A Royal Returns - Crown Princess Here For The Day

The Crown Princess cruise ship is on a transit visit to Freo today.

She arrived this morning, supported by two tugs, at 6 o’clock, in 24 deg C weather, under grey, thunderstormy skies, and pushing into a not entirely pleasant 26 km/h easterly. Hopefully, it’ll be calmer and more Freo-like weather when she departs this evening.

It’s lovely to have her back, though. She last visited on 6 November 2024, on a maiden visit to Fremantle, fashionably late, as we reported at the time.

Here is a photo gallery with more pics of her arrival this morning.

She is on a 13 days, one-way cruise from Brisbane to Fremantle. Along the way, she has visited Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Albany and Busselton.

There are 2491 passengers onboard along with 1147 crew members. 463 passengers will leave the ship today and a further 486 will join.

Almost 2,000 passengers will spend the day exploring Fremantle.

The ship will refuel and re-provision while in port.

Crown Princess leaves this evening and continues around Australia in a clock-wise direction on a 15-day one-way cruise back to Brisbane. Exmouth, Broome, Darwin, Port Douglas, Cairns and Willis Island are on her itinerary.

In early March, the ship was involved in a ‘tilting incident’. While cruising in Fiordland, New Zealand, she encountered rough weather and was hit by a 75- knot wind gust. The ship rocked and tilted 14 degrees.

Water sloshed out of a swimming pool on the Lido deck and entered a food court. Sixteen people were injured when the ship suddenly tilted; cups, glasses and plates went flying around the dining room. There was no structural damage.

If you missed her arrival, head on down to Victoria Quay, or to the South or North Mole to wave farewell at 5pm this afternoon.

It is a really nice thing to do. Take the family!

* Words by Jean Hudson our Shipping Correspondent. Jean is also a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here. Photographs by Michael Barker.

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