Majestic Princess

Majestic Princess is the third of the six Royal-class ships and the only one that was not built for the customers who now sail her. Fincantieri delivered her in March 2017 to a specification written for China: Princess intended her to be based year-round at Shanghai, and the interior was designed accordingly. She was christened there in July 2017 by Yao Ming and his wife Ye Li, and she still carries a Chinese name on the hull, 盛世公主号.

What “built for China” actually meant

Not a coat of paint. The ship was laid out around a different set of assumptions about what people do on a cruise.

Where a Princess ship normally puts an Italian trattoria, Majestic had Harmony, a Cantonese restaurant. Where the poolside pizzeria goes, she had Chopsticks, a noodle and dim sum bar. She had a Gong Cha tea counter, a private karaoke complex, and a casino with dedicated VIP gaming rooms, a structure that reflects how high-limit play is organized in the Chinese market and not how it is organized in Fort Lauderdale. The Hollywood Conservatory, an indoor pool under a glass dome, was built for a clientele that was not looking to sunbathe.

Shanghai did not last. Princess wound down the China deployment, and the ship went first to a split season between Keelung and Sydney, then to Alaska out of Seattle from 2021, then to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. For years she sailed a Western itinerary with an Eastern interior, which was an odd experience and a fairly obvious problem.

The 2025 refit

Two weeks at Palermo in the spring of 2025 finished the conversion. Harmony became Sabatini’s Italian Trattoria. Chopsticks became Alfredo’s Slice, a poolside Neapolitan pizza counter. The lobster grill on the lido became a Salty Dog Café; Vines Wine Bar became O’Malley’s Irish Pub; the Ocean Terrace Bar became a sushi counter overlooking the Piazza; a bar and a photo gallery on deck six were rebuilt as Bellini’s; the Cartier boutique became an EFFY jewelry shop. What she has now is the standard current Princess venue list.

Two of the China-era things stayed, and they are the good ones. The Hollywood Conservatory (a covered, heated pool under glass) turns out to be exactly what you want on a Norwegian fjords sailing or a crossing to Buenos Aires, and none of her post-2019 sisters have it. And she kept the SeaWalk, the glass-floored walkway hanging out over the water, which Sky, Enchanted and Discovery were built without.

Where she actually sails

She now works a full year around the Atlantic. Most of her program on this site sails from Southampton, Northern Europe and the Mediterranean through the warm months. In the fall she crosses to New York for Canada and New England, then runs south to Buenos Aires for the southern summer: South America, Cape Horn, and five Antarctic sailings that go down to the peninsula for scenic cruising rather than landings. Trips run from a week to fifty-three nights, with a median of twelve.

For a ship that was designed to shuttle out of one port, that is a considerable change of career.

Who she suits

People booking a long itinerary who want a modern ship at the end of the gangway. The Antarctic and South American sailings are the interesting ones here, and the glass-domed pool and the enclosed Piazza make her a better cold-water ship than most of her class.

She is not an expedition vessel. Antarctica on a 3,560-guest ship means looking at it from a balcony; there are no Zodiacs and nobody goes ashore on the peninsula. If that is what you want, this is the wrong booking entirely. She also no longer offers anything distinctively Chinese beyond the name on the hull, so if that was the draw, the 2025 drydock removed it.