Princess Cruises first set sail in 1965 with one ship cruising from Los Angeles to Mexico.
In 1974 Princess was acquired by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (better known as P&O).
In 1977, with the premier of the television series “The Love Boat” (I wasn’t even born, but I do recall wachting it in Brazil when I was a teenager), Princess was catapulted to stardom, having its name and logo (the “sea witch”) synonymous with cruising ever since.
After the merger of P&O Cruises and Carnival Co. & plc, in April 2003, Princess and other ten cruiseline companies have become the largest vacation cruise company in the world. Just to have an idea, in 2006 Princess carried more than one million passengers to a wide variety of destinations around the globe (Caribbean, Panama Canal, Alaska, Europe, Mexico and the Exotics). Today, Princess fleet includes 17 ships!
The Princess fleet is divided into three classes:
1> Grand Class – “Big ship choice, small ship feel”. The GC ships carry up to or over 2,600 passengers and were designed so as to avoid having huge crowds of passengers in the same place at the same time.
2> Sun Class – ships from 77,000 to 88,000 gross tons, carrying up to or over 1,950 passengers. Between then are two of the most environmentally friendly ships afloat.
3> Explorer Class – with a little more than 30,000 gross tons, these ships offer many of the luxuries found on larger ships.
This was a brief overview of the cruise industry, wich I hope you enjoined.
I’m heading tomorrow to São Paulo’s international airport “Guarulhos”, from where I’ll take the flight to Washington and get the connection to Seattle. At the state capital I’ll join my ship and future “home”, the Golden Princess, at the port of call.
I’m signing a six to eight months contract. My itinerary can easily be seen at Princess website! Just choose ”Learn About Our Cruises” on top header, then click on “Ships” and go to Golden Princess to check out the wonderful places this ship can take you.
But don’t forget: after I’m on board, this blog will step by step head to its original goal, wich is to give an inside perspective of the world of luxury cruises for those who want to work on the area or are curious about what goes around this magnificiant set!
Peace out!
