dangerous and, some people thought, reckless way of going about things, but he would - yes, there would be marines waiting in the wings, but he would usually be the first one ashore. And so I guess you could say that's very brave, or you could say it's perhaps hubristic and reckless.

DAVIES: Right. And he would sometimes have someone who spoke some Polynesian languages onboard, so there might be some basis for communication. It seems, You know, and it's interesting, because there are so many of these accounts in the books, including tribes that are up in the Arctic. There's the Hawaiian islands, there's, you know, around Tahiti and Tasmania and New Zealand, and it seems that in every case, the Indigenous folks are quickly ready to engage in commerce, barter, trade. They want some things, and not always the same things.

SIDES: Not always the same things, but, there's, you know, that was always the first question was what Cook was interested in when he landed on an island was, can I get some water? Can I get some timber? Can I get some food? And so what am I going to trade with? And one of the things they would trade with, the blacksmiths would generate crude tools and chisels and knives, and they would give these as gifts. Another time, they accumulated a bunch of red feathers on Tonga, the island of Tonga, and found that in some of the islands, red feathers were like gold, considered as valuable as gold. So - but, you know, the native people were also very intrigued by Cook's instruments, partly 'cause they were made out of metal, but things like sextants and quadrants and astronomical gear, and would often be tempted to steal this stuff, not knowing precisely what it did, but perhaps thinking that it had something to do with the heavens and perhaps the gods. So every island, the economy, the barter trade was a little bit different from the next one.

DAVIES: Let's take another break here and we'll talk some more.

We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His new book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, The First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook" (ph). He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL")

SHANE MACGOWAN: (Singing) Fare thee well to Prince's Landing Stage. There were many fare thee wells. I am bound for California, a place I know right well. So fare thee well, my own true love. When I return, united we will be. It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but, my darling, when I think of thee. Oh, and I have shipped upon it once before. I think I know it well. The captain's name is Burgess, and I've...

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. We're speaking with historian Hampton Sides, whose new book is a gripping account of an 18th century round-the-world sea voyage led by British captain James Cook. The journey took him and his crew above the Arctic Circle north of Alaska looking for a water passage through North America, and they explored many islands in Hawaii in the South Pacific, having memorable encounters with Indigenous people, including one that would prove deadly for the explorers. Sides' book is "The Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook."

So let's talk a bit about what an overseas voyage was like in the, you know, 1750s or 1770s when this happened. The main ship he was on was called the Resolution. There was a companionship, the Discovery. The Resolution was 110ft long. That's 37 yards long. About, you know, a middling pass in the NFL. That's the distance. And roughly a hundred men aboard. They might go months without landfall. They had to carry all the water. I mean, well, what kinds of supplies would you have to pack to know that you could go exploring uncharted waters and stay alive?

SIDES: Yeah. It certainly wasn't a Carnival cruise. People were suffering and, you know, living in cramped quarters and swinging in hammocks and dealing with bad food, dealing with the discipline of the ship, obviously and the closeness, the claustrophobic closeness of being with the same group of guys for so long.

DAVIES: How did cook, and his sailors, for that matter, communicate with the locals?

SIDES: A lot of grunting. A lot of gesticulating. A lot of pidgin Polynesian, which many of the men did learn along the way because the language, although it varied from island to island, was largely the same throughout the South Seas, at least. And they communicated mainly through bartering and expressions on their face. It was, you know, certainly true that whatever the men were understanding was only a fraction of what was really going on. And that's a big part of when you're dealing with the documents, you're trying to sift through all this and try to realize well, only getting, you know, sort of the unreliable narrator thing. We're only getting a part of the real story. But, you know, you just try to do the best you can with the documents that you have to work with.

DAVIES: You know, there's one fascinating figure here who was on Cook's voyage, or much of it, who was not an Englishman. He was a Polynesian man named Mai, who had joined Cook's second voyage, was interested in joining the Navy, did so, became a seaman, and then goes to England, where he becomes kind of a celebrity, this Polynesian guy. Tells us something about his experience.

