Princess Cruises - Information On Oahu Hawaii

They are incorporated in Bermuda. As of 2002, Princess Cruises is now one of ten cruise ship brands owned by Carnival. The company was made famous by The Love Boat TV series, in which its ship, Pacific Princess was featured. In May 2013, the brand new Royal Princess became the flagship of Princess Cruises, and in May 2014 was joined by her new sister-ship Regal Princess.

Princess Cruises began in 1965, when founder Stanley McDonald chartered Canadian Pacific Limited's Alaska cruise ship Princess Patricia for Mexican Riviera cruises from Los Angeles during a time when she would have usually been laid up for the winter. However, Princess Pat, as she was fondly called, had never been designed for tropical cruising, lacking air-conditioning, and Princess ended her charter in favor of a more purpose-built cruise ship Italia.

The Italia had originally been ordered in 1963 and was one of the first to implement modern design elements, such as lifeboats mounted lower on the ship, allowing for uncluttered upperdecks, and engines placed far in the rear, allowing for spacious public rooms amidships. Gustavo Finali and Romano Boico had designed the ship's interiors, designers whose résumés included such ships as the Augustus and Raffaello (of Italian Line) and the Oceanic and Homeric (of Home Lines).

Construction proceeded slowly, and accordingly, the Italia was not launched until the spring of 1965, and during the fitting out, both the owners and the builder were declared bankrupt. The Italia was passed onto a bank who created a company to charter or sell the ship, and consequently, the company chartered the Italia to Princess.

Princess, who marketed the ship as Princess Italia but never officially renamed her, used the ship to inaugurate their Mexican Riviera cruises out of Los Angeles, and did not even receive the Princess logo on her funnel until 1967.

In 1969, the Princess Italia was used on Alaskan cruises from San Francisco, but by 1973, the charter was canceled, and the Italia returned to Europe on charter to Costa Cruise Line.

Princess's third charter ship was none other than Costa's Carla C. Originally, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique's Flandre, the ship had been purchased by Costa in the late 1960s and given a major rebuilding. Almost immediately after completion, the ship was chartered to Princess, and it was on board the ship, which was marketed as, but again not officially renamed, Princess Carla, that Jeraldine Saunders wrote the first chapters of her nonfiction book The Love Boats.

Britain's Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), which by 1960 was the world's largest shipping company, with 320 oceangoing vessels, acquired Princess Cruise Lines in 1974 and their Spirit of London (originally to have been Norwegian Cruise Line's Seaward) was transferred to the Princess fleet, becoming the first Sun Princess.

The two ships that were to be featured heavily in the television series The Love Boat were built in 1971 at Nordseewerke for Flagship Cruises and originally named the Sea Venture (for the original Sea Venture, the 1609 wreck of which resulted in the settlement of Bermuda) and Island Venture.

A part-time addition to the Princess fleet was the former Swedish transatlantic liner Kungsholm, purchased by P&O from Flagship Cruises in 1978, and then restyled and rebuilt in Bremen as the Sea Princess. She was initially based in Australia as a P&O ship until 1981 when her role there was taken over by the Oriana. After that, she alternated between P&O and Princess colours as she moved between fleets. The Sea Princess returned to the P&O UK fleet permanently and in 1995 and was renamed Victoria to allow a then new Princess ship to be named Sea Princess.

The first P&O Princess Cruises purpose-built cruise ship was the Royal Princess in 1984, the largest new British passenger ship in a decade, and one of the first, if not the first, ships to completely dispense with interior cabins. The ship served in P&O Cruises fleet as the Artemis until 2011. The Swan Hellenic Cruiseship Minerva II, originally built as the Renaissance Cruises R8 was renamed Royal Princess in 2007 after an extensive refit during a drydock in Gibraltar.

In 1986, P&O Princess Cruises acquired Tour Alaska, which operated on the Alaska Railroad. Based in Anchorage, Alaska, Princess Tours now operates ten luxury railcars with full-service scenic tours of Mount McKinley and can accommodate over 700 passengers per day.

P&O Princess Cruises acquired Sitmar Line in 1988 and transferred all of its major tonnage to Princess, including three cruise ships then under construction. The Dawn Princess and Fair Princess were both ex-Cunarders, and the former Sitmar Fairsky became Princess's Sky Princess. The first of the three new Sitmar ships came into the Princess brand in 1989 as the Star Princess, the largest British exclusively cruising ship. Two 70,000 grt cruise ships entered service in 1990 as the Crown Princess and Regal Princess, bringing Princess's fleet up to ten deluxe cruise ships.

On October 23, 2000, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) demerged its passenger division to form an independent company, P&O Princess Cruises. The company subsequently merged with Carnival Corporation on April 17, 2003, to form the world's largest cruise operating company in a deal worth US$5.4 billion.

As a result of the merger, Carnival Corporation and P&O Princess were integrated to form Carnival Corporation & plc, with a portfolio of eleven cruise ship brands. It is a dual listed company, registered in both the United States and the United Kingdom, with the former P&O Princess Cruises being relisted as Carnival plc, more commonly known as Carnival UK. As an American-based company, executive control of Princess Cruises was transferred to Carnival's American operations, with Carnival UK taking control of Southampton-based Cunard Line. Princess and Cunard have offices at Carnival's head offices in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Source: Wikipedia