The Sea Princess is back in the news. Following widespread coverage of “cruise from hell” articles about a noro-infected cruise from Freemantle where the ship was nicknamed “Pandemic Princess,” Princess Cruises announced that the sailing to Brisbane was canceled in order to address “technical problems” causing the ship to lose speed.
Perth Now reports that Carnival Australia spokesman, which is responsible for the Sea Princess, stated that “all guests will receive a full refund of their cruise fare plus a 100 per cent future cruise credit.”
Passengers had complained during earlier cruises that the Sea Princess had been suffering from 
reduced speeds which shortened times in certain ports of call and required changes in the ship’s itineraries including dropping Bali and Broome.
A poster commented on the Cruise Critic boards: “this ship has been limping along slowly and arriving late to ports/missing ports for months. Princess handled this situation badly.”
Another person commented: “Really disappointing. All summer long people have been saying that Princess should just bite the bullet and cancel a couple of cruises down the line and fix this ship. People would have had at least a couple months’ notice. Instead, they now have 1900 passengers kicked off on the second day of a cruise that never left port. What a mess.”
It’s currently unknown how many cruises will be affected.
The Sea Princess is an old ship. It was built by Fincantieri, Italy and began sailing in 1998. It was transferred to P&O Cruises in 2003 and renamed the Adonia (photo above right). It was transferred back to Princess in 2005.
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Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Cruiser1210 Creative Commons