SIDES: Mai was amazing. He was the first Polynesian man to set foot on English soil, and he very quickly became a celebrity. He learned English. He hung out at the estates of the aristocracy. He learned to hunt and, you know, he learned to play backgammon and chess. And he met with the Royal Society. He met with King George. He met with Samuel Johnson and all the sort of intelligentsia of the times. And England just fell in love with this guy. He was the personification of, as they put it, the noble savage. He had a wonderful smile. He had a wonderful - he was a very handsome guy that - quite popular with the ladies. And he had a two-year period of London where they really rolled out the red carpet for him.

And - but then the king, King George, said, we're going to take you home. We've got to find a way to get you home. And that ended up being errand number one on Captain Cook's third voyage, which is to bring him home, bring Mai home to Tahiti with his belongings and with a bunch of animals, and ensconce him back in his home island, partly for his own good, but also because they wanted to sort of show Tahitian society how great England was and all these belongings that they had given him. They wanted to impress the Tahitian society that, you know, England was the best, better than Spain, better than France. So that's a big part of the voyage and a big part of the - really, a big part of the book.

DAVIES: Yeah. Like infusing stem cells of British culture in Tahiti.

SIDES: That's a great way to put it. Yeah.

DAVIES: You know, it is interesting because Mai spent two years in England and was a big hit and learned to speak English pretty well and met all these notables. When he left to go on the voyage, he wasn't traveling light, was he? I mean, tell us some of the stuff he brought with him to impress his Tahitian friends when he got back.

SIDES: Well, they - he had been given lots of muskets. He had been given, like, all kinds of trinkets and completely, for the most part, useless things, toys and all kinds of things that, you know, were really kind of meant to impress people but weren't exactly useful.

DAVIES: Well, and also a full suit of armor, right?

SIDES: Oh, he was given also - he was also given - yeah, a full suit of armor. What are you going to do with chainmail and a, you know, full suit of armor in a tropical Tahiti? I'm not really sure. But there was an ulterior motive going on the whole time, which was that he wanted guns. He wanted ammunition because he - his father had been murdered by the warriors from Bora Bora, and he wanted to reclaim his home island from the Bora Bora. And so he wanted - he ventured to England, really, to get guns. And he did get guns. And that's a whole nother part of after Cook leaves and deposits Mai in the Society Islands. Unfortunately, Mai's story is sad and tragic and, you know, kind of an example of what happens, I think, when you cross-pollinate cultures, you know, it was like he was a man without a country.

He wasn't really English and he wasn't really Tahitian anymore. He was something else. He had all these belongings, but he didn't really know what to do with them. And he immediately started using his guns to cook up a battle with the Bora Borans. And things do not go well for him, tragically, in the end.

DAVIES: It was interesting because they, you know, Cook wanted to integrate him into Tahitian society. But he goes and he meets with the chief and, you know, he was a little station when he left. Now he thinks he's big stuff. He goes riding on the beach on a horse in a full suit of armor. They are less than impressed. They kind of just did not ingratiate him with Tahitian culture. The British end up building him a house with a lock on it, which was a new thing. Just didn't...

SIDES: Right.

DAVIES: ...Work at all, did it?

SIDES: It's just like a completely grafted from England trying to make it work in a completely different society. The thing is, Mai came from basically nothing. He was a commoner, and apparently, no amount of possessions or guns or suit of armor could change that. You know, Tahitian society was very stratified. The kings and chiefs were all powerful. And here comes this impostor - this poser - trying to now say, oh, I'm powerful, and I'm well-connected, so you should treat me differently. Well, they didn't treat him differently. They're just like, you're still Mai.

DAVIES: We're going to take another break here.

We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His new book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." We'll talk more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN AUERBACH SONG, "HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with historian Hampton Sides. His new book is a gripping account of an 18th-century, round-the-world sea voyage led by British Captain James Cook.

After he spent time in the South Pacific with - near islands around Tahiti, he actually "discovers," quote-unquote, I mean, the islands in the chain that includes Hawaii, that we now know as our - the state of Hawaii. I mean, I say discovered, because obviously people had been living there for centuries, but Europeans somehow didn't know about this. But then he goes on to explore the west coast of North America, looking for this long-sought water passage that would allow, you know, Europeans to go through North America to the Pacific Ocean. So he's trying to do it from the backside - plenty of encounters with local communities, plenty of times he had to stop and repair his ship, explores all kinds of inlets and rivers and estuaries, does not find this passage.

