| IMO | 9150913 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 77,499 GT |
| Length | 261.0 m |
| Beam | 32.25 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 2000 |
| Builder | Fincantieri |
| Hull number | 5998 |
| Launched | 1998 |
| Maiden voyage | 1998 |
| Operator | Tianjin Orient International Cruise Line |
| Status | Active |
| All names | Dream; Charming; Sea Princess; Adonia |
Overview
Sea Princess was the second of Princess Cruises' Sun-class ships, delivered by Fincantieri in 1998 for the line's global, sunshine-oriented deployment — including long service in Australian waters. Her Princess career had an unusual interruption: between 2003 and 2005 she left the fleet, sailing for sister brand P&O Cruises as Adonia, before returning to Princess and her original name.
Her Princess story ended in 2020. Sold during the pandemic fleet reductions, she became Charming for a Chinese owner that never brought her into service, and then, from 2023, Dream for Tianjin Orient International Cruise Line, under which name she finally returned to cruising. The dataset originally recorded her as an active Princess ship named Sea Princess with no other names; that record was six years stale, and this guide follows the sourced history. The row has since been reconciled. The discrepancies are logged with this batch's notes.
Key specifications
The dataset records 77,499 GT, a length of 261.0 m, a beam of 32.25 m and a maximum capacity of 2,000, from Fincantieri hull 5998, IMO 9150913. Trade reporting at her sale described her consistently as a roughly 77,500 GT, 1,950-guest ship, which supports the dataset's figures. Her class — the Sun class — is not named in the dataset; her article and class history place her as one of three near-sisters built for Princess in Italy in the second half of the 1990s. Speed is blank in the dataset and is not asserted here.
Design and construction
She was built by Fincantieri in Italy and delivered to Princess Cruises in 1998, beginning operation that year as Sea Princess. The Sun class was Princess's mid-1990s step into large, purpose-built ships designed in Italy for warm-water cruising worldwide — big, balcony-rich ships of around 77,000 tons, a marked contrast with the line's earlier, smaller tonnage. Within Carnival Corporation's brand family she was also built to be transferable, and her career proved the point: she moved between Princess and P&O Cruises, two Carnival brands, with a rename in each direction, without any change of owner outside the group.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was launched in 1998 under the name Sea Princess and entered service the same year; the dataset gives years only for both her launch and maiden voyage, and no more precise dates are asserted here. Her renaming ceremonies are unusually well documented for a ship of her era. Renamed Adonia for P&O Cruises on 21 May 2003 by the Princess Royal and Zara Phillips, in a double naming with her sister Oceana described as the first double ship-naming ceremony in the UK, she was renamed back to Sea Princess in 2005 in a ceremony by Joanna Lumley. Charming (2020) and Dream (2023) followed under her Chinese owners.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 1998–2002/03 | Sea Princess | Princess Cruises |
| 2003–2005 | Adonia | P&O Cruises |
| 2005–2020 | Sea Princess | Princess Cruises |
| 2020–2023 | Charming | Sanya International Cruise Development (never entered service) |
| 2023–present | Dream | Tianjin Orient International Cruise Line |
The dataset's own fate note captures only the middle of this story — the P&O transfer and 2005 return — and stops there. In full: the P&O Adonia period filled a gap in the P&O fleet between one Arcadia leaving and a new Arcadia arriving in 2005, at which point she returned to Princess. By 2019 she was homeported in Australia. In September 2020 Princess announced her sale, alongside her sister Sun Princess; she was handed over on 13 November 2020 to Sanya International Cruise Development and renamed Charming. Pandemic conditions kept her laid up — some reconditioning was done at a China Merchants yard in 2021, but she never sailed as Charming. In January 2023 she was sold to Tianjin Orient International Cruise Line, renamed Dream, refitted, and began cruising from Tianjin in September 2023.
Onboard character
Her character was that of the 1990s Italian-built Princess ship: a large, resort-style vessel designed around outdoor decks and sea views for warm climates, with the line's then-signature mix of formal dining rooms, casual deck venues and big-shows entertainment. Her late Princess years added the era's standard retrofits — a major 2017 renovation brought new dining and entertainment options, luxury bedding across cabins, an outdoor "Movies Under the Stars" screen at the main pool and a large LED wall in the theatre. Those details are recorded here as period refit history, not as a description of her present-day fit-out under her Chinese operator, which will have changed again.
Major refits and incidents
Beyond the 2017 renovation described above, her most consequential yard periods were those of her changes of life: the 2003 and 2005 brand transfers, the 2021 reconditioning in lay-up as Charming, and the 2023 refit at Zhoushan — reported as a roughly two-and-a-half-month programme of large-scale modification, class work and special survey — that finally put her into service as Dream. Her earlier record includes the norovirus outbreaks that periodically affected large ships of her era and are noted in her article's incidents coverage; no structural casualty or grounding defines her history in the sources used here.
Sister ships and class
She is a Sun-class ship. Her sisters are Sun Princess (1995, now Pacific World for Peace Boat), Dawn Princess (1997, later Pacific Explorer for P&O Cruises Australia) and Oceana (built as Ocean Princess for Princess, then transferred to P&O Cruises). The class's afterlife illustrates the pandemic reshuffle of the Carnival fleet: all of the sisters left their original brands, yet all survived into new service rather than going to scrap.
Fate and where she is now
Sea Princess no longer exists under that name. The hull survives and is back in cruise service as Dream, operated by Tianjin Orient International Cruise Line from Tianjin since September 2023, per her Wikipedia article. The dataset's "active, Princess Cruises, Sea Princess" entry should be read as a snapshot of her pre-2020 identity only.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_(1998)