P&O Cruises celebrates Pacific Explorer’s first birthday

P&O Cruises’ Pacific Explorer celebrated her first birthday in Sydney Harbour yesterday, with a spectacular party featuring an enormous birthday cake.

And what better way to spend a Monday morning than with celebratory champagne and cake?

What was even more surprising, was when acrobats, jugglers and dancers emerged from beneath the ‘icing’ of the three-metre high cake, designed and built by Big Kahuna Imagineering.

The performers who emerged in celebration are a part of Pacific Explorer’s signature show on board, Love Riot, a cabaret-style act more commonly found in a spiegeltent than a cruise ship, featuring world-class dance, comedy, circus and acrobatics.

Love Riot has been turbo-charged to mark Pacific Explorer’s first birthday, including a new world-class line up of artists and contortionists that do everything from dangling from silk sheets and trapezes to unicycling through the audience.

The revamped show kicks off tonight when the ship departs Sydney and sails for the South Pacific.

The show has been created by internationally acclaimed Australian director, Scott Maidment, known for his creative work on Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour.

Scott Maidment told Travel Weekly: “We wanted to create something that guests won’t be expecting at all, something they might see at the Opera House or in Las Vegas.

“The cast are from all around the world, and I’m pretty sure most people have never seen a show like this before.”

“Just give over, have a drink, sit back, relax, and let the crazy world of Love Riot run into you.”

P&O Cruises President Sture Myrmell said Love Riot had been one of the flagship’s many success stories since its debut in July 2017.

“Since we launched Pacific Explorer 12 months ago, we’ve entertained nearly 25,000 guests with our signature Love Riot performance,” he said.

“The hilarious high-energy and circus-style production has proved so popular we wanted to celebrate the ship’s first birthday with an exciting new cut of the show and a new line-up of international artists.”

“We wanted to challenge the conventional production shows on cruise ships and offer our guests a premium experience that would really get people talking,” Myrmell added.

Since Pacific Explorer’s arrival she has taken more than 137,000 Australian holidaymakers on 61 cruises to 28 destinations, both close to home and overseas.

To mark Pacific Explorer’s first birthday, P&O Cruises is also offering one person and a guest the opportunity to win a three-night cruise, with all details of the competition here.