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.
