The new season will see three ships based in Australia and New Zealand, with Royal Princess returning to primarily call Sydney home. Royal will begin and end her season down under with transpacific voyages, sailing in September 2024 from Vancouver, Los Angeles or Honolulu on her way to Sydney. In April 2025, Royal will return to Alaska, with northbound voyages from Sydney to Honolulu, Los Angeles or Vancouver on offer.
Diamond Princess will make her return to Australia, sailing south from Yokohama on September 4th, 2024. Her repositioning voyage will give guests the option of disembarking in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide.
Diamond will return to Yokohama in February 2025, sailing from either Brisbane or Sydney. Uniquely, Diamond Princess is the only ship in the Princess fleet to offer a traditional Japanese bathhouse experience. Called Izumi, the onsen features indoor and outdoor bathing experiences including steam rooms, saunas and hot tubs.
For the first time ever, Crown Princess will call Australia home. She will reposition to Sydney from San Francisco departing on September 24th, 2024. Passengers can join her in Auckland on October 18th for a shorter repositioning segment. Crown does not have a return trip scheduled at the conclusion of the summer season, that’s because she will replace the Coral Princess as the ship chosen to sail the highly anticipated 2025 World Cruise - details of which we’ll dive into shortly.
An interesting point to note that is on all repositioning voyages, the currency used onboard will be USD. For all others, including the World Cruise, the onboard currency will be Australian dollars.
Once down under, Princess will sail locally from 7 home ports, including Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Adelaide, Fremantle and for the first time, Hobart. This greater selection and variety of cruise departure points means that more people from more places will be able to take advantage of Princess’ unique itinerary segments to enjoy cruising further from home without needing to rely on flights.
Throughout the season, the usual array of New Zealand, South Pacific, Queensland and southern Australia itineraries will be on offer, plus Princess’ fun Seacations are making a comeback with a range of shorter cruises giving time-poor people a chance to get away for just a few days.
From Hobart, guests can book a unique 18 night return cruise departing in November 2024 and sailing to New Zealand. From Adelaide, guests can book a similar roundtrip New Zealand itinerary with 3 departure dates across October and November 2024, sailing for either 19 or 21 nights .
There will be two Australia circumnavigation cruises on offer, both sailing on the Crown Princess. Guests can choose to sail roundtrip from Sydney or Brisbane, or choose to board in Melbourne or Adelaide. Plus, the much-loved Explorer segments make a return, with guests able to complete one half of the circumnavigation, whether northern or southern.
For the first time, the World Cruise will take place onboard the Crown Princess. The Grand Class ship was built in 2006, and at 113K gross tonnes, she offers considerably more stateroom choices than her smaller sister, Coral Princess, which will be completing the 2024 World Cruise.
The 113 night roundtrip voyage will commence in either Auckland on May 31st, Sydney on June 4th or Brisbane on June 6th. Visiting 6 of Earth’s 7 continents, guests will enjoy visits to 28 countries during their trip of a lifetime.
In typical Princess style, world cruise segments called Liners will be offered to guests, those availability on these is limited. These will involve either northbound sectors in the form of Auckland, Sydney or Brisbane to London, as well as a 77 night Sydney to New York cruise which will see Crown Princess berthed in the city that never sleeps overnight - allowing passengers to treat the ship as their hotel. On the southbound return trip, guests can book a London to Auckland, Sydney or Brisbane liner, or an 36 night New York to Sydney trip.
Sailing roundtrip from Sydney with the Princess Plus fare-tier selected, which includes beverages up to $22, unlimited wifi and more, the World Cruise starts at $43,339 per person twin share for a balcony stateroom. Additionally, guests booking the world cruise before October 31st 2023 will receive $1000 onboard credit per person, plus Captain’s Circle members will also receive a $1000 per person fare discount.
For regular itineraries, Captain’s Circle loyalty members will receive a $100 per person discount on all bookings made before July 31st.
The entire cruise program including the World Cruise opens for sale for Elite Captain’s Circle members on April 4th at 9am, Australian Eastern Standard Time, and for the general public on April 5th at the same time of 9am.
