Princess Cruises will have a double celebration next year at the first ever cruise ship naming ceremony to be held in Santorini, Greece.
The cruiseline’s new 3,100 passenger Emerald Princess and 710-passenger Royal Princess, that joins the feet from Swan Hellenic, will be named together on May 12 in Santorini.
Princess Cruises’ parent company Carnival announced it was to bring Swan Hellenic’s only ship Minerva II into the Princess fleet earlier this year.
UK director of Princess Cruises Peter Shanks said: “These two ships represent the full scope of our fleet – from the boutique to the superliner – and it will be wonderful to highlight this unique aspect of Princess by launching them together.”
With second edition brochures due out next month, head of brand marketing Pieter van der Schee said sales were picking up after a slow August and September.
“We are very happy with the bookings that are coming in. Most brochure prices have gone up a bit, which is always reward for the people who booked early,” he said.
“Overall our business is quite well spread. The Caribbean and Europe are quite similar in size and the Exotics programme has grown so much that it has taken over Alaska, which itself has grown.”
Van der Schee said the increasing popularity of cruises in the Far East, Australia and New Zealand is behind increasing sales of its Exotics programme as well as some of the longer repositioning cruises like Alaska to the Far East via, Russia, Japan and China.