New Princess Cruise Ship Loses Power in Middle of Mediterranean

A new Princess Cruises’ ship, Royal Princess, suffered a power outage onboard for 3.5 hours during a Mediterranean cruise over the weekend. Emergency generators provided power for essential services including toilets, during the outage. Full power has since been restored.

The ship's godmother is Duchess Kate of Cambridge. While pregnant, she presided over the christening in Southampton, England on June 13, 2013. 

The captain kept passengers informed of the situation and at no time was the ship in any danger. However, passengers noted that the ship had many other problems throughout their 12-night cruise, including plumbing, electrical, air-conditioning, and other delays like pulling anchor up prior to sailing.

As a result of the loss of power, Royal Princess is cancelling the remainder of its trip and will be taken out of service for repair.

The cruise ship is expected to arrive in Naples, Italy on Tuesday morning where Princess has arranged for passengers to be flown home. They will also receive a full refund and a 25% future cruise credit.

The cruise line cannot yet confirm how long the ship will remain out of service or whether further cruises would be canceled or shortened. Pending approval from Royal Princess' flag state, Bermuda, the ship will make its way to Barcelona on Wednesday for repairs; it is next scheduled to depart from Barcelona on Sept. 27, according to Cruise Critic. 

The ship measures 141,000 GT and has a capacity of 3,600 passengers. The ship was built by Fincantieri at their shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy.