Royal Princess to Leave Princess Fleet for P&O Cruises

One of the small ships of Princess Cruises, the 710-passenger Royal Princess, will depart the line’s fleet in spring 2011, transferring to sister company P&O Cruises in the U.K. The ship will be renamed Adonia. As a result, five sailings in April and May 2011 will be cancelled, and instead a 26-day “South Pacific and Andes Explorer” cruise will be offered prior to the transfer.

The ship’s 2010 cruise program includes sailings to the Amazon, Caribbean, Panama Canal, Alaska, Hawaii and French Polynesia. With the transfer of Royal Princess there will be one less Princess ship in Alaska for the 2011 season, though full details are not yet available. During summer 2010, the ship will sail on 14-day roundtrip “Connoisseur” cruises from Seattle to Alaska.

The cruises being cancelled are 10-day “Tahiti & Polynesia” departing April 6 and April 16, 2011; 12-day “Hawaii & Tahiti” departing ?April 26, 2011; 10-day “Hawaiian Islands” departing May 8, 2011; and a one-day coastal departing May 18, 2011. The new 26-day cruise will depart April 6, 2011, and sail from Papeete, Tahiti, to Fort Lauderdale. Ports of call will include Bora Bora, Moorea, Pitcairn Island (for scenic cruising), Easter Island, Pisco (San Martin), Lima (Callao for Machu Picchu overland excursion), Quito (Manta), Panama Canal transit, San Blas Islands and Limón. Fares begin at $4,145 per person, double occupancy.

The ship will then go into a dry-dock in the Bahamas to change its livery prior to joining the P&O Cruises fleet in May 2011. Royal Princess joined the Princess fleet in 2007, having originally been built in 2001.