So he does try to go north up to the Arctic Circle to see if - is there a chance you can sail, you know, over the north - over the top of the world, bypass Greenland and go to Great Britain. This was in the summer. And there were some thinking that this might be possible. A guy named Daines Barrington you write about had opinions about Arctic sea travel. Tell us - what were the expectations here?

SIDES: There was a lot of weird ideas back then and pieces of kind of pseudoscience and rumor that - for example, one of the ideas was that sea ice cannot freeze. And so if you can get far enough from land, the only ice is along the shore coming from rivers. So the idea was, you know, if you can find a big, wide passage somewhere up there that's just in the broad ocean, it will not freeze, and you'll find your way over Canada. This is obviously very flawed science. And a lot of science - a lot of explorers had to suffer and die to try to disprove it. But Cook was willing to give it a try. And he also understood that this whole part of the world was - it was not known at all. It was terra incognita. Yeah, it was a mystery what was up there. The Russians had been there, but they didn't really share their information.

And we do see Cook, during this phase of the voyage, at his very best. He's back to what he does best, which is mapping and charting and exploring something entirely new and trying to understand the lay of the land. He was a brilliant cartographer. And he was an amazing captain in these kinds of dicey sailing situations. So he goes, I mean, he basically gives us the outline of the entire northwest part of the continent, you know, Oregon to Alaska. And he goes up and over Alaska. And he's heading toward what we now call Point Barrow, Alaska, when he finally encounters an impenetrable wall of ice. And he understands immediately, not only is this not going to lead to the Atlantic but we've got to get the hell out of here, because we're going to get trapped in this ice. And he nearly does get trapped. And if that had happened, we'd never hear - heard from him again.

And so most people, at that point, would have said, well, time to go home. But he decided, no, we're going to try it one more season. We're going to come back during the next summer in the hope that we'll - maybe the ice will have shifted, and we can find that way through. But in the meantime, winter's coming. I got to go somewhere to replenish the ships and let the men have some R&R. So why don't we go back to that amazing archipelago we stumbled upon, Hawaii - the Hawaiian chain. And so that's what they do. They head back to Hawaii to thaw out and relax for a short while.

DAVIES: Yeah. This is just an amazing moment in the book. Like, OK, you've, like, you've given it a shot. There is no northwest passage. The Arctic is frozen. Go home. But no, no. And he's going to extend the voyage by another full year. He's going to wait and go back the next summer. Captain Cook would not make it home from this voyage. He would be killed on the island of Hawaii. The circumstances are a little too intricate for us to cover here, and it's frankly a fascinating story that I think folks, along with other great stories, will get when they read the book.

You know, Cook is revered by many as, you know, one of the greatest explorers and sailors ever. And, you know, a man of the enlightenment who cared about expanding knowledge and being precise. He's also reviled as, you know, an agent of European imperialism. I mean, his - monuments to him in the islands have been, you know, desecrated. And I noticed that the copy in the jacket to your book says Cook's scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword. From his writings, did he care deeply about colonial conquest and rivalries with, you know, Spain, which was really active in the Pacific?

SIDES: Yes. He - you know, he wasn't naive. He knew that he was doing the work of Empire. He certainly was a devoted, you know, follower of the Crown and was a dutiful employee, if you want to call it, of the Admiralty. And he understood that this enormous chess game that was going on between the European powers, particularly the Spanish and the French and the English and the Dutch, was happening all around, and that he was working in the service of all that. He wasn't naive. But you get the feeling when you read his journals that the places places where he's most animated, when he's most excited, when he's most interested is when he's describing something totally new, when he's playing the role of even an anthropologist or a, you know, ethnographer or when he's mapping something that's never been seen by Europeans before.

I say in the book that he's more empirical than imperial and that he's more inquisitive than acquisitive, and I think that's true. I do think that he was operating in a very, very unique time when there was still this kind of ethic of the Enlightenment. But there's no question that exploration is the first phase of colonial conquest. You know, these explorers come, they describe the bays and places where you can anchor and where the food is, and then here come the occupiers, and here comes the alcohol and the diseases and, you know, just the entire dismantling of these fragile island communities. So that's why he's hated so much, I think. He was - it's not really so much what he did. It's what came immediately after him as a consequence of his voyages.

