Royal Princess

The Royal Princess was built in 1984, and refitted  in 1994.  She weighs 44588 tonnes (gross), is 230m long, 32.5m wide, 45m high and draws 7.8m.  She carries up to 1200 passengers and has a crew of around 520.  All cabins ... sorry ... all staterooms are outside and have a full sized bath, which is just about unique in medium and large cruise ships.  Whilst the Royal Princess is clean and comfortable, and has an impeccable crew, she is starting to show her age and older design compared with more modern ships.  She is due to undergo a further refit in May 2005, after which she will be renamed Artemis and be run as part of the P&O fleet from Southampton.  

The following pictures were taken at various times around the cruise, and hopefully give a flavour of the ship.

The Lido Cafe provided 24 hour buffet dining.  It was good quality, but got very crowded during peak hours, partially because it was too cold to sit and eat outside.

The Princess Theatre was the main show lounge.  The 5 different production shows were excellent.

The Horizon lounge is were the more lively evening entertainment (up-tempo music, karaoke, etc) takes place.  It never got very busy on this cruise.

On the journey home down the Irish sea from Belfast, the sun came out and the pools actually got some use!