Cruise liner Aurora limping back to dock

The P&O luxury liner, Aurora, which finally left port yesterday (Wednesday) is limping back to Southampton.

The liner set off on a world cruise 10 days late, but repairs to the £200 million cruise liner's engine have proved unsuccessful and after sea trials were conducted the owners decided to cancel the cruise.

Passengers who had paid tens of thousands of pounds for the "Grand Voyage", a round the world trip, will be returned to Southampton after sea trials revealed that unresolved engine difficulties would mean the cancellation of Aurora’s brief voyage.

In a statement released today, P&O Cruises confirmed the vessels plight and apologised to passengers: "Tests conducted at sea during the night have shown that the repairs to the propulsion motor on board Aurora have not been successful enough to allow her to achieve the required speed to complete the Grand Voyage and the ship is now returning to Southampton".

"P&O Cruises apologises for the disappointment this has caused passengers and offers its assurance that everything possible was done to get Aurora’s Grand Voyage underway before this difficult but unavoidable decision was taken."

Passengers who had a dockside sojourn with free entertainment for 10 days will now be refunded their full fare by P&O and receive compensation of 25% of the amount paid for their holiday to be used as a future cruise credit on a cruise holiday booked before the end of January 2007. The cruise ship was to have set sail on Sunday January 9 with 1750 passengers aboard, but over 380 passengers jumped ship as the delay stretched to 10 days.

Aurora is expected to dock in Southampton at around midnight with the remaining passengers disembarking tomorow (Friday).

When the German-built ship was named by the Princess Royal the champagne bottle did not break, which in seafaring lore is considered a bad omen.

(SP)