Grand Princess is a Grand-class cruise ship cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises. It was built in 1998 by Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani in Monfalcone, Italy, with yard number 5956, at a cost of approximately US$450 million. She was the largest and most expensive passenger ship ever built at the time.
History
Grand Princess was the first of the Grand-class cruise ships debuting in 1998, and christened by Olivia de Havilland. When Grand Princess was launched, she featured in the Princess Cruises brochures as a Sun-class ship; it was only with the subsequent launch of Golden Princess that the Grand class appeared in brochures. The ship has a different decor scheme to her sister ships, using darker woods, and the interior decor is more similar to the smaller Sun-class cruise ship ships.
She is the sister ship of Star Princess and Golden Princess. Grand Princess was the setting for a task in the second series of the UK version of the reality TV show The Apprentice.
On 19 July 2009, the ship was drydocked for 14 days for refurbishments such as boosting Grand Princess's energy and environmental efficiency.