Grand Princess

Grand Princess was the lead ship of Princess Cruises' Grand class and, when she entered service in 1998, the largest passenger vessel in the world. Built by Fincantieri at its Monfalcone yard in Italy (hull number 5956) and floated out on 20 May 1998, the ship measured 107,517 gross tons across seventeen decks, thirteen of them open to guests. At roughly 290 metres long with a 36-metre beam and an 8.2-metre draught, she carried around 2,600 passengers at double occupancy and up to 3,100 when fully booked, served by some 1,150 crew across about 1,300 staterooms. Reported to have cost around US$450 million, she was also the most expensive cruise ship built to that point. Her broad beam was a deliberate break with the past: the Grand class was designed too wide to fit the original Panama Canal locks, signalling a new generation of ships optimised for scale rather than canal transit.

The ship's most recognisable feature was Skywalkers Nightclub, a disc-shaped lounge cantilevered high above the stern and connected to the superstructure by a sweeping bridge-like spar, giving Grand Princess a silhouette often likened to a shopping-cart handle or an aircraft's tail. Inside, she established design cues that would define Princess for a generation, including a multi-deck central atrium that later evolved into the line's signature Piazza, along with specialty dining venues and multiple pools. The Sanctuary, the adults-only retreat that became a Princess staple, was not original to the ship; it was introduced on the later Crown Princess in 2006 and retrofitted to Grand Princess afterward. The distinctive Skywalkers pod was ultimately removed during an early-2010s dry-docking, in part to address the ship's bow-high trim, and the space was reworked into new dining and lounge areas.

Grand Princess undertook her maiden voyage in late May 1998. Her formal christening followed on 29 September 1998, with the actress Olivia de Havilland serving as godmother. The ship flew the British flag before adopting Bermudian registry, with Hamilton as her port of registry, around 2000, aligning her with the wider Princess and Carnival Corporation fleet. Over the following decades she ranged widely, sailing Caribbean and European itineraries in her early years before becoming a fixture on the North American West Coast, operating Alaska, Mexican Riviera, Hawaii and California coastal cruises, as well as seasonal deployments to Australia and New Zealand.

Grand Princess drew international attention in early March 2020 as one of the first major COVID-19 clusters aboard a cruise ship in the United States. After passengers and crew tested positive, the vessel was held off the California coast rather than allowed to dock immediately; with more than 3,500 people aboard from many countries, she was eventually brought into the Port of Oakland on 9 March 2020, where passengers were disembarked in stages and transported to quarantine at military facilities. The episode became an early and closely watched example of pandemic-era outbreaks at sea. Other incidents over the ship's career included the discovery of a dead humpback whale draped across her bow when she arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska, in 2017.

Grand Princess remains in active service with Princess Cruises. Following a 2025 dry-docking on the U.S. West Coast for maintenance and refreshment of public spaces and staterooms, she has continued a seasonal pattern centred on Alaska sailings in the northern summer, Australia and New Zealand cruising in the southern season, and Caribbean voyages from San Juan, keeping the founding ship of the Grand class in front-line operation more than a quarter-century after her debut.