Princess currently has six classes of ships in its fleet: the new Royal Class, the Crown Class, the Grand Class, the Island Class, the Sun Class and the Small Ships. We've spent most of our Princess days on the Crown Class ships (the Emerald Princess is one), but have done at least one cruise on all the other classes...except the two small ships (the Pacific Princess and the Ocean Princess). We know that we are in for a treat. A change, and a treat.
The Royal Princess holds 3600 passengers; the Pacific Princess holds 680. And while that may speak volumes about the difference in cruising experience between the two ships, it goes even beyond that. The Pacific and Ocean Princess, along with six identical sister ships, were built between 1998 and 2001 for Renaissance Cruise Line. Immediately following 9/11, Renaissance went bankrupt, and its ships were sold/repossessed. Though they may have first passed through other hands, eventually Princess purchased three of Renaissance's R-Class ships; Azamara Cruises purchased two and Oceania purchased three. Princess has since sold one of these (a prior Royal Princess), and another one, the Ocean Princess is for sale. The future of the little Princesses is uncertain and we are glad to have the opportunity to experience cruising on at least one of them.
Because they were not built for Princess, the interior design of the Pacific and Ocean Princess is decidedly un-Princess, and has been described of most closely resembling an English country manor. While some people complain that most Princess ships are stuck in the "vanilla" decorating style of the 1980's (I've never complained about this, because vanilla is one of my favorite colors, and, due to all our travel, most of our house is stuck in the decorating style of the late 1980s), the Pacific Princess features dark tones and lots of wood...and, obviously, smaller and fewer venues. What it doesn't feature (we've been told) is lines. No waits for an elevator, no hogging of deck chairs (this I must see to believe) and no delays in tendering (which, on this itinerary, is an invaluable thing...but I'll get into that later).
So, instead of the "same old" itinerary on the "same old" ship (which I've mentioned before has never felt "been there- done that" to us), we will have several opportunities to answer our favorite question: when was the last time we did something for the first time?
Pacific Princess
30,277 tons
680 passengers
Photo from Princess.com