Princess Cruises orders two new ships to sail from Southampton (From Daily Echo)

Princess Cruises orders two new ships to sail from Southampton

7:10am Tuesday 23rd February 2010 in

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ONE of Southampton port’s biggest cruise operators is set to place a major order for two huge super ships, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Princess Cruises is looking to build two new luxury liners and at 139,000 tons each, they will be the largest ever built for the operator.

Looking to become the next generation of vessel, Princess Cruises hopes to enter the ships into service in 2013 and 2014.

The announcement comes as nearly half of all British passengers say Southampton is their favourite port to begin and end a voyage.

Carnival Corporation, the Miami-based parent company of Princess Cruises, signed a memorandum of agreement with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for the construction of two 3,600- passenger cruise ships for its Princess Cruises brand.

In a brief statement, Carnival Corporation said: “The agreement is subject to execution of a definitive contract, financing and other customary closing conditions.’’ At this early stage it is not known on which side of the Atlantic the two new, as yet unnamed, ships will be based.

Fincantieri has a strong trackrecord as the northern Italian shipyards have already built Southampton’s Queen Victoria and the forthcoming Queen Elizabeth for Cunard, as well as P&O Cruises’ highly successful Ventura, together with her sister ship, Azura, entering service in Southampton this April.

Once again Princess Cruises will be bringing its vessels Grand Princess and Crown Princess to Southampton during 2010 for a series of summer cruises.

With its UK arm based in Southampton, Carnival is the largest cruising company in the world, with scores of ships based in North America, Europe and Australia.

In a recent survey of British cruise passengers almost 47 per cent of people questioned said Southampton was their number one choice to embark and disembark in the UK.

This year is expected to be the busiest ever for Southampton with new vessels such as Azura, Queen Elizabeth and Celebrity Eclipse all based in the docks, together with Royal Caribbean International’s Independence of the Seas starting year-round voyages from the city in the spring.

On top of this, Southampton has just won a major slice of business from Dover by tempting cruise company MSC to bring its ship MSC Opera to the docks in 2011.