London - Princess Cruises has amazed us with a double wow with the newest member of its fleet, Royal Princess.
The first wow was getting the Duchess of Cambridge to perform a naming ceremony in Southampton as the ship’s godmother last week. “Duchess Kate”, as she is known in the US, provided a publicity coup.
The second wow was that some 29 years on, Princess Cruises’ designers have dug deep and come up with the SeaWalk, a cantilevered, glass-enclosed walkway that extends 8.5m beyond the edge of the ship and 39m over the water. Amazing? Definitely. Scary? Undoubtedly.
But while publicity focuses on Kate and the new SeaWalk, Princess Cruises – and the rest of the cruise industry – will be grateful their business is appearing on the pages of newspapers for all the right reasons.
Since the Costa Concordia tragedy off the coast of Italy last year, several incidents involving cruise ships have cast the industry in a bad light. The naming ceremony raised the positive profile of cruising to a new high.
If you don’t understand what all the fuss is about cruising, sample the pleasures of the new ship while it opens its inaugural season in the Mediterranean this summer.
You’ll find plenty of space on Royal Princess, which weighs 141 000 tons and accommodates 3 600 passengers.
You’ll also discover dozens of things to keep you busy. Not all these things involve eating – for fitness fans there’s a huge modern gym and a two-lane jogging track.
l DialAFlight (dialaflight.com) is offering a 12-night Mediterranean cruise on Royal Princess from £1 389 (R22 000) per person. Valid for departure on August 10, the price includes accommodation in an inside stateroom with full board and flights from London to Barcelona, returning Venice to London with British Airways. The Princess Cruises ship will voyage from Barcelona to Venice via Florence, Rome, Naples, Mykonos, Istanbul and Athens. – Mail On Sunday