Emerald Princess

Overview

Emerald Princess is the second of Princess Cruises' three Crown-class ships — the final, enlarged development of the Grand-class design that defined the line's big-ship fleet through the 2000s. Delivered in 2007, she took the Grand formula past 113,000 GT with an additional deck over the original design, a poolside cinema screen, and a nightclub repositioned aft of the funnel. She was, with her sisters, among the largest ships in the Princess fleet at her debut. Her career since has been the quiet, continuous one typical of the class: worldwide deployment for a single operator, periodic refurbishment, and a handful of small, well-documented incidents rather than any defining casualty. The dataset leaves her class field blank; the researched classification — Crown class, within the wider Grand-class family — is given in the sections below and flagged in this build's report.

Key specifications

Dataset and reference figures align well: 113,561 GT, 289–290 m length (the dataset's 289.0 m against 290 m in reference summaries), beam about 36–36.8 m, draught about 8.0 m. Wikipedia's infobox lists six diesel generators totalling 67 MW, twin fixed-pitch propellers, 15 passenger decks and a crew of 1,200. The capacity figure needs its customary footnote: the dataset records 3,114 as a maximum, while reference sources describe 3,114 as her lower-berth (double-occupancy) capacity, with a higher all-berth maximum — one ship history quotes up to about 3,500 passengers. Her published speed is about 21.5 knots against the dataset's 21.7.

Design and construction

She was built by Fincantieri at its Monfalcone yard in Italy as hull 6131 — reportedly the 22nd cruise ship built at Monfalcone in sixteen years and the twelfth for Princess, a measure of how central that yard was to the line's expansion. She was ordered on 23 September 2004, laid down on 14 September 2005 and launched on 1 June 2006. The Crown class took the Caribbean Princess variant of the Grand design — itself a Grand hull with one extra deck — and added a further deck and refinements: the Skywalkers nightclub, perched high over the stern on the original Grand ships like a shopping-cart handle, was moved inboard against the funnel so the aft decks and pool were no longer overshadowed. The class also carried the poolside Movies Under the Stars screen as built, a feature Caribbean Princess had pioneered for the line.

Naming, launch and maiden voyage

She was handed over on 24 March 2007 and began commercial service on 11 April 2007. Her christening followed her first cruises — a naming ceremony at Piraeus, Greece, on 13 May 2007, Mother's Day in Greece that year, performed jointly by four godmothers drawn from American television's famous mothers: Florence Henderson, Marion Ross, Erin Moran and Susan Olsen. The "gemstone" name followed the class convention set by Crown Princess and completed by Ruby Princess.

Career by operator

One name, one operator, ownership within Carnival Corporation, registry at Hamilton, Bermuda, throughout. Her employment has been the worldwide seasonal deployment typical of the Princess fleet — the role for which the Grand/Crown design, with its balance of balcony cabins, multiple dining venues and destination-lounge spaces, was expressly built.

Onboard character

The Grand/Crown design's character is choice at scale within a recognisably traditional frame: three main dining rooms rather than one grand room, a piazza-style atrium as the social centre, specialty restaurants including an Italian trattoria and a steakhouse in the line's established pattern, the adults-only Sanctuary deck retreat, and the poolside screen turning the lido into an evening cinema. Skywalkers, even relocated, remained the design's visual signature from astern. Refurbishments have layered later Princess features — including the line's Medallion-era technology — onto that frame without changing its essential early-2000s character: a big, balcony-heavy, hotel-style ship from the last generation before the industry's resort-ship escalation.

Major refits and incidents

Three incidents are documented in the ship's reference history. On 25 July 2010, on the first day of a Caribbean cruise, she lost power for more than four hours — no air conditioning, lifts or flushing toilets — missed her first port, and passengers were credited US$300 per stateroom; the line did not announce a determined cause. On 17 May 2011, in St Petersburg, a fuel barge collided with her side and damaged several lifeboats; authorities cleared her to continue on the strength of her inflatable raft capacity. On 17 September 2016 a fan belt on deck 16 combusted en route to Las Palmas; passengers were sent to their cabins, the fire was extinguished quickly, and she arrived on time. Her drydocks include refurbishments in December 2012 and November–December 2015, and a further refit reported in April 2019.

Sister ships and class

The Crown class is a trio: Crown Princess (2006), Emerald Princess (2007) and Ruby Princess (2008), all Fincantieri-built to 113,561 GT. They form the last branch of the Grand-class family tree, which also produced the original Grand trio, the Gem-class pair built in Japan, Caribbean Princess, and P&O Cruises' Ventura-class derivatives — one of the most prolific cruise-ship families ever built, and the platform on which two Carnival brands ran their 2000s fleets.

Fate and where she is now

The dataset lists her status as active and her fate as "Operating," and the researched record supports it: she remains in Princess Cruises service approaching two decades since delivery, a mature but front-line unit of the fleet. No sale, transfer or retirement has been announced for the hull, and none is recorded here.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Princess, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand-class_cruise_ship