Princess Royal Class Guide: Royal, Regal, Majestic, Sky, Enchanted & Discovery

A queen, a TV cast, and a coin-sized machine

Start with the first hull. When Royal Princess needed naming in 2013, Princess asked Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge — and the choice was no celebrity lottery. Princess Diana had christened the original Royal Princess in 1984, so handing the bottle to the next generation of the same royal house was a deliberate act of continuity: a company saying, out loud, that its history is an asset it intends to keep compounding.

The second hull carries the class's real thesis. Regal Princess was christened in 2014 by the original cast of The Love Boat — Gavin MacLeod and his crewmates, the people who made a decade of prime-time television out of the promise that aboard this ship, somebody notices you. Three years later, in 2017, the OceanMedallion made its debut on that very same hull. Sit with that for a second: the television promise and the machine engineered to keep it were, in effect, christened onto one ship. Our Built to Solve essay calls The Love Boat a debt Princess has been paying down for fifty years; Regal Princess is where the repayment plan got hardware.

And then there is the honest wrinkle. None of these six was drawn around the Medallion — the class predates it, so the technology arrived mid-life, fitted into doors and venues designed before it existed. It works remarkably well, but you can occasionally see the seams, and Sphere Class exists precisely because Princess wanted a ship where you can't. Royal Class is the bridge generation: big enough to fund the experiment, storied enough to deserve it, and old enough to wear it as a retrofit rather than a birthright.

The through-line

Six sisters, one argument: attention as a promise (the Love Boat cast on Regal's bow), attention as an inheritance (a duchess repeating Diana's swing), and attention as an engineering project (the disc that debuted between them). No other class in cruising holds all three.

Which Royal Class ship is your ship?

Six sisters within a whisker of each other on size, age aside — genuinely confusing, and pretending otherwise would be malpractice. Four questions pull them apart. A tapped disc above will have already ghost-marked its opening move.

Question 1 of 4

What's actually leading this decision?

Question 2 of 4

Which water are you picturing out the window?

Question 3 of 4

Where do you land on hull age within one class?

Question 4 of 4

Last one — which christening detail actually charms you?

Meet your match →

Wear the disc — a Royal-class habit, demonstrated

Every one of these six now sails MedallionClass, so this guide keeps the house habit: tap the disc, answer two things, and the page quietly starts working the way the ships do — noticing, marking, delivering.

MedallionClass, demonstrated

Six sisters. Let the page shortlist them for you.

On board, the wearable opens doors, routes drinks to deck chairs and keeps families findable. On this page it does something humbler: it hears what kind of week you're after and flags a sister. Reload and it forgets you existed.

One tap on the disc starts it. Skip it, and this stays an ordinary — if opinionated — guide.

Who's boarding?

What's steering the choice?

Held in this tab's memory only · no cookie, no account, no record — a gesture, not a dossier.

Delivered to you · like a drink to a deck chair

Read her guide →

The Retrofit Ledger

Sphere ships were born wearing the Medallion. These six had to learn it — Regal first in 2017, her sisters after. So this ledger reads differently: tab one compares the same Royal-class ship with herself, before and after the disc came aboard. Tab two prices what Plus and Premier change about one couple's sea day.

The Attention Ledger

One class, before and after the disc

The retrofit is the Royal-class plot twist: hardware from 2013–2022, software from 2017 onward, bolted together mid-career. Tab one is that surgery, moment by moment. Tab two follows two people through a sea day at $60 and at $90 per head.

The momentSame ship, pre-MedallionSame ship, disc aboard

Arriving at your doorbags in both hands

Fish out the cruise card, swipe, hope

The lock hears the disc coming and opens itself

Thirst, mid-sunbathethe oldest dilemma at sea

Surrender the lounger, join the bar queue

Tap the app; a crew member arrives carrying your name

A family gone four ways3,600 guests of hiding places

Fix a meeting point at breakfast and pray

Shipmates shows each wanderer on a live map

The first morningterminal to gangway

Documents, counters, the shuffle

Disc posted to your house; the pier moves quicker

Every small purchasedozens per day, times two

Card, signature, repeat

The wearable settles it as you walk off

What it now expects of youread before shrugging

Nothing but the cruise card

A smartphone, its battery, and your whereabouts shared with the ship

What a retrofit can't reachthe seam, admitted

The ship as her architects drew her

Software fitted to rooms sketched before it existed — brilliant, with visible stitching. Sphere Class is what no-stitching looks like

These rows describe the same six hulls across their own careers — Regal Princess crossed this line first in 2017, the rest of the class followed. The stitching row matters when you compare classes: on Royal ships the Medallion is an upgrade; on Sphere ships it's the architecture. Travellers who keep phones in the safe get the pre-2017 column either way.

