Princess Cruises
cruise line
Princess Cruises is an American cruise line owned by Carnival Corporation. The company headquarters are in Santa Clarita, California and is incorporated in Bermuda. As of 2025, it is the sixth largest cruise line by net revenue. It was previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises. The line has 17 ships cruising global itineraries that are marketed to both American and international passengers.
In the 1980s, Princess rose in prominence after American television series The Love Boat was set primarily on the Pacific Princess in its weekly episodes, and the brand has since continued to invoke its connection to the series. Additionally, the Sun Princess was prominently featured in the 1975 Columbo episode "Troubled Waters".
History
1965–1973: Early years
Princess Cruises began in 1965, when founder Stanley McDonald chartered Canadian Pacific Limited's Alaska cruise ship Princess Patricia for Mexican Riviera cruises from Los Angeles during a time when she would have usually been laid up for the winter. However, Princess Pat, as she was fondly called, had never been designed for tropical cruising, lacking air-conditioning, and Princess ended her charter in favor of a more purpose-built cruise ship, Italia.
Princess, who marketed the ship as Princess Italia, but never officially renamed her, used the ship to inaugurate their Mexican Riviera cruises out of Los Angeles.
The public source identifies “Princess Cruises” as cruise line. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Princess, Cruises and cruise.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q745700. The Library of Congress control number is n90722132. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1975, 1965 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Princess Cruises” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.