THE operators of the stricken luxury cruise ship Aurora are still searching for a repair company to fix the problem which wrecked a trip of a lifetime for her passengers.

The £200m P&0 liner was due to sail on January 9 from Southampton, taking in 23 countries and 40 ports of call.

But the 1,752 passengers, who paid between £9,800 to £41,985 for the 103-day cruise, travelled no further than the Isle of Wight after a problem was discovered with Aurora's propulsion system.

A P&O spokeswoman said that the company would have more information about what caused the fault after it had selected a repairer.

She said: "At the moment we are in the process of considering a number of offers from ship repairers.

"The decision where she is to go for repairs is likely to be made late this week.

"Until that work commences we won't have a clear picture as to what caused the problem."

The ship, built in Germany, set-sail last Wednesday night, ten days after its scheduled departure date.

But she sailed only 110 miles, before the decision to abort the world cruise was taken by operators P&O Cruises.

The passengers who had stuck it out as P&O Cruises battled to fix the problem in port filed out of the arrivals lounge at Southampton docks on Friday morning.

While they will now get refunds plus money-off deals for future cruises, the vessel will be repaired at either a UK or German shipyard and will be out of service for about four to five weeks.

The total cost of the cancelled cruise could be as much as £30m but P&O's parent company Carnival said that figure was likely to be nearer £20m in terms of the impact on its full-year earnings.