Princess Cancels Two Royal Princess Sailings

The following was just released by Princess Cruises:

Following the engine room fire that occurred yesterday, June 18, we have spent the day thoroughly reviewing the condition of the engines and assessing the damage. Unfortunately, the impact is more extensive than originally thought and the ship must be moved to a shipyard to complete the necessary repairs.

We regret that the remainder of the current cruise, and the following cruise departing June 25, must be cancelled. We understand that this is a disappointing development, and we sincerely apologize to our passengers for the disruption to their vacation.

We will be providing the affected passengers on both voyages a full refund of their fare, plus a future cruise credit equal to 25% of the cruise fare paid for these sailings. We are currently securing flights home for all passengers currently onboard Royal Princess, and they will be returning home over the weekend. Passengers' homeward flights, transfers and associated hotel
accommodations will be at Princess' expense.

We deeply appreciate our passengers' patience and understanding during what is an unfortunate development.

No word yet at this time as to the cause of the fire. I'll keep you all posted!

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.