Once the largest and most expensive cruise ship ever built

Grand Princess was ordered February 8, 1994 as part of a $2.5 billion expansion program. She was also the namesake of Princess Cruises’ Grand Class Cruising concept, redefining this cruise concept since it debuted in the mid 1990’s. This philosophy provides passengers with unparalleled choices following its credo “what you want, when you want”’.

 In spite of her being the largest cruise ship in the world and of course the new flagship of Princess Cruises she was presented  as a new vessel of the Sun-class although she differed from her “sister-ships” in many aspects.

She was the result of an ongoing race between the leading cruise lines of owning the largest cruise ship. It all started with Norwegian Cruise Lines’ 70,000GRT Norway in 1980, the rebuilt liner France. Although the ideal size for a cruise ship was considered o be around 25,000GT at the time, she became a huge success.  At the end of the 1980’s, Royal Caribbean introduced the Sovereign-class ships, measuring 73,500GRT. Carnival followed with Carnival Destiny in 1996, the first passenger ship to surpass 100.000GRT.

And now Grand Princess entered service, measuring 107,500 GRT. Her length of 290 meters and draft of just under 8 meters were not that astonishing, but her width of 36 meters was the widest ever for a passenger ship. Her price tag of 450 million USD made her the most expensive cruise ship ever built.  Grand Princess‘ propulsion consisted of two fixed-pitch propellors giving her a service speed of 22.5 knots.

It was a bit odd Princess Cruises classified her as a her a Sun-class vessel at first, but when an identical ship was launched in 2000, Golden Princess, both ships would from now on be referred to as Grand-class ships. These first Grand-class ships would become the concept of an extensive series of ships. Star Princess entered service in 2002. Diamond Princess and Sapphire Princess (sometimes referred to as Gem-class) came online in 2004 and were built in Nagasaki, Japan instead of in at the Fincantieri yard in Monfalcone, Italy. On these later vessels the signature Skywalkers Lounge (more about this discotheque later) was moved forward directly behind the funnel. Their original position on the earlier ships above the stern had caused several problems, mostly so on Grand Princess.

Also in 2004, Caribbean Princess was delivered, again built by Fincantieri. Crown Princess, Emerald Princess and Ruby Princess followed in 2006-2008. With two additional decks and measuring 113,500GRT they were larger than the original Grand class ships and could carry  an extra 500 passengers. A novelty was that The Sanctuary, an adults-only area was added, replacing the Sports Court.

As usual, Carnival Corp. brands not only builds ships in series, but the same design is repeated in ships for different brands. So for P&O Cruises, also belonging to the family of Carnival companies, two ships of the same basic design were built: Ventura (2009) and her sister Azura (2010).

Back to Grand Princess, her maiden voyage was planned on May 3, 1998, but Fincantieri faced several technical issues during construction and was still in the process of fitting out so her first cruise from Southampton to Istanbul was cancelled. May 18, she was finally delivered to Princess Cruises and departed from Istanbul for a Mediterranean cruise on May 26. Her naming ceremony took place in New York on September 29. Her godmother Olivia de Havilland, a famous British-American actress born in 1916 who appeared in films like ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ in 1935, ‘Gone With The Wind’ in 1939 and ‘The Heiress’ in 1949 did the honours.

Grand Princess’ public spaces were a bit more severe, darker and classic than those of her fleetmates. Later, this was reverted back to a more light and modern interior making her fit better in the Princess-fleet. Of course, her most striking feature was the Skywalkers lounge and discotheque, placed all aft on top of the ship, 150 ft above sea level and accessible via a glass-enclosed moving skywalk.  Those who didn’t like it that much compared it to a shopping cart handle. It was part of the stern-design by naval architect Giacomo Mortola. He wanted her stern to resemble that of a Spanish galleon, but in all honesty quite a bit of imagination was needed for that.

Apart from being the first cruise ship to exceed 100,000 tons and carrying a price tag of appr. $450 million, Grand Princess has an impressive list of firsts, for example

• 710 balconies, at the time the largest number on any cruise ship afloat,
• The largest casino afloat, measuring 13,500 square feet featuring an undersea theme with holographic artwork,
• The first wedding chapel at sea,
• The first cruise ship with three main dining rooms as well as three main show lounges,
• The first virtual reality center at sea with interactive games and a motion-based simulator ride,
• The first Southwestern restaurant at sea, one of three alternative dining venues onboard,
• The first ever telemedicine program at sea linking the ship’s medical staff with the emergency dept. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles,
• At the time the only ship built with duplicate operational/ technical systems to ensure continued operation even in emergencies.

Although she is now a midsize cruise ship, when she was taken into service, in their advertisements  Princess Cruises left no stone unturned when it came to emphasizing just how large their new flagship really was: Grand Princess is 53ft/ 16 meters, too wide to cross the Panama Canal, she is 49 ft/ 15 meters taller than the Statue of Liberty, longer than four New York city blocks, she was 60 times more costly to build than the Titanic, one of her engines weighs as much as 57 African elephants and finally, the original famous Princess cruise ship, the Love Boat Pacific Princess fits in Grand Princess’ Horizon Court dining and lido areas.

In 2011, Grand Princess was thoroughly upgraded. Suites were added, public rooms were refurbished, her atrium revamped, casino remodeled, her boutiques and art-gallery were redone and, a first for Princess, a tearoom called Leaves was added. 

 However, the most important change was the removal of the Skywalkers lounge. It was replaced by a new nightclub on Deck   15, The One5. There were several reasons for the removal of the Skywalkers Lounge. One was fuel-efficiency. The all aft positioned lounge posed a heavy weight on her stern, lifting the bows up when at sea and causing more drag, resulting in higher fuel consumption. Sailing without it would save around 4% fuel. On top of this, inspection revealed that the heavy weight caused structural problems resulting in small cracks in her top decks. This is one of the reasons that instead of steel, on later vessels, aluminium was used and the lounge was moved forward just behind the funnel. This also solved passengers’ complaints that the lounge put the aft sun deck partly in the shade being placed over it.

November 30, 2015 a malfunction of the ships’ switchboard started a fire in the engine room. Grand Princess was on her way from San Francisco to Hawaii when the fire started. Luckily, there were no casualties, but two ports of her cruise were skipped because she needed to slow down.  All passengers received a full refunds and repairs were carried out at Honolulu.  

Two years later, on August 9, 2017, Grand Princess entered Ketchikan, Alaska with a dead humpback whale folded around her bow. The incident happened during a 10-day Alaskan cruise and no one on board had noticed it. It was not known if the whale was already dead or had been killed on impact.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandenic in February 2020, Grand Princess returned for a cruise to Mexico with infected cruise passengers on board. One of them died. Port authorities kept the ship offshore while passengers were tested. 19 passengers and 2 crewmembers were tested positive. Finally, she was allowed to dock in the industrial Port of Auckland. The number of sick passengers rapidly grew, but guests were gradually allowed to disembark. They were taken to hospital if needed or to military bases in the vicinity. At the end of April, already 7 people had died because of the virus. Grand Princess, after leaving the Port of Auckland stayed in quarantine in the Bay of San Francisco for three weeks before she was allowed to dock in San Franscisco for provisioning. Soon afterwards, when cruising came to a halt worldwide, she too disappeared into lay-up, to be reactivated 18 months later in September 2021.

Grand Princess‘ facilities and size, after 24 years of service, may not be as spectacular as they were back in 1998, but she is still a much loved cruise ship with a loyal following. Hopefully she will stay around for many years to come!