Royal Princess Fire - All Safe

Reports are surfacing that there has been an engine room fire today aboard the Royal Princess, sailing in the Mediterranean, as it departed Port Said, Egypt. Early statements from Princess indicate that all passengers and crew are accounted for, though passengers remain at muster stations for safety. The fire is out, the ship is operating on emergency power, and the source of the fire and the extent of damage is being investigated.

The ship remains at anchor a few miles off Port Said during the investigations. No word yet on the remainder of the cruise.

If you have family onboard, Princess has set up a special phone number for you to call for updates: 800-693-7222.

More news will be coming out overnight and tomorrow, and the speculation will begin. This is one of the 8 former Renaissance ships, 3 of whom sail for Princess, 3 for Oceania, and 2 for Azamara. As this is my favorite series of ships for their size and design, not to mention the fact that I will be on one of them in just under 2 months from now, you know I'll be watching this with interest.

I hope the ship has only minor damage and will be able to continue on her way. I will update as major news is announced with more concrete information. Another good site to watch is Gene Sloan's CruiseLog blog. He's keeping on top of this and I thank him for being the first to tweet on the incident. The official Princess report is at Royal Princess Fire.

UPDATE: The latest update from Princess can be found at: 6PM 6/18/09 Update. The ship will return to Port Said tomorrow, Friday, and will remain there at least until Saturday.