We’re in shock! Queen Anne is leaving Cunard for P&O Cruises

We’re in shock! Queen Anne is leaving Cunard for P&O Cruises

We honestly didn’t see this coming at all!

In a major and unexpected shake-up of the Carnival UK fleet, Cunard’s Queen Anne is set to leave Cunard and join P&O Cruises in 2029, while P&O Cruises’ much-loved Arcadia is heading in the opposite direction — leaving P&O Cruises to join Holland America Line.

It’s certainly not the news we expected to be writing today.

Queen Anne will remain with Cunard through her 2028/29 World Voyage, completing her final Cunard season before undergoing an extensive reimagining. She will be given a new name and a new look before entering service with P&O Cruises in May 2029.

Exactly what the reimagined ship will look like remains under wraps for now, with P&O Cruises promising further details about her name, onboard experience and inaugural programme at a later date.

For Cunard, the move means the fleet will return to three ships: Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. Cunard says this will create a more closely unified fleet built around the line’s established identity, heritage and traditional sense of occasion.

And there is still plenty of time to enjoy Queen Anne as a Cunard Queen. She will play a starring role in the Four Queens celebration in Liverpool in May 2028, before embarking on her final World Voyage for Cunard in winter 2028/29.

Meanwhile, Arcadia will have a special farewell season with P&O Cruises, ending on 21 August 2029. She will then transfer to Holland America Line, where she will undergo a comprehensive transformation as part of the line’s Holland America Evolution fleet renewal programme.

All currently published voyages before the respective transfer dates will operate as planned.

But what do we think?

We have to admit, Queen Anne moving to P&O Cruises was not on our radar at all.

Queen Anne was launched as the newest addition to the Cunard fleet in 2024 and was very deliberately positioned as a more contemporary Cunard ship. Now, just a few years into her Cunard career, she is going to be reimagined for P&O Cruises.

It raises a lot of questions.

What will Queen Anne become? Will P&O Cruises retain much of her existing design and layout, or will the reimagining be substantial enough to make her feel like a completely different ship? And perhaps most importantly, what will happen to the things that make Queen Anne distinctly Cunard?

We’ll be watching this one very closely.

And we’d love to know what you think. Are you surprised to see Queen Anne moving to P&O Cruises? And how do you feel about the changes to both the Cunard and P&O Cruises fleets?