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SUN PRINCESS (1972)
Service dates: 1972-1989
Official number: 358619
Shipping lines: P&O LINES; P&O PASSENGER DIVISION; PRINCESS CRUISES INC.
Ship type:
Passenger Ship.
Career
- 19.01.1971
- Purchase announced. She had been ordered by Klosters R/A, Norway, as a sister for Southward, and was bought on the stocks at a cost of £10 million. Norwegian Caribbean Line had pulled out of the deal after price rises following the Italian builders’ nationalisation.
- 30.03.1971
- Date of contract.
- 17.08.1971
- Name announced.
- 29.04.1972
- Named by Mrs Beatrice Marriott, London’s Pearly Queen. She could not be launched due to unsuitable sea conditions offshore.
- 09.05.1972
- Launched without further ceremony.
- 11.10.1972
- Delivered as Spirit of London for P&O Lines Ltd (P&O Passenger Division, managers).
- 11.11.1972
- Maiden voyage from Southampton to Madeira, Barbados, Grenada, Martinique, Antigua, St Thomas and San Juan. Thereafter she was based in San Francisco.
- 12.01.1973
- Picketed by US seamen in Sacramento in protest at the proposal to ‘adopt’ a foreign ship for a week by the State of California.
- 08.08.1974
- P&O announced the purchase of the Los Angeles-based Princess Cruises and the transfer of Spirit of London to their operation.
- 09.10.1974
- Renamed Sun Princess during her annual refit in Victoria, British Columbia. Her dining room was modernised to suit the Princess Cruises style, her ‘Swinging Sixties’ image was replaced, a gymnasium was added and the casino enlarged.
- 11.02.1986
- Operating company became Princess Cruises (P&O Lines, managers).
- 20.06.1986
- Owners restyled as P&O Lines (Shipowners) Ltd.
- 01.07.1986
- Management transferred to P&O Lines Ltd.
- 09.1986
- Passenger capacity now 703.
- 24.02.1989
- Sold to Premier Cruise Line, Cape Canaveral, USA for further trading and renamed Starship Majestic. Princess Cruises was finding it difficult to market her as a contemporary part of its enlarged fleet following the takeover of Sitmar in 1988.
- 1995
- Chartered to CTC Cruise Lines and renamed Southern Cross.
- 1997
- Purchased by Festival Cruises and renamed Flamenco.
- 2004
- Following the collapse of Festival Cruises, Flamenco was sold for $12.25 million to Cruise Elysia and renamed New Flamenco.
- Present
- Still in service.