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The fanfare was dialed back because of Hurricane Milton, but Princess Cruises began sailing its newest ship Sun Princess out of Port Everglades over the weekend.

The biggest ship in the Princess fleet debuted out of Europe earlier this year, but has now begun its winter Caribbean sailing season from the line’s primary Florida homeport in Fort Lauderdale.

The 177,882-gross-ton ship has a 4,314-passenger capacity based on double occupancy. It’s the first of the line’s new Sphere class of ships, the first to run on liquefied natural gas, part of parent company Carnival Corp.’s efforts to reduce emissions.

It’s also the first LNG ship to home port out Port Everglades following the debuts of LNG-powered ships at Port Canaveral and PortMiami.

This is the third iteration of the name Sun Princess. The first two versions sailed for the line from 1974-1988 and 1995-2020. The pilot episode of “The Love Boat” TV series was shot on board the original Sun Princess in 1977.

It’s a big jump in size from the line’s recent Royal-class ships including 2022’s Discovery Princess, 2020’s Enchanted Princess and 2019’s Sky Princess, which come in at around 145,000 gross tons with about 3,660-passenger capacities. read more