Royal Princess among 5-ship season for Princess in New Zealand

The 3,560-passenger ship is set to become a regular sight in New Zealand ports over the next six months as it operates three round-trips from Auckland and a series of trans-Tasman cruises from Sydney.

The ship will sail in Australasian waters with Grand Princess, which spent Tuesday in Auckland’s harbour, as well as Coral Princess, which will visit Oct. 21, and Majestic Princess, Oct. 30.

186 calls

'Overall, Princess Cruises will make a total of 186 calls to New Zealand ports over the next six months, making this one of our biggest seasons on record,' said Stuart Allison, SVP Asia Pacific, UK and Europe.

'To put those visitor numbers into perspective, if Princess was a country we’d be the fourth biggest source of visitors to New Zealand over the past 12 months,' he added.

Strong interest from Kiwis

Allison noted Princess is seeing 'strong interest from Kiwis keen to circumnavigate their own country.' The Royal Princess round-trip Auckland cruises will be sprinkled in from December through February.

As earlier reported, New Zealand forecasts a bumper 2023-24 cruise season, which began Oct. 15, with an estimated 360,000 passengers expected.