Princess Cruises is a cruise line based in Santa Clarita, California. The cruise line is owned by Carnival Corporation & PLC, the world’s largest cruise ship operator. Although Princess Cruises is based in America, with its executive control being handled by Carnival Corporation’s American division, it is a British-American owned cruise line. It is, in other words, a dual listed company that is registered in both the United States and Britain. Among other things, this means that some of Princess Cruises’ business operations, like marketing in the United Kingdom, are handled in Britain.
There are currently 17 ships in the Princess Cruise fleet. These 17 ships are broken into three separate classes: the Grand class, the Sun class, and the Explorer class. The Grand class, which is composed of the largest ships in the fleet, has nine ships. The Sun class has five ships and the Explorer class has three. Regardless of the class to which a ship belongs, the vessel’s name always ends with “Princess.”
The cruise ships of Princess Cruise range in size. On the larger end of the spectrum, there are ships like Ruby Princess, which belongs to the Grand class. With a passenger capacity of 3,080, the ship is 951 feet long and weighs 116,000 tons. Compare this with the Royal Princess, a member of the Explorer class. The Royal Princess has a passenger capacity of 826 and is 592 feet in length. It weighs 30,227 tons, making it only slightly more than one quarter of the weight of the Ruby Princess.
Princess Cruises offers voyages all over the world, ranging from Alaska to Europe to the South Pacific. Princess Cruises offers several different cruise packages for each destination. Some of these voyages are short, lasting only a few days, and others are very extensive, lasting months. For example, Princess offers “world cruises,” voyages that take place on small vessels and can last over 100 days.
Like other major cruise lines, Princess offers a wide range of activities and entertainment for their passengers. In addition to standard amenities like restaurants and shopping areas, Princess also offers stage shows, wine tastings, and painting lessons, to mention but three of many options.
If you would like to learn more about Princess Cruises, visit their website here: