Royal Princess

Royal Princess was the lead ship of Princess Cruises' Royal class, the design that finally moved the line beyond the long-running Grand-class template that had defined its fleet since the late 1990s. Ordered from the Italian builder Fincantieri on 4 May 2010, the vessel was conceived around a wider, post-Panamax hull that traded the ability to transit the old Panama Canal locks for markedly more interior volume and deck space. Steel was first cut at Fincantieri's Monfalcone yard on 15 March 2011, the keel was laid on 20 October 2011, and the completed hull was floated out on 16 August 2012 before delivery to Princess on 31 May 2013. Notably, this ship revived a storied Princess name: it is not the original Royal Princess of the 1980s but an entirely new vessel that carried the identity forward into a new generation.

At 142,229 gross tons the ship measures 330 metres in length with a beam of 47.2 metres at its widest and a draught of 8.5 metres, arranged over 19 decks of which 16 are given over to guests. She accommodates 3,560 passengers at double occupancy and up to 4,271 when every berth is filled, looked after by roughly 1,346 crew, and offers 1,780 staterooms, a high proportion of them with private balconies. Registered in Hamilton and flying the flag of Bermuda, she carries the IMO number 9584712 and the call sign ZCEI3.

The Royal class introduced several features that became Princess signatures. Chief among them was a greatly enlarged Piazza, the ship's multi-storey atrium and social heart, ringed with cafes, wine bars and performance space. The design also debuted the SeaWalk, a cantilevered glass-floored walkway extending out over the side of the ship high above the water, paired with the SeaView bar perched over the same overhang. Other spaces included the adults-only Sanctuary retreat, the Princess Live television studio for interactive programming, and specialty venues such as the Crown Grill steakhouse and Sabatini's Italian restaurant. A choreographed fountain-and-light show above the top-deck pool added evening spectacle. In later years the ship was fitted for the company's MedallionClass system, which uses a wearable device to enable keyless stateroom entry, contactless payments and location-based services.

Propulsion is diesel-electric. Four Wärtsilä medium-speed generating sets, two 12V46F units and two larger 14V46F units, provide a combined output on the order of 62,400 kW, feeding a pair of roughly 18 MW electric propulsion motors that drive the ship to a service speed of about 22 knots. The vessel was among the early passenger ships built to the industry's enhanced safe-return-to-port survivability standards.

Royal Princess was named in Southampton on 13 June 2013 by her godmother, Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, and departed three days later on 16 June 2013 on her maiden voyage from Southampton to Barcelona. Her early career mixed Mediterranean and Caribbean seasons, sailing winters from Fort Lauderdale before shifting to the US West Coast, with later deployments including the Mexican Riviera, Alaska and a season in Australia and the South Pacific. Notable incidents included a temporary loss of power in the Mediterranean in September 2013 that interrupted an itinerary. She remains in active service with Princess Cruises and in the 2025-2026 period has operated seven-day Alaska Inside Passage voyages out of Seattle.