is Pacific Princess being sold

[paul929207]

Good news. Love the Pacific.

[Little Sister]

Yep, when you read the description and Sabatinis is mentioned...yeah, that's a Princess ship.

[piper28]

I think it comes down to if Princess gets the right offer for her they'd sell her, but at the same time, I'm not sure the market is really there to get a price high enough for Princess to sell her yet. As far as I can tell she's been listed for sale for a number of years now, and still hasn't gone anywhere.

 

Course, if she does go away, Princess might also find I spend less money with them.

[Woobstr112G]

For those concerned, this thread is now actually a year and a half old...

Cruises for the Pacific Princess are now posted up through the end of May 2018...so at least it APPEARS that Princess intends to keep it...

 

However, realize that it always is a possibility they sell the ship and cancel any future cruises...or...that they sell the ship with the actual transfer date at the end of May 2018. Anything is possible...it's business...

 

You've got to consider what this ship is and its history...

 

The ship is a 30,000 gross ton, 684 passenger SMALL (in today's terms) cruise ship...It was originally built as one of 7 sister ships for the now-long-defunct Renaissance Cruise Line...

When Renaissance went under, the seven ships were bought up by different cruise lines...

3 were purchased by former Renaissance executive Frank Del Rio who started a new cruise line--Oceania.

2 ended up with Royal Caribbean--who originally intended to place them in their Celebrity Cruises, but realized they didn't really fit the mold and marketing of Celebrity and started a new cruise line around them--Azamara...

And two were bought by Princess (actually, first bought by an investment group who leased them to, then sold them to Princess). Princess took a different course than RCCL and just placed them directly into the Princess fleet.

 

But the ships really didn't fit the Princess mold. Most Princess ships were large 100,000 gross ton, 3,000 plus passenger ships with typical big ship amenities (ie showroom with full backstage facilities). These two really needed to be handled a whole lot different. IT is a strong possibility that Princess HAS realized that these are a different animal, hence difficult to manage in the scale it manages the rest of the fleet...

 

After all, they've already sold the other R-class ship, the former Tahitian Princess/Ocean Princess. It left the Princess fleet in March 2016 and was refurbished and entered into service for Oceania as the "Sirena".

 

So, if Princess has sold one, why not the other? Well, for starters, Oceania can probably only absorb so much capacity at one time...and they've grown from those first three ships to include two larger newbuilds plus, now, the Sirena...But they'd be the most likely suitor as the ship fits their blueprint. Azamara might be a buyer--but I am not sure that expanding Azamara is in RCCL's current plans. Then, there are a number of foreign cruise lines--but it's hard to picture any of them buying this ship when the typical pattern is to go cheaper with older discards from the major cruise lines--with greater capacity...

 

So, at least for now, it appears that Princess will keep operating this one...but, you never know...

 

Last May while I was on the Pacific Princess, I was talking to a ship's officer. The officer told me the one of the reasons Princes sold the Tahitian/Ocean had to do with what it would cost to make her more environmentally friendly. He went on to tell me when the Pacific Princess was built, it had something built into it the other ship didn't have.

 

I obviously do not have anyway way to corroborate this, nor do I know if this is true. I just wanted to advise what I was told.....

Bob

[Cruise Junky]

Not to be picky [OK, being picky...] there are eight R-ships. Oceania has 4 (R-1, 2, 4 and 5); Azamara has 2 (R-6 and 7); fathom has 1 (R-8); and Princess has 1 (R-3). The first five were all identical, with most of deck 8 as mini-suites; and next two had only half of deck 8 as mini-suites; R-8 has no mini-suites. That meant that R-8 was the best of the group for fathom, with its egalitarian vibe. It also means that R-3 is a perfect fit for Oceania, as it is identical to their other ships. It could also work for Azamara, but posters on Cruise Critic are adamant that CCL will never sell anything to RCL.

 

Thank you for pointing out that there were 8. And I guess Pursuit proves some people wrong 😜