Anyone take a Princess maiden voyage cruise after ship naming?

[dickinson]

As the title says... anyone take a cruise on a new ship just after they did the ceremonies for the ship naming?  Did they invite the passengers to attend or can one just show up?  What time of day do they do it?  Was it worth seeing?  We are scheduled to be on the Enchanted for its maiden voyage from Southampton.  There is one cruise before ours, the inaugural cruise which takes it from Italy to Southampton.  There it will sit for three days until our cruise.  I assume they will do the naming then but not sure why it sits for three days.  

 

Thanks.

Edited September 14, 2019 by dickinson

[voljeep]

17 minutes ago, dickinson said:

As the title says... anyone take a cruise on a new ship just after they did the ceremonies for the ship naming?  Did they invite the passengers to attend or can one just show up?  What time of day do they do it?  Was it worth seeing?  We are scheduled to be on the Enchanted for its maiden voyage from Southampton.  There is one cruise before ours, the inaugural cruise which takes it from Italy to Southampton.  There it will sit for three days until our cruise.  I assume they will do the naming then but not sure why it sits for three days.  

 

Thanks.

don't be surprised when Princess adds a 3 day pre-maiden cruise  to the maiden cruise ...

[dickinson]

11 minutes ago, voljeep said:

don't be surprised when Princess adds a 3 day pre-maiden cruise  to the maiden cruise ...

 

Thanks for the alert but that doesn't answer my question.

[dides]

47 minutes ago, dickinson said:

As the title says... anyone take a cruise on a new ship just after they did the ceremonies for the ship naming?  Did they invite the passengers to attend or can one just show up?  What time of day do they do it?  Was it worth seeing?  We are scheduled to be on the Enchanted for its maiden voyage from Southampton.  There is one cruise before ours, the inaugural cruise which takes it from Italy to Southampton.  There it will sit for three days until our cruise.  I assume they will do the naming then but not sure why it sits for three days. 

 

Based on the Royal Princess christening in 2013, it's an invited guest list only of celebrities, charity heads related to the godmother's interests and press . The ship arrived quite a few days beforehand,  the christening happened around midday and there was a gala dinner onboard that evening. We were on a 2 night preview cruise the next day.  No idea of the plans for the 3 days before your maiden voyage but there will certainly be travel agents and press invited to stay onboard - we'll be getting off the inaugural one from Rome.

Edited September 14, 2019 by dides

[dickinson]

4 minutes ago, dides said:

 

Based on the Royal Princess christening in 2013, it's an invited guest list only of celebrities, charity heads related to the godmother's interests and press . The ship arrived quite a few days beforehand,  the christening happened around midday and there was a gala dinner onboard that evening. We were on a 2 night preview cruise the next day.  No idea of the plans for the 3 days before your maiden voyage but there will certainly be travel agents and press invited to stay onboard - we'll be getting off the inaugural one from Rome.

 

Thanks!  Useful info.

[MCC retired]

Been onboard during several naming ceremonies as a TA.

Never invited into the actual proceedings .

But If you are onboard during the naming ceremony you can find a spot on deck to watch the bottle 🍾 break at the bow 🚢 and the horns tooting .

[cruisingpeople]

When they christened the Caribbean Princess in April 2004, they broadcasted the ceremony with Jill Whelan, (Captain Stubings daughter Vicki), being the Godmother. She then got married onboard with the Love Boat cast in attendance. The next day we sailed out of FLL for the inaugural run. Jill and her husband stay on for the week and mingled with those onboard.

 

For the Ruby in 2008, DW was invited to go with a TA friend of ours on the "3 day cruise to nowhere". On that they did the naming ceremony & christening with Trista & Ryan from the Bachelorette. After the 3 days, the ship docked back in FLL to pick up us commoners, (spouses, families and friends).

 

When the Royal did her 1st U.S. "Maiden' Voyage after being on the "other side of the pond" for the first 5 months, we did a 5-day and a 7-day B2B sailing and I don't recall if Princess did anything special for that particular cruise.

[shipsealand]

Did the Sapphire Princess shortly after the brief 3 day cruise for travel agents.  It was either the 1st or 2nd full week of sailing.  Good is the new ship smell (ie like new car smell) and the excitement of the experience and the high energy level of the crew on their brand new ship.  Only downside is that not everything is working but these are just minor coordination of entertainment equipment and nothing serious.  Just go with the flow that it is a brand new ship and the crew is getting familiar with it too.