Island Princess

Island Princess is the second of the two Coral-class ships, delivered by Chantiers de l’Atlantique in June 2003, six months after Coral Princess. The class exists because of a single number (a 106-foot beam, chosen to fit the 110-foot original locks of the Panama Canal), and Island Princess is the one that actually spends most of her year doing it.

She is also the one Princess rebuilt.

What 2015 took out

In 2015 the ship went into drydock and came out with 121 more staterooms. They had to come from somewhere, and what they came from was public space.

The largest casualty was the Universe Lounge, the multi-purpose theater with three revolving stages that had been the most ambitious room in the class. Coral Princess still has hers. On Island Princess it is cabins. Sections of the aft promenade went the same way, along with other lounge space. She went from 1,974 guests to 2,210 and from roughly 91,600 tons to 92,822, about 1,200 tons of added structure. The dummy turbine cylinders that stand on top of her sister’s funnel, advertising the gas turbine underneath, were removed at the same time.

This is the honest trade at the center of her page. She has ten percent more passengers than Coral Princess and meaningfully less indoor room to put them in, and on a sea day in bad weather you notice. What you get in exchange is a larger stock of balcony cabins on a ship that goes places larger ships cannot, at a price that reflects a 2003 hull. Whether that is a good deal depends on whether you sail to be aboard or to arrive.

Otherwise she is her sister: the same long, narrow hull, the same combined diesel and gas-turbine plant, two main dining rooms named Bordeaux and Provence, Sabatini’s, the Bayou Cafe steakhouse, one Princess Theater, the Sanctuary aft on the top deck, and a lawn court above it. What she does not have is a second show room.

Where she actually sails

She is Princess’s Panama Canal ship, more so than any other hull in the fleet. The bulk of her program is full transits between Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles (through the old locks, not the 2016 Neopanamax chambers, so the wall is close enough to see the concrete) with Caribbean sailings out of Fort Lauderdale filling the rest of the winter and a short Pacific Northwest season from Vancouver. There is a small European tail with one departure from Athens. Trips run four to fifty nights, median sixteen.

Where Coral Princess is a wanderer, taking the world cruise and the South Pacific, Island Princess stays on the isthmus. That is the practical difference between them today.

Who she suits

Anyone whose reason for booking is the canal. A full transit is a ten-hour day of standing on deck watching a ship be lifted eighty-five feet over a continental divide, and this is one of two ships on this site that can do it in the original locks. Repeat Princess passengers who want a smaller, quieter ship than the Royal-class hulls tend to like her for the same reasons.

She does not suit people who want a lot of ship. The 2015 refit made her the denser of the two sisters, and the entertainment program is one theater’s worth. Families with young children will find thin provision. And if you are choosing between the sisters on a similar itinerary and the ship matters more than the fare, book Coral Princess and use the Universe Lounge.