Arvia
P&O Cruises · Cruise · In service · built by Meyer Werft
Arvia is the biggest ship ever created for the British cruise market: a 185,581 GT, LNG-powered Excellence-class resort from Meyer Werft, sailing year-round for Southampton's P&O Cruises since December 2022.
Derived metrics
Computed by ships.fyi from the core specification — see how we calculate these.
How big is it, really?
The Arvia's length overall, against things you already know the size of.
The 747-8 bar is the longest airliner ever built — our sibling site aircraft.fyi measures everything that flies the same way.
One Arvia = 1.28 Titanics · 3.3 football pitches · 14 blue whales · 4.5 Boeing 747-8s laid end to end.
Plan a sailing on Arvia
As an Amazon Associate, ships.fyi earns from qualifying purchases. Some links in our guides are affiliate links — if you buy or book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend.
The numbers
| Length overall | 345 m |
|---|---|
| Beam | 42 m |
| Gross tonnage | 185,581 GT |
| Passengers | 5,200 (double) / ≈6,685 (max) |
| Crew | ≈1,800 |
| Propulsion | LNG dual-fuel |
| Delivered | December 9, 2022 |
| Maiden voyage | December 2022, Southampton |
Put the Arvia next to something
Last verified: 2026-07-15 · Spot an error? business@luck.fyi
What makes it different
Britain's biggest ship is not a warship or a tanker — she is a Southampton-based holiday resort named Arvia, 'from the seashore'. At 185,581 gross tons she out-measures every vessel ever built for the UK market, edging past her own sister Iona by some 1,500 tons, and she was designed unapologetically around the British holiday calendar: Norway and the Mediterranean in summer, Caribbean fly-cruises through the winter.
She is the ninth hull of Carnival Corporation's Excellence platform — the same LNG-powered family as Carnival Jubilee, AIDA Nova and Costa Smeralda — built by Meyer Werft in Papenburg and squeezed down the River Ems in November 2022. Her SkyDome carries a 970-square-metre glass roof of 340 panes weighing 105 tons, installed by one of the largest mobile cranes in Europe.
Named in Barbados by Nicole Scherzinger in March 2023 — P&O's first beachside christening — Arvia represents the world's oldest cruise company at its newest: the line traces its passenger routes to 1822, a full ninety years before Titanic, and its modern flagship now carries more people than the population of many of the ports she visits.
The Arvia line
Excellence (Helios) class
Who operates the Arvia
All 1 operator of record, verified 2026-07-15. Figures marked ≈ are approximate.
POP&O CruisesSouthampton-based year-round — Mediterranean and Norway summers, Caribbean fly-cruise winters.1✓→