Diamond Princess

Diamond Princess is one of two Diamond-class (sometimes styled "Gem-class") sisters ordered by P&O Princess Cruises and built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries at its Nagasaki shipyard in Japan. The pair holds a singular distinction in the Princess fleet: they are the only large Princess cruise ships ever constructed in Japan, and Diamond Princess was the first Princess vessel built in a Japanese yard. Registered in Hamilton and flying the Bermudian flag, the ship carries IMO number 9228198 and entered service in 2004. Carnival Corporation & plc has owned the vessel since its parent company merged with P&O Princess, with Princess Cruises as operator.

The ship's early history is inseparable from a serious industrial accident. In October 2002, while both hulls were under construction at Nagasaki, a major fire broke out aboard the vessel that was then designated Diamond Princess, causing extensive damage and threatening the delivery timetable. To protect its schedules, Princess Cruises swapped the two ships' identities: the largely undamaged sister, originally intended to be named Sapphire Princess, took on the Diamond Princess name and an accelerated early-2004 delivery, while the fire-damaged hull was repaired and later completed under the Sapphire Princess name. As a result, the ship sailing today as Diamond Princess is the hull that escaped the fire, and it was delivered first.

At 115,875 gross tons, Diamond Princess measures roughly 290 metres in length with a 37.5-metre beam and an 8.2-metre draught, arranged over eighteen decks of which thirteen are given to guests. The ship offers 1,337 staterooms and accommodates 2,706 passengers at double occupancy, up to 3,080 at maximum, served by a crew of about 1,100. It was christened at Nagasaki on 26 February 2004 by godmother Yoshiko Tsukuda and entered commercial service the following month. Its design features the Princess signatures of the era, including a central atrium, multiple dining venues, and a broad array of open-deck and pool spaces suited to warm- and cool-weather cruising alike.

In its opening years Diamond Princess alternated between glacier and Inside Passage sailings in Alaska during the northern summer and Australia and New Zealand itineraries in the southern season. From 2014 the ship was repositioned to be based largely out of Yokohama, Japan, becoming a mainstay of the Japanese domestic and regional cruise market, a role it has held for much of the time since.

Diamond Princess became internationally known in February 2020 as the site of one of the largest early COVID-19 outbreaks outside mainland China. After a passenger who had disembarked in Hong Kong in late January tested positive, Japanese authorities placed the ship under quarantine at the Port of Yokohama beginning around 4 February 2020, with roughly 3,700 passengers and crew aboard. As testing progressed, at least 700 people aboard were confirmed infected, and by the following weeks fourteen deaths had been linked to the outbreak. Passengers and crew were progressively disembarked through late February and early March, after which the ship underwent extensive cleaning and disinfection before being cleared to return to service. The episode was widely studied and documented, including in the HBO film The Last Cruise.

Following an extended pandemic-era lay-up, Diamond Princess returned to commercial service in late 2022 and resumed cruising, again with a strong focus on Japan and East Asia. The ship remains in active service with Princess Cruises, registered in Hamilton, Bermuda, and carrying the call sign ZCHI3.