Princess Cruises reveals first details of future Royal class ships

Princess Cruises reveals first details of future Royal class ships

Princess Cruises has revealed further details of its next three Royal class ships, which are set to be built by 2022.

Tony Roberts, the line’s vice-president, UK & Ireland, announced the fourth Royal class ship will make four weeks of sailings in the Mediterranean from October 2019.

Speaking at a media and trade event, he added that it was a “great opportunity to get on to the newest ship” when itineraries go on sale in a “few weeks’ time”.

The ship’s name will be announced later this week.

Roberts also chose not to reveal the name of the fifth ship in the class, launching in summer 2020.

However, he did hint that the vessel would operate not far from the Italian shipyard where it was built.

“I am not going to place any bets on where she is but she has been built in Italy so there is a pretty good chance that she will be around [in Europe] for part of summer 2020,” Roberts added.

Princess will also launch another Royal class ship in 2022.

He added: “It is really exciting that Princess continues to grow and that favourite class of ship continues to be built.”

Roberts told the audience that TV presenter Jane McDonald had recently filmed on one of Princess’ ships as part of her cruising programme.

“We started to get very excited about it when we had [Channel 5] on,” he said. “I cannot tell you what the ship was but [McDonald] had a great time on board.”

Earlier, Princess Cruises announced 2019 would be its longest ever season sailing out of the UK.

More than one million cruise nights will be available from Southampton and Dover.

The 2,670-guest Sapphire Princess will spend 198 days sailing from her home port of Southampton – the longest recorded time for a UK-based Princess ship.