The current Royal Princess is one of the smaller ships in the Princess fleet with a passenger capacity of only 680. Her days are numbered as well and in May she will also be transferred to P&O Cruises. She will be refurbished and renamed “Adonia”.

That does not mean, however, that the name Royal Princess will now disappear from Princess Cruise’s line-up. There will, in fact, soon be a brand new Royal Princess. This will be a massive 3,600-passenger cruise liner, which will embark on her maiden cruise in 2013. She will be followed a year later by an as-yet-unnamed sister ship with the same passenger capacity.

Princess Cruises has not made many details public about the new ship as yet. What we do know is that the Piazza Atrium – a common sight on Princess ships - will be much larger than usual on the new ship.

An innovative feature will be the pool deck with its glass-bottomed sections that protrude 28 feet over the side of the ship. The starboard pool deck will feature a glass walkway where passengers will be able to get a scary glimpse of the sea 128 feet below their feet. There will be three swimming pools, two of them open to everyone and a third that will be for adults only.