''Discovery Princess'' is a

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on Tourism, tours k ...

operated by

Princess Cruises Princess Cruises is an American cruise line owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. The company headquarters are in Santa Clarita, California and is incorporated in Bermuda. As of 2025, it is the List of cruise lines#List of cruise lines by size, s ...

, a subsidiary of

Carnival Corporation & plc Carnival Corporation & plc is a British and American cruise operator with a combined fleet of over ninety vessels across eight cruise line brands. A dual-listed company, Carnival is composed of the Panama-incorporated, US-headquartered Carnival ...

. The -vessel was ordered in January 2017 with Italian shipbuilder

Fincantieri Fincantieri S.p.A. () is an Italian shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. Already the largest shipbuilder in Europe, after the acquisition of Vard in 2013, Fincantieri group doubled in size to become the fourth largest in the world (2014 ...

and her steel-cutting was performed on 14 February 2019 in

Castellammare di Stabia Castellammare di Stabia (; ) is a (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region, in southern Italy. It is situated on the Bay of Naples about southeast of Naples, on the route to Sorrento. History Castellammare di Stabia ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Originally expected to begin operations in November 2021, the ship saw her construction and subsequent delivery delayed amid the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

and its impact on Fincantieri and Carnival Corporation. She was delivered to Princess on 28 January 2022 and became the company's sixth and final ''Royal''-class cruise ship in the Princess fleet. ''Discovery Princess'' operated her week-long inaugural voyage on 27 March 2022 from her debut homeport of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

to the

Mexican Riviera The Mexican Riviera refers collectively to twenty cities and lagoons lying on the western coast of Mexico. Although there are long distances between these cities, they are often collectively referred to as the ''Mexican Riviera'' because of th ...

and moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

during her maiden summer deployment to cruise the

Inside Passage The Inside Passage () is a coastal route for ships and boats along a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific Northwest coast of the North American Fjordland. The route extends from southeastern Alaska in the United St ...

Design

''Discovery Princess'' measures and has a length of , a draft of , and a beam of . She is powered by a diesel-electric genset system, with four total

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish corporation, Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the Marine propulsion, marine and energy markets. The core ...

engines, producing a total output of . Main propulsion is via two propellers, each driven by a electric motor. The system gives the vessel a service speed of and a maximum speed of . The ship houses 1,830 passenger cabins and 757 crew cabins. Of the 1,830 passenger cabins, 81% have a balcony. The ship has a maximum capacity of 5,800 passengers and crew.

Construction

In January 2017, Carnival Corporation finalized the order for a sixth ''Royal''-class ship for Princess Cruises to be built at Fincantieri's shipyard in

Monfalcone Monfalcone (; Venetian language#Regional variants, Bisiacco: ; ; ; archaic ) is a town and (municipality) in the Province of Gorizia, Regional decentralization entity of Gorizia in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy, located on the Gulf of Tr ...

. Initial details revealed the ship would closely resemble her older sister ships, with a guest capacity of 3,660 passengers. The steel-cutting for the then-unnamed ship was performed on 14 February 2019 at Fincantieri's shipyard in

, Italy. On 4 October 2019, Princess revealed the name of the ship as ''Discovery Princess''. Her bow section was launched in Castellamare di Stabia on 31 July 2020 over a two-day period, three months behind schedule due to the

, after which the section was transported to Fincantieri's shipyard in Monfalcone to be assembled with the rest of the ship. In January 2021, Carnival Corporation announced that it had renegotiated its newbuild contracts for its vessels that were under construction amid the financial constraints imposed on the company by the

; it was arranged to postpone the deliveries of all but one of the new vessels scheduled to be delivered in 2021. Among the vessels impacted was ''Discovery Princess'', whose construction timeline was subsequently extended and forced the delays of her inaugural operations''.'' On 18 March 2021, ''Discovery Princess'' was floated out from the

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

to begin her interior outfitting. In December, the ship successfully completed her five days of

sea trial A sea trial or trial trip is the testing phase of a watercraft (including boats, ships, and submarines). It is also referred to as a "shakedown cruise" by many naval personnel. It is usually the last phase of construction and takes place on op ...

s. She was delivered to Princess in Monfalcone on 28 January 2022. The ship also became the first vessel delivered by Fincantieri in 2022 and the 75th Fincantieri vessel overall to be classified and registered by

Lloyd's Register Lloyd's Register Group Limited, trading as Lloyd's Register (LR), is a technical and professional services organisation and a maritime classification society, wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research ...

. ''Discovery Princess'' was christened at the

Port of Los Angeles The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles. It occupies of land and water with of waterfront and adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. Promoted as "Amer ...

on 29 April 2022 by four godparents: designer

Randy Fenoli Randy Fenoli is an American television presenter and fashion designer who is mainly known for his work on wedding dresses and his own TV show '' Randy to the Rescue'' and '' Say Yes to the Dress''. He was the fashion director for the wedding dr ...

, chef

Alex Guarnaschelli {{Infobox chef , name = Alex Guarnaschelli , image = , caption = , birth_date = {{birth date and age, 1969, 6, 20 , birth_place = St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. , birth_name = Alexandra Maria Guarnaschelli ...

, special effects designer

Adam Savage Adam Whitney Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American special effects designer and manufacturer, fabricator, actor, educator, television personality, and producer, best known as the former co-host, with Jamie Hyneman, of the Discovery Channe ...

, and real estate agent Page Turner.

Service history

''Discovery Princess'' was originally planned to sail her seven-day inaugural voyage on 3 November 2021 from

Civitavecchia Civitavecchia (, meaning "ancient town") is a city and major Port, sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea west-northwest of Rome. Its legal status is a ''comune'' (municipality) of Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Rome, Lazio. The harbour is formed by ...

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

and operate in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

for three weeks before moving to

Port Everglades Port Everglades is a seaport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, located in Broward County. Port Everglades is one of South Florida's foremost economic engines, as it is the gateway for both international trade and cruise vacations. In 2022, Port Eve ...

the following month, where she would sail in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. She was then scheduled to perform a 50-day circumnavigation cruise around

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

in late-2021 to reach her destined homeport of Los Angeles in early-2022, where she would sail along the

and the

California coast Coastal California, also known as the California Coastline and the Golden Coast, refers to the coastal regions of the U.S. state of California. The term is not primarily geographical as it also describes an area distinguished by cultural, economic ...

. After the ship saw her delivery postponed, the maiden voyage was delayed in September 2021 to 27 March 2022, thus cancelling all pre-planned inaugural festivities. In order to reach Los Angeles, the ship left the shipyard in Italy in February 2022 by sailing eastwards via the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

and made a stop in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

for additional supplies before embarking on her transpacific voyage. ''Discovery Princess'' sailed her week-long inaugural voyage to the

on 27 March 2022 from Los Angeles, where she was based for one month, before she moved to her maiden summer homeport of

to sail along the

References

External links

* {{Princess Ships 2021 ships Ships built by Fincantieri Ships built in Monfalcone Ships of Princess Cruises