Sun Princess

Graceful and elegant, the Sun Princess glides into Singapore on an early Saturday morning.

History

At the time of her inaugural cruise in 1995, the Sun Princess was the largest cruise ship in the world (by tonnage) just beating the Norway, until the Carnival Destiny arrived in late 1996. Built by Fincantieri in Italy, hull number 5909 was the lead in a new class of ships for Princess Cruises. The Sun Princess was the first all-original new build for Princess since the Royal Princess in 1984 (the Crown of 1990 and Regal of 1991 were originally ordered by Sitmar Cruises prior to be acquired by Princess). Following the Sun came her 3 other sisters; the Dawn Princess in 1997, Sea Princess in 1998 and finally in 2000 the Ocean Princess (now Oceana for P&O UK).

Vital Statistics

Design

Although the Sun Princess does have a boxy build, she has some excellent external design features. The Sun Princess provides many excellent vantage points for passengers that want to enjoy arrivals and departures with exceptional viewing opportunities over the bow. Caribe, Baja and Aloha decks each have a viewing area that wraps the entire front of the ship. Additionally, the forward part of the Lido deck provides an excellent observation point above the bridge, and for those that want an even higher vantage point, there is viewing space on the aptly named, Sun deck. As you can see from the picture below, passengers have ample viewing space which is unencumbered by obtrusive high walled glass designed to reduce wind (and thereby visibility since it is almost always dirty or tinted). On the downside, it appears the designers ran out of creative ideas when they reached the stern and it is arguably the most negative aspect of the external design.

The Sun Princess achilles heel can be found by those who are astute at comparing a ships size against passenger capacity. The Coral Princess introduced in 2002 has the same passenger capacity as the Sun Princess but the Coral is 15,000 tons larger. The primary difference is related to cabin size. On board the Sun Princess, a standard balcony cabin is only 179 square feet including the balcony, which means the cabin interior itself is around 155 square feet. This is quite small compared to the industry norm where the cabin alone is around 170 square feet without a balcony. The photo below shows off the wonderful curvature of the bow and the highlights of the early morning sun, illuminate the welds in the ship's hull. If you look careflly, you can make out the old P&O markings on the right side of the hull, 3/4 of the way up from the waterline.

Current & Future

The market for cruise vacations in Australia/New Zealand has matured significantly over the last decade. A testament to this growth is the fact that alone, Carnival Corporation will have 7 ships based in ANZ in 2010. The Sun Princess (like her sister Dawn) is permanently based year round in Australia where she is very popular. Her itineraries vary based on weather and seasonality. As part of her rotation, she makes several roundtrip cruises a year from Freemantle (Perth), Australia up to Southeast Asia and Singapore. The Sun certainly is shining and the future looks bright for Princess down under.