Pete Tong has played Ibiza more times than he could count. On Saturday night he did it from a cruise ship.
The Radio 1 DJ played a 90-minute set in Arvia’s SkyDome, the glass-enclosed pool deck on P&O’s newest ship, while she was alongside at Botafoc Pier in Ibiza Town. More than 900 passengers were in the room, Cruise Industry News reports.
Arvia carries more than 5,000, so most of the ship was elsewhere.
The night
The set had been announced in January as the centrepiece of a 14-night Western Mediterranean round trip from Southampton, the one Arvia left on 13 September and returns from this Sunday.
The itinerary was built to allow it. Ibiza was day seven with a late-night departure, so passengers could spend the day on the island and be back on board for the music rather than choosing between the two.
Tong, writing afterwards, said he was “still thinking about Saturday night”. Paul Ludlow, president of Carnival UK and P&O Cruises, called the exclusive SkyDome booking “a perfect fit”.
The Sunset Bar was serving Hierbas Ibicencas, the island’s aniseed herb liqueur, alongside Ibiza-themed cocktails and Balearic dishes.
The SkyDome has form for this. Nicole Scherzinger, Arvia’s godmother, and Gary Barlow have both played it, and Iona’s Limelight Club has run a Stephen Mulhern residency that sold out its first sailing and lifted fares on the other two.
What it cost to be there
Nothing beyond the fare, on the evidence available. The DJ set was sold as part of the holiday, not as a ticketed extra, and inside cabins on the sailing started at £1,129 per person when the booking was announced.
The sailing sold out before it left.
That is the difference between this and the other way to dance at sea. Marella’s Electric Sunsets sailings charge festival money for three nights of eighties and nineties acts, roughly £266 a night against £143 for an ordinary Marella week.
P&O dropped Pete Tong into a normal fortnight and charged the normal fortnight.
The catch is the room. Nine hundred places on a ship of more than 5,000 means roughly one passenger in six saw the set from inside the glass.
The bottom line
For a P&O passenger this was a good night out for the price of a cruise they’d already booked, provided they were among the one in six who got a place.
If you’re looking at next year’s version, check the ports. Arvia’s 12 September 2027 fortnight from Southampton swaps Ibiza for Italy, with La Spezia and Civitavecchia in its place, and a balcony for two was £5,298 when priced in August.
Whether P&O books another name for the SkyDome, a sold-out ship and the Iona experience say the sailing will go before the announcement has finished circulating.
