Princess Cruise Lines were founded in 1965 by an entrepreneur from Seattle named Stanley McDonald. He named the new cruise line after the first ship, a chartered ferryboat from the Canadian National Railways Fleet named the "Princess Patricia." This ship had a capacity of 318 guests and was the one of the first cruise lines to sail to the Mexican Rivera. For the next 9 years, McDonald continued to grow his business, taking vacationers back and forth to Mexico, until 1974 when he sold the business to P&O (Peninsula and Oriental Stream Navigation Company) a shipping company from the United Kingdom.
Princess Cruise lines really came to the forefront of the cruising world when its vessels were featured on the classic television series, "The Love Boat." From 1977-1986, millions of Americans watched Captain Stubing and his crew sail the seas on the Island Princess and the Pacific Princess, two actual ships in the Princess line. It was this show which began to change the way people thought about going on a cruise. The days of the cruising being only for seniors was rapidly coming to an end.
The 1980s brought with it a huge expansion to the cruise industry and Princess saw huge growth during that time. By 1984, Princess built its first custom ship, the Royal Princess. This ship could hold up almost three times as many passengers as its first ship. They kept increasing their fleet to meet demand and by the mid 1990s Princess was one of the biggest cruise lines in the world.
The travel industry was hit hard after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the cruise industry was no exception. In November of 2001, Princess and Royal Caribbean announced their two companies would merge. By mid-December, however, Carnival Cruise Lines had begun a hostile takeover of the company. At first, Princess claimed it was not interested in merging with Carnival, but then announced it would go with the highest bidder. This set off a 2-year ordeal with both companies getting approval from various government bodies. The United States ruled that a merger with either company was acceptable and the Princess Board of Directors recommended a merger with Carnival. On April 17, 2003, Princess Cruise Lines formally merged with Carnival.
Today Princess continues to be one of the world's preeminent cruise lines. Its 17-vessel fleet maintains its own separate identity from its parent company. Since joining the Carnival company, it has seen its ports of call expand to areas all over the globe. It strives to maintain a high standard of guest service and luxury and is looking forward to a future of growth and expansion.
