Who Owns P and O Cruises?

P&O Cruises is owned by Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company. It has no connection whatsoever to P&O Ferries, which belongs to DP World of Dubai — the two share a name and nothing else, and conflating them is the single commonest error about both. The UK company was itself called P&O Princess Cruises plc until 2003, and changed its name twice on one day in May 2026. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns P and O Cruises today?

P&O Cruises is a brand of the Carnival group, operated from Southampton. The relevant UK company is CARNIVAL UK LTD. (04039524), incorporated 19 July 2000 and registered at Carnival House, Harbour Parade, Southampton.

Its PSC page carries a listed-company exemption rather than an owner: from 17 October 2018 the company is exempt from the requirement to obtain information of its PSC because it has voting shares admitted to trading on a UK regulated market.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

Carnival was for two decades an unusual thing: a dual-listed company, Carnival Corporation & plc, operating as a single business through two separately listed parents — one American, one British — with shareholders in each holding equivalent economic rights.

The register records the unwinding of that arrangement, and it is recent. Company 04039524’s previous names run:

• P&O PRINCESS CRUISES PLC — 19 July 2000 to 17 April 2003
• CARNIVAL PLC — to 21 May 2026
• CARNIVAL LTD. — 21 May 2026 to 21 May 2026

Two changes on the same day: plc to limited, then limited to Carnival UK Ltd. One-day names of that kind are the mechanical trace of a re-registration, the same pattern seen on this site’s Morrisons page.

Note that the PSC page still shows the 2018 listed-company exemption as active. The register carries the exemption and the re-registration side by side, which is a reminder that filings are updated separately and not always in step.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

Carnival has no controlling shareholder. Its largest holders are institutional, and the Arison family — descendants of founder Ted Arison — retain a significant minority stake rather than control.

No individual can direct the company. Micky Arison, Ted Arison’s son, was chief executive for decades and remains chairman, which is influence through position and shareholding rather than through a special class of shares.

Official records and evidence

Carnival’s US filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission are the authoritative record of the share structure and holdings. Companies House establishes the UK corporate history — and, as set out above, that history is the most informative thing it holds.

For a cruise operator there is a further register worth knowing about: ships are registered in a flag state, not in the country of the owner. P&O Cruises ships have historically flown various flags, and the ship registry, the operating company and the brand owner can each be in a different country. Ownership of a cruise line and the nationality of its ships are separate questions.

Ownership history and changes

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company was founded in 1837 and is one of the oldest names in British shipping. Its cruise business was demerged in 2000 as P&O Princess Cruises — which is why company 04039524 was incorporated that year under that name.

In 2003 P&O Princess merged with Carnival, after a contested battle with Royal Caribbean, forming the dual-listed structure. The company was renamed Carnival plc on 17 April 2003, and that structure lasted until the 2026 reorganisation recorded above.

The rest of the old P&O group went a different way entirely. In 2006 the remaining P&O business — ports and ferries — was bought by DP World of Dubai. The ferry operation has belonged to DP World ever since.

Related companies and brands

Carnival owns P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, Costa, AIDA, Seabourn and the Carnival Cruise Line brand itself.

It does not own P&O Ferries. That company belongs to DP World, and it was P&O Ferries — not P&O Cruises — that dismissed around 800 seafarers without notice in March 2022, an episode that drew parliamentary condemnation. P&O Cruises had no involvement and no common owner, and publicly said so at the time.

Both use versions of the P&O name under arrangements descending from the same Victorian company. Shared heritage in a brand is not shared ownership — and this is the clearest and most consequential example of that distinction on this site.