Some of the Bernath original paintings on Princess Ships public area.
The Princess Story
One of the best-known name in cruising, Princess Cruises began sailing in 1965 when founder Stanley McDonald chartered Canadian Pacific Limited’s Alaska cruise ship Princess Patricia for Mexican Riviera cruises from Los Angeles. As Stanley McDonald explained how he came up with the cruising idea. “During planning for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, we determined that there weren’t enough hotel room for people coming to the fair. So we decided to bring in several ships to operate as a hotel.”
The first 10 day cruising sailed from San Francisco to Victoria B.C. than down to Seattle World’s Fair.
Four days of the cruise the ship was used as a hotel. This was a howling success, from that he got the idea of a cruise ship. Before, cruise ship were merely transportation—now they were going to be something for a vacation. Cruise ships are now the destination for the passenger. They want to go see foreign countries and ports, but the ships really becomes the destination. It’s entirely different than in the days when cruising was transportation.
Today 35 Embarkation Ports and hundreds of Ports of Call in the itinerary of the 1.3 million passengers each year. Public spaces on Princess ships are designed to feel intimate, even on the largest vessels, and feature contemporary décor, allowing passengers to enjoy themselves in an informal, relaxed onboard atmosphere that mirrors today’s lifestyles. Princess Cruises was catapulted to
The first Princess ship had never been designed for tropical cruising, lacking air-conditioning, and Princess ended her charter in favor of a more purpose-built cruise ship after a year. The passenger capacity of the next 40 years grown very rapidly 600, 900, 2500, 3000 and now the two new Royal Princess will have 3500 passenger capacity.
stardom in 1977 when one of its ship, Pacific Princess, was cast in a starring role on a new television show called “The Love Boat”. The weekly series, which introduced millions of viewers to the concept of a sea-going vacation, was an instant hit and both the company name and its “sea-witch” logo to the future cruising public.
In 1998 the Love Boat introduced by Spelling Television. The new version of the show set aboard a Princess ship, the line’s new Sun Princess. On October 23, 2000, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company(P&O) demerged to form P&O Princess Cruises PLC and in 2003 merged with Carnival Corporation to form the world’s largest cruise operating company worth then US$ 5.4 billion. Operating 101 ships and 7 ships under construction cruising with 200,000 passengers and 70,000 employees every day under the flag of Carnival, Princess, P&O, Cunard and Holland America cruise ships.