One sea day, two peopleCarrying Plus · $60/pp/dayCarrying Premier · $90/pp/day

The 11am round on deckand every round after

Glasses to $15, fifteen alcoholic pours per person per day

Glasses to $20, with a higher ceiling on the count

Checking in on the house-sitterMedallionNet between them

One device online

Four devices online

Lunch on a whimthe casual venues

Two casual-dining meals across the cruise

As many as the appetite allows

The anniversary-worthy dinnerspecialty tables

Not covered — book and pay

Unlimited specialty dining, booked at will

Two seats at the 8 o'clock showtogether, ideally

General entry; arrive keen

Reserved production-show seating

The sweet-and-sweat filedesserts, classes, photos

Two premium desserts and two fitness classes a day, juice bar in

No limits, plus the digital photo package with three prints

Crew appreciation$17–19/day if paid separately

Folded in

Folded in

Delivery to the deck chairOceanNow & room service

Fees waived

Fees waived

Rates are Princess's published 2026 per-person figures and drift without announcement — read them as today's shape. Bought à la carte, the pile costs very roughly double. The catch our own essay insists on: bundle this much and the sea day acquires a to-do list. Nobody suffers, but the couple in this table will spend part of their holiday keeping up with its value.

Nine years, six hulls: the drumbeat

The cadence

Years into the build programme at each delivery

Read the class as a rhythm and its history appears: two hulls straight away, a three-year pause, then a steady beat to the finish. The Medallion's 2017 debut lands mid-programme — so the last three sisters never sailed a day without it, while the first three remember life before.

Royal (2013)

Year 1

Regal (2014)

Year 2

Majestic (2017)

Year 5

Sky (2019)

Year 7

Enchanted (2021)

Year 9

Discovery (2022)

Year 10

Delivery years as published: 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 — counted here with 2013 as year one. The pause after Regal is where Majestic's China-market brief was written; the beat after 2017 is a company that had found its formula and simply kept printing it until Discovery closed the book.

Six sisters, told apart

Ranked not by size — they'd tie — but by the weight of their stories. Every entry links to a full page with the fit-check, the honest columns and the advisor's take.

Launched into the strangest year.

~142–145k GT~3,600 guests2021

Delivered in 2021 — a year no line would have picked for a debut — Enchanted is the other low-drama sister, and we'll be straight: the verified record on what sets her apart is short, so we won't pad it. What she certainly is: recent Royal-class hardware, one printing before the final one, without Discovery's youngest-sister pricing aura.

Best for

Travellers who want near-newest metal and treat the absence of legend as a discount worth taking.

Skip if

Provenance moves you, or the specific itinerary you want happens to sit on another sister's schedule.

Read the full Enchanted Princess guide →

Tables, and what follows them

Six ships this alike mostly eat alike — so here's the class-level truth, plus the one sister who breaks it.

Feeding 3,600

Count on the Princess pattern, not a fixed roster. Across six hulls and a decade of refits, venue line-ups shuffle — which is why our pages describe how dining works on this class rather than cataloguing rooms that may be renamed by your sailing. What holds steady: main dining for 3,600 runs on rhythm, casual venues are where Plus's two included meals earn their keep, and Premier's unlimited specialty dining changes calculus most on longer itineraries.

Majestic is the asterisk. Her China-market birth gave her a venue mix the other five don't carry — worth checking her page before assuming sister-ship logic transfers.

When the sun goes down

Evenings run on the un-rationing principle. Since 2017 these six have been Medallion ships, so the drink meets you where the music is rather than the reverse — and OceanNow is arguably at its most useful on a 3,600-guest ship, big enough for real distances but small enough that delivery stays quick.

