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Sun class

 

Sea Princess was the thirth of the class to be built, but the first where the bridgewings were glass-enclosed. Her wharfnumber was 5998 and her tonnage is 77.441. She has 14 passengerdecks. The ships are 261,22 meters long and 32,25 meters wide. Their draft is 7,95 meters.
 
The 'Sun Class' of P&O Princess Cruises was built on one of the biggest cruiseship-building wharves of the last decades, Fincantieri Navali Italiani at Monfalcone, near Venice. This new class of ships started with the  Sun Princess in 1995. It was the second time this name was used by the company. The first Sun Princess sailed for Princess between 1974 and 1989 and was the former Spirit Of London of P&O.
At the time the new  Sun Princess floated out, she was the biggest passengership in the world, although now, just ten year later, the ship of this class can be called 'midsized'. The second ship was Dawn Princess in 1996, followed by Sea Princess in 1998 and Ocean Princess in 1999. Their exteriour is first of all massive, but their funnels are just huge. Within it, the tenniscourt is also housed.
These ships are really good examples of nineties-cruiseship architecture. In some way I think these princesses can be called 'the' ships of the nineties because they are the forerunners of the real megaships.
With Princess Cruises expanding their fleet with bigger and bigger ships especially between the year 2000 and 2005, two of the sun-class were transferred to P&O Cruises in this period. The Ocean Princess was to become Oceana in 2002. She is the second ship of that name in the P&O fleet, the first Oceana was built in 1887 in a series of four. At that time these ships were the biggest P&O had built untill then, they reached 6.500 GRT! Sadly, after some years of service the first Oceana sank.
The second Oceana was joined in the P&O fleet by the former Sea Princess as Adonia in 2003. The ships were officially named together in Southampton on the 22nd of may 2003. The BBC covered the naming on live television, mostly because these ships would also be flying the British flag and the British passengerfleet was growing every year, reviving a era where Britain ruled the sea with passengerliners.
 

But soon it became clear that Carnival was planning to order new ships for P&O Cruises itself and the previously transferred ships would go back to Princess in time. When the fourth Arcadia was launched for the British company, P&O waved Adonia goodbye after just two years.

Oceana is still sailing for P&O Cruises, while Adonia recieved her old name as Sea Princess again in 2005. Also, a very big televisionscreen was added to the Lido Deck for entertaining her Princess passengers, something that is now been added throughout the fleet untill in 2011 every Princess-ship has one of these giant screens. As Sea Princess, she is still dedicated to the British market, sailing out of Southampton, and that gives her a little bit of another atmosphere then her fleetmates of the American orientated Princess Cruises.

Oceana was built as yardnumber 6044. With her tonnage of 77.499 she is slightly bigger then her sisters and she can carry 2272 passengers and 814 crew. She sails 21 knots in service and flies the British flag with her homeport London printed on the stern.
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