DAVIES: Yeah. It's interesting. You know, he didn't claim lands for the crown, and he didn't conquer and subjugate and exploit the locals. I mean, he made a point of not getting into local wars with them. They would want him to kind of help them. He wouldn't get involved in that. But the interactions in some way undermined the traditional societies in ways that were not helpful.

SIDES: You know, he did claim some lands for England occasionally, especially in his first two voyages, because it was required by the admiralty, but by the third voyage, you can tell he's rolling his eyes at the whole thing. In fact, he would have his younger officers, junior officers, go out and raise the flag and, you know, have a little ceremony 'cause he thought it was absurd. But, you know, he understood that these were new lands that probably one of the European powers was going to try to take over, and he was consciously writing notes to the admiralty saying, you know, the Spanish are probably going to come here next, or, you know, what are the French going to do? So, you know, this imperial game is still going on in the background, and it still has reverberations to this day.

DAVIES: Hampton Sides, thanks so much for speaking with us.

SIDES: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

DAVIES: Hampton Sides' book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews Beyonce's new album, "Cowboy Carter." This is FRESH AIR.

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P&O Australia:

Pacific Explorer – South Pacific Island Hopper

Auckland Return

9 Nights: 8 July 2024

4 Ports of Call

Enjoy this 9-night cruise from Auckland during the July School Holidays around New Caledonia and Vanuatu.  Spend your time ashore shopping, enjoying local sites and culture in Noumea and Port Villa.  Enjoy the crystal-clear waters of Lifou and Mystery Islands.

Itinerary - 9 nights on P&O Cruises (X430): Day 1: Embark – Auckland Day 2: At Sea Day 3: At Sea Day 4: Noumea, New Caledonia Day 5: Lifou, New Caledonia Day 6: Port Villa, Vanuatu Day 7: Mystery Island, Vanuatu Day 8: At Sea Day 9: At Sea Day 10: Disembark   - Auckland About Pacific Explorer:

There is Something for Everyone onboard Pacific Explorer.  Whiz down waterslides by day, enjoy great restaurants, bars and edgy stage shows at night. There’s something for every member of the family.

When it comes to dining, you are spoilt for choice with our range of everyday dining venues. Or treat yourself to something special at Luke's our amazing celebrity chef restaurant with Luke Mangan. Enjoy a mouth-watering signature burger at lunch or a delicious 3 course la carte dinner with the sunset. Or try the specialty venues P&O Trattoria and P&O Pizzeria, offering delicious Italian options.

P&O’s stylish yet relaxed modern Australian interior designs make Pacific Explorer the perfect place to holiday.

Our Cruise Conditions: Your payments to Our World Ltd are protected by TAANZ.

Fares are per person in New Zealand Dollars, twin share, in stated category staterooms.  Prices include port charges, government taxes, (correct as at 7 March 2024).  Payment by cash or direct deposit – Q-Card & Credit Card prices are available.  Itinerary is subject to change. Additional conditions may apply. Our prices exclude international airfares, however if required, please ask your Our Cruise Specialist for options. Prices valid on selected sailings, for any other departures – please contact our specialists for more information.

P&O Australia requires an initial deposit at time of booking, deposit amount and conditions vary depending on the promotion and cabin booked.  Final Balances are due 100 days prior to sailing.  Once deposited and paid in full cancellation fees will apply.

*P&O Fare Structures: Go Fare: Room categories can be booked and guaranteed but actual room numbers are not allocated until closer to sailing and are allocated randomly so could be anywhere on the ship. We cannot request cabins near each other.  Any name changes incur an AUD$75 charge.  There are no benefits or perks with this fare type and require a non-refundable deposit. Value Fare: These are the standard fares.  You can choose your cabin, and if available we can book cabins near each other.  There are no fees for name changes.  Includes any special offers on campaign at the time. Value Plus Fares: These are the premium fares. You can choose your cabin, and if available we can book cabins near each other.  There are no fees for name changes.  Includes any special offers on campaign at the time, as well as: A Beverage Package for 2, Wi-Fi for 2 and a priority check-in.

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