P&O Cruises chooses Darcey Bussell

The new P&O cruise ship, Azura will be named on 10th April 2010 and the celebrity who smashes the bottle to launch her will be Darcey Bussell, former former Royal Ballet prima ballerina. She was the youngest dancer ever to become a Principal with the company, winning many awards and becoming one of the best known ballerinas in the world.

P&O Cruises said, ‘Darcey Bussell epitomises glamour, sophistication and elegance, all qualities we have strived to achieve in Azura’ and unsurprisingly one of the main features of the new ship Azura is to be a dance floor in the atrium. Currently P&O is running its own dance contest to find a winning couple to dance at the launch ceremony, but the rest of the launch details are being kept secret. P&O’s last launch, of Venture, featured Helen Mirren being helped to smash the champagne by a group of Royal Marine commandos and we can expect something similarly dramatic for Azura. But there are good works being done as well as fun events being organised – the launch day will benefit three charities chosen by Darcey Bussell: the Sydney Dance Company, the Royal Ballet School and the Prince's Rainforest Project. As well as the dance floor, Azura features ten restaurants, most notably an Indian restaurant created by Michelin-rated chef Atul Kochhar, P&O’s first spa cabins and dedicated single cabins for solo travellers. Azura’s inaugural cruise will be a sixteen night trip to the Mediterranean,visiting Malaga, Corfu, Dubrovnik and Venice.