After a 10-day wait, the suspense was over Thursday - as was what had been billed as the trip of a lifetime for 1,752 passengers booked on a P and O luxury liner set to sail on a 103-day round-the-world cruise. In a tough blow for the British subsidiary of the US group Carnival, a world leader in cruise liners, P and O finally announced it was cancelling the much-trumpeted jaunt of the cruise ship Aurora due to technical problems with the propulsion system.
The company offered profuse apologies, refunds and thanks for "their patience" to passengers whose hopes of visiting balmy spots like Madeira, Acapulco, Bora Bora, Honolulu and San Francisco turned into prolonged view of Southampton's industrial skyline in southern England, broken only by two false starts.
"P and 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 under way before this difficult but unavoidable decision was taken," a spokesman said.
The cancellation was quickly felt on the London stock exchange, where shares in Carnival - also registered in New York - dropped .86 percent Thursday morning.
"Carnival Corporation estimates that the cancellation of the Aurora's world cruise ... is expected to impact 2005 full year earnings by approximately 5.0 cents per share," it said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
A first start January 9 got no farther than Britain's Isle of Wight. A second attempt late Wednesday saw the ship forced to turn back off Spain, in the Bay of Biscaye, and it quickly became clear the vessel could not "achieve the required speed to complete" the trip, according to the spokesman.
He said passengers "will be refunded their full fare together with compensation of 25 percent 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.