Coral Princess is a Coral-class cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises. The Panamax vessel, along with sister ship MS Island Princess (2002), was debuted in 2003.

Design and construction

The Coral Princess its the first of two in the panamax series Coral-Class. The ship was ordered by P&O Princess in December 1999 to be constructed at Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in France. This was the first return to a French shipyard by Princess Cruises since the Sitmar Cruises ordered Star Princess in the 1980s. This ship was the first cruise ship to have a General Electric 25,000kW gas turbine located in the funnel with a driving an alternator and two 16,200kW diesel-alternators fitted in the main machinery room and using Wärtsilä prime movers. The placement freed up additional passenger space allowing the two lower decks dedicated to public amenities where most other ships offer only one. In relation to the gas turbines, the funnel would have two cylindrical representative turbines placed on top the funnel. Although serving no function, the ship was the first to debut the representative gas turbine cylinders on top. This design element would also be duplicated on the Diamond Princess and Sapphire Princess. The ship would have 1,545 staterooms (1,105 outside/440 inside) and carry 2,000 passenger double occupancy and 895 crew. The ship would be completed in December 2002, and maker her maiden voyage in January 2003.

Service history

The Coral Princess would be one of the first Princess ships to debut under the new Carnival Corp ownership. The ship made her maiden voyage on January 17, 2003 christened by Mireya Moscoso, the President of Panama. On 2 May 2013, Coral Princess suffered a fire when some flammable material in the engineering spaces accidentally ignited in the middle of the night. It was quickly extinguished without anyone onboard being injured; however, minor amounts of smoke were detected by passengers as far up as Deck 8. Coral Princess experienced an engine fire at approximately 2130 local time on 15 January 2020 while in the Drake Passage en route to Stanley, Falkland Islands. At the time of the fire, Coral Princess was 4 nmi north of Elephant Island in Antarctica. The ship had just completed a two-day transit of the Antarctic Peninsula when the fire occurred and was contained by the ship's on-board fire detection system; no passengers or crew were injured. In 2022, the ship was diverted from New Zealand to have the hull cleaned of snails to prevent introducing any foreign species to the New Zealand environment.