Grand Princess
Princess Cruises · Cruise · In service · built by Fincantieri
Grand Princess led an eleven-ship class and was, at delivery, the biggest passenger ship ever built — and the first too wide for the original Panama Canal locks.
Derived metrics
Computed by ships.fyi from the core specification — see how we calculate these.
How big is it, really?
The Grand Princess's length overall, against things you already know the size of.
The 747-8 held the longest-airliner record for over a decade, until Boeing's 777-9 took it by about 19 inches (76.72 m) — our sibling site aircraft.fyi measures everything that flies the same way.
One Grand Princess = 1.08 Titanics · 2.8 football pitches · 12 blue whales · 3.8 Boeing 747-8s laid end to end.
Plan a sailing on Grand Princess
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The numbers
| Length overall | ≈289.9 m |
|---|---|
| Beam | 36 m |
| Draught | ≈7.9 m |
| Gross tonnage | 107,517 GT |
| Passengers | ≈2,610 (double) |
| Crew | ≈1,100 |
| Decks | 17 total, 13 passenger |
| Speed | ≈22 kn |
| Entered service | May 1998 |
Put the Grand Princess next to something
Last verified: 2026-07-15 · Spot an error? business@luck.fyi
What makes it different
Grand Princess was the largest and most expensive passenger ship in the world when she entered service in May 1998 at 107,517 gross tons — and the first cruise ship too wide to transit the original Panama Canal locks, which was treated at the time as a significant statement of intent.
Her defining feature was the Skywalkers nightclub, housed in a structure suspended about 45 metres above the stern and projecting aft like a spoiler. It gave the early Grand-class ships a profile no other ship had. It was also heavy and aerodynamically awkward, and Princess removed it during a 2011 refit — so photographs of her before and after look like two different ships.
The class she started ran to eleven hulls over twelve years across three brands, making it one of the most successful cruise ship designs ever built. Nearly thirty years on she remains in service, the oldest ship in the Princess fleet, working Alaska summers and California itineraries.
The Grand Princess line
Grand class
The spoiler
Who operates the Grand Princess
All 1 operator of record, verified 2026-07-15. Figures marked ≈ are approximate.
PCLPrincess CruisesAlaska summers and California-based itineraries.1✓→