| IMO | 9228186 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 115,875 GT |
| Length | 290.0 m |
| Beam | 37.5 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 2670 |
| Service speed | 20.7 knots |
| Builder | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries |
| Hull number | 2180 |
| Launched | 2002 |
| Maiden voyage | 2004 |
| Operator | Princess Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Sapphire Princess is a Gem-class cruise ship of Princess Cruises, in service since 2004, and the ship whose construction story is the most unusual of any modern Princess newbuild: she is the fire-damaged hull. Built at Nagasaki by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as hull 2180, she was begun as Diamond Princess; after a major fire swept her nearly complete decks in October 2002, the two sister ships under construction swapped names, and she was completed and delivered as Sapphire Princess while her undamaged sister took the Diamond name and the earlier delivery slot. She and Diamond Princess were the largest cruise ships Mitsubishi had built since Crystal Harmony in 1991, and they remain the only large Princess ships built in Japan. She was christened on 10 June 2004 in Seattle — the first cruise ship ever named in that port.
Key specifications
The dataset records 115,875 GT, a length of 290.0 m, a beam of 37.5 m, a capacity of 2,670 passengers and a speed of 20.7 knots. The ship's own article gives the same tonnage and length, a beam of 37 m, 13 decks, a crew of about 1,100 and a speed of 22 knots — the higher figure is best read as a maximum against the dataset's service figure, and the variant is logged. Her cost was reported at about US$400 million. The dataset's "launched 2004" is her delivery year: she was in fact launched on 25 May 2002, under her original Diamond Princess identity, and completed on 27 May 2004 after the fire repairs; the discrepancy is logged with this guide. Her machinery is distinctive — a diesel-electric plant of four Wärtsilä diesel generators supplemented by a GE gas-turbine generator, the turbine used where emissions rules are strict, as in Alaska, or when maximum speed is needed; two 20 MW electric propulsion motors drive fixed-pitch propellers.
Design and construction
Sapphire Princess derives from Princess's Grand-class design but is not a copy of it. The most visible difference is at the stern: the "wing" — the Skywalkers nightclub carried on a bridge across and above the stern of Grand, Golden, Star and Caribbean Princess, the so-called shopping-cart handle — is absent. On the Gem-class pair the nightclub is relocated against the funnel, opening the terrace pool area below it. Inside, the pair refined the line's "personal choice" dining idea by splitting the anytime dining rooms into smaller, individually themed rooms. She was the second Princess ship built by Mitsubishi, after her sister, and — because of what happened during the build — the pair were the last Carnival Corporation ships built by the yard until AIDAprima in 2016.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
On 1 October 2002, fire broke out on the nearly complete Diamond Princess at Nagasaki. Contemporary reporting traced it to welding work that overheated a steel plate and ignited cabin furnishings above; the blaze burned for many hours — reports vary between about 19 and 36 hours — and damaged a large part of the ship, with some accounts putting the affected area at up to 70 per cent. All workers escaped without reported injury. Japanese police later referred shipyard workers and managers to prosecutors over alleged negligence.
Princess and Mitsubishi's solution was the swap: in November 2002 the lines announced that the undamaged sister, then building as Sapphire Princess, would be renamed Diamond Princess and delivered first, in February 2004, while the repaired hull would take the Sapphire Princess name and the later, May 2004 delivery. The swap protected the Diamond launch programme and gave the damaged ship the time her repairs needed. Delivered on 27 May 2004, she was christened on 10 June 2004 in Seattle, the first naming ceremony held in that port, and entered service on the United States West Coast for the summer of 2004, then sailed to Australia and New Zealand for her first southern season.
Career by operator
The hull has served a single operator under two construction identities and one service name.
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2002–2004 (construction) | Diamond Princess (original identity; fire-damaged 2002) | Princess Cruises |
| 2004–present | Sapphire Princess | Princess Cruises |
The dataset's operator history also lists Carnival Cruise Line; no source used for this guide shows the ship ever operating for that line — Carnival Corporation is the owner, Princess the operator throughout — and the entry is logged as a suspected dataset error. Her deployment career has been global: West Coast and Alaska service at the start, a long Asian period from 2014 based seasonally on Shanghai and Singapore, European seasons from Southampton in 2018–19, and a return to the United States West Coast in September 2022 after the pandemic shutdown, part of which she spent at anchor in Manila Bay repatriating crew.
Onboard character
As built, Sapphire Princess represented the mature Grand-class idea: a very large ship organised to feel like a collection of smaller venues, with multiple small dining rooms instead of a single grand restaurant, and the nightclub moved off its controversial stern bridge into the funnel casing. The ship's present character, however, was substantially set by her 2012 refit, which retrofitted the signature features Princess had developed after she was built: the Piazza, an Italian-style atrium of cafés, a wine bar and street entertainment at the ship's centre; Alfredo's Pizzeria; the poolside Movies Under the Stars screen — she was the last ship in the fleet to receive it; and The Sanctuary adults-only retreat, whose installation on Sapphire Princess completed its fleetwide rollout. A hull air-lubrication system was retrofitted to her sister in 2017; whether the same system was fitted to Sapphire Princess is not confirmed in the sources used here.
Major refits and incidents
The defining incident of her life happened before she carried a passenger: the October 2002 construction fire described above, which cost her her original name and delayed her delivery by well over a year.
In service, her recorded incidents are unusual rather than damaging. On 25 July 2009 she docked at Vancouver's Canada Place with a dead fin whale, about 21.3 m long, lodged on her bulbous bow; a necropsy suggested the whale may already have been sick. On 28 July 2010, almost exactly a year later, a humpback whale of about 12.2 m was found on her bow after a sailing from Ketchikan to Juneau. On 5 June 2023 she went to the aid of the expedition ship Wilderness Discoverer, which had suffered an engine-room fire and was drifting near Glacier Bay; with the Coast Guard, the operation brought 51 passengers and 16 crew to safety.
Her major refit was the drydock of 7 January to 4 February 2012 in British Columbia, which added the Piazza, Alfredo's, Movies Under the Stars and The Sanctuary work described above, together with relocated venues and a shipwide interior refresh; a further refurbishment followed in March 2018.
Sister ships and class
Sapphire Princess's only true sister is Diamond Princess (2004) — the ship she swapped names with, Mitsubishi hull 2181 to her 2180. Princess classifies the pair as the Gem class: a Mitsubishi-built development of the Grand-class platform, similar in size and arrangement to the Fincantieri-built Grand-class ships but differing in the stern treatment, funnel arrangement and dining-room layout. No further Gem-class ships were built, and the pair remain a two-ship Japanese chapter inside an otherwise Italian-built modern fleet.
Fate and where she is now
Sapphire Princess remains in active service with Princess Cruises, the status recorded in the dataset, now more than two decades into her career. She has outlasted several of the roles she was built for — the Asian deployment she pioneered for the line, the West Coast programme she returned to — and continues in the line's mainstream large-ship rotation. No sale, transfer or retirement has been announced for the hull; the fire-damaged ship that entered service under a borrowed name has become one of the longest-serving members of the fleet.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire_Princess, https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Princess-ships-swap-names-delivery-dates, https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/refurb-design-interiors/sapphire-princess-emerges-from-refit-with-signature-brand-features