It has been a good week for the cruise
industry.
On Wednesday, Princess Cruises
officially named its new ship Regal Princess. The ship has been in
service in Europe for a couple of months now but Princess held off on
the official naming ceremony until she came to the United States to
begin her season in the Caribbean. The line wanted to use the event
to kick off the celebration of its 50th anniversary in
business.
For this event, Princess assembled the
cast of the original Love Boat television series to act as the god
parents of Regal Princess. That show is credited with kindling the
general public's appetite for cruising. Princess Cruises had the
foresight to let the television producers use its ships and its name
in the series. (In the show, the ship was always called the Pacific
Princess but both the original Pacific Princess and the original
Island Princess were used in the filming). Thus, Princess has the
right to bask in the glory and popularity of the series.
The ship itself is the sister to RoyalPrincess, which entered service last year. She is a big ship at
141,000 gross tons and along with her sister, the biggest cruise
ships in the Carnival Corporation fleet. (Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is
bigger but she is an ocean liner, not a cruise ship). More of an
evolution than a revolution, the Royal Princess class ships give the
line more space to present the cruise experience that it has
developed so well on its smaller ships.
On Friday, Costa Cruises officially
named its new ship, the Costa Diadema in Genoa, Italy. The line's
headquarters are in Genoa and it celebrated with fire works and a
light show.
For some time now, Costa and Carnival
Cruise Lines have been using the same designs and the same shipyards
for their ships. This ship is based on the same design as Carnival's
popular Dream-class ships and like the Carnival ships, Diadema was
built in Italy by Fincantierri. At 132,000 gross tons she is just a
touch bigger than her Carnival sisters.
Interestingly, the interior of Diadema
was designed by Joe Farcus who for many years designed the
fantasy-land interiors of the Carnival ships. Carnival switched to a
German firm for the more contemporary designs of Carnival Breeze and
Carnival Sunshine. Thus, you now have a situation where the
interiors of ships that are primarily intended for the European
market are designed by an American and ships that primarily serve the
American market are designed by Europeans. It has truly become an
international industry.
I was glad to learn that Costa had
this celebration for Costa Diadema. Costa is a venerable name in the
cruise industry. Its reputation, of course, was injured by the Costa
Concordia tragedy even though, from all that I have read, the
accident appears to have been due to human error. Hopefully, the
celebration this week also marks a new beginning for Costa.
Meanwhile, the widely-anticipated
Quantum of the Seas embarked on her maiden transatlantic crossing
from Southampton to the port of New York/New Jersey.
Thus, this week saw important
milestones in the lives of three new cruise ships.
On Beyondships this week, we have a
new section on the mansions that are the most popular attraction in
cruise destination Newport Rhode Island.
http://www.beyondships3.com/cruise-destination-newport-attractions---mansions.html
This includes an in-depth review of a shoe excursion to Rough Point,
the mansion of heiress Doris Duke.
http://www.beyondships3.com/newport---rough-point.html
In addition, we have a new photo and video feature on Holland
America Line's Eurodam.
http://www.beyondships2.com/eurodam-boston-photos.html
Photos: Love Boat cast - courtesy of Princess Cruises; Costa Diadema - - courtesy of Costa Cruises.
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