New ships planned?

[LindaKE]

Does Princess plan to introduce new ships to the Alaska itinerary any time in the near future? I've seen that they are having a lot of trouble with the Dawn. When we were on the Sun in 2003, she was great, but isn't she about the same age as the Dawn? I'm wondering if they might be reaching "retirement age".

[LARGIN]

The Sun is a bit older than the Dawn. She went into service December 1995, the Dawn went into service May 1997. Princess ships currently under construction are slated to the sail the Caribbean..

[APH]

As Sun Princess is only approaching 10 years in service, and the Dawn 8, it it HIGHLY unlikely that these will be replaced in the near future. Royal has been part of the fleet for 21 years and the Regal for approaching 14, and both are still going strong. Princess launched two new ships in the region last year alone (Diamond and Sapphire) so it would be unthinkable to retire Sun and Dawn. After all at nearly $500 million each, it wouldn't be very economic to run them for less than a decade would it?

 

 

Also, both ships underwent regular maintenance and refurbsihment in the last few months, so hopefully these issues will have been resolved by now.

 

Andy.