Based in Santa Clarita, California, this British-American cruise line is one of eleven cruise brands owned by the massive Carnival Corporation. The line became part of the US-based Corporation in 2003.
But the Princess line began as a small, unassuming cruise company when, in the fall of 1966, Stanley McDonald chartered a cruise ship, the Princess Patricia, for a winter cruise from Los Angeles to the Mexican Riviera. This seemed like an ideal arrangement since the Patricia would normally have been out of commission in the winter, but McDonald soon realized that he may have made a mistake in hiring a ship that was not equipped for tropical cruising: she did not have air conditioning. .
That was not the only setback. Because the Patricia was such a small ship, there was no laundry room on board. This problem was overcome when the ship docked in Acapulco. There was a 24-hour port visit, allowing passenger laundry to be done locally. Unfortunately, the laundry came back as a single delivery with several hundred items all mixed up. There was no choice but to set up tables in the lobby and ask everyone to identify and collect their own clothes.
After this steep learning curve, rather than get discouraged, Stanley McDonald made plans to purchase his own purpose-built cruise ship. The success of the Princess Patricia Acapulco cruise made him realize that there was a growing market for cruise vacations on the West Coast of the United States.
He soon found his perfect ship: a cruise ship being built in Italy. The builders had gone bankrupt, so after some negotiations with the bank, McDonald’s took him on a long-term contract. When she was completed she was named Princess Italia and sailed back to the West Coast to begin sailing under the company name ‘Princess Cruises’.
Italia was a sleek, modern cruise ship, and McDonald was eager to capitalize on its up-to-date reputation by adding innovative ideas, like having an onboard gym, something that’s standard on cruise ships today. Princess cruises were also the first American line to introduce slot machines, on a cruise from Florida to Los Angeles.
Ten years after the first Italian cruises, the company received one of the best publicity a commercial venture could hope for: a request from the Spelling Organization to film a television series on board. Princess Cruises had allowed various film companies to use their ships as locations, but it was initially thought from previous experience that the request would be more trouble than it was worth. Eventually the directors were persuaded and subsequently Pacific Princess and Island Princess were, for ten years, the stars of the hugely popular ‘Love Boat’.
Although the company had to pay for the huge production team, Stanley McDonald later had to admit that the show was a brilliant promotion, not just for Princess Cruises, but for the entire US cruise industry.