The theatre maths is gentler here than on Sphere. With roughly 700 fewer guests aboard than the flagships carry, showtime seating pressure eases — though Premier's reserved seats remain the difference between arriving early and arriving whenever.

Where the long port days happen

The class photographs best not from the pier but from the gangway clock: our July 2026 Skagway snapshot logged eight Princess ships in the port that month, and the two Royal-class sisters present — Royal and Discovery — each sat alongside for fourteen hours.

Cruise ships berthed below mountains at Skagway, Alaska — Skagway, July 2026: Royal and Discovery Princess both logged 06:00–20:00 calls — fourteen hours ashore. Photograph to be sourced.

A coin-sized OceanMedallion wearable held in a hand — The disc that debuted on Regal Princess in 2017 and spread from this class to the whole fleet. Photograph to be sourced.

Two frames staged for real photography — Skagway's fourteen-hour berth and the Medallion itself. Until honestly licensed images exist, the slots hold their placeholders; a guide this insistent on verified facts doesn't get to borrow its pictures.

Royal Class, judged plainly

Choose this class when you…

Want the Princess sweet spot — big-ship range at 3,600 guests, without Sphere's 4,300-person maths
Care about the stories: Diana-to-Catherine, the Love Boat godparents, the Medallion's birthplace
Like the Medallion but don't need a ship architected around it from the keel
Are comparing near-identical sisters on itinerary and fare — exactly how this class rewards shopping
Sail Alaska and prize long port days; two of these six logged fourteen-hour Skagway calls in July 2026

Look up or down the fleet when you…

Want the Dome, the glass sphere and Medallion-native architecture — that's Sphere Class money, spent upward
Want the original Panama Canal locks — Coral Class was drawn around them
Prize character and quirk over consistency; Grand Class hulls are older but more individual
Keep the phone in the safe all week — a retrofitted Medallion ship serves you least of all

Asked often

Which ships make up Princess's Royal Class?

Six sisters delivered across nine years: Royal Princess (2013), Regal Princess (2014), Majestic Princess (2017), Sky Princess (2019), Enchanted Princess (2021) and Discovery Princess (2022) — each roughly 142,000–145,000 gross tons and around 3,600 guests at double occupancy.

Who christened Royal Princess, and why does it matter?

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, in 2013 — a deliberate continuation of royal tradition, since Princess Diana had christened the original 1984 Royal Princess. Two generations of the same royal house naming ships of the same name, four decades apart.

What's the Love Boat connection to Regal Princess?

Regal Princess's godparents are the original cast of The Love Boat, including Gavin MacLeod, who christened her in 2014. The same ship then hosted the OceanMedallion's 2017 debut — so the cast who made the on-TV promise of personal attention and the technology built to industrialise it are attached to one hull.

Do all Royal-class ships have the OceanMedallion?

Yes. It debuted aboard Regal Princess in 2017 and rolled out across the class and fleet. The nuance: these ships received it mid-life rather than being designed around it, so it operates as a superb retrofit rather than native architecture — Sphere Class is where it's built in from the start.

How is Majestic Princess different from her sisters?

She was built for the China market — the only Royal-class ship ordered with that brief — and has since served Australia and American West Coast seasons. The original assignment left her with a venue mix that differs from the other five, making her the class's one true outlier.

Which Royal-class ship is best for Alaska?

In our verified July 2026 Skagway snapshot, Royal Princess and Discovery Princess both called there with fourteen-hour port days — among the longest in the harbour that month. Treat that as a snapshot of deployment, not a promise, and check which sisters hold Alaska seasons for your year.

Ask Seabound about Royal Class

Six near-identical options is a lot. Hand it over.

Name the region, the month, who's aboard and whether ship-lore matters a whit to you — and we'll pick among six near-identical sisters so you don't have to, with the receipts to show why.

Which Royal-class ship is best?Royal vs Discovery for AlaskaIs Regal Princess special?Sky or Enchanted — any real difference?Is Plus worth it on these ships?

Answers assembled from our own guides · every fact re-verified with Princess before a deposit moves.

Torn between six sisters who share a silhouette?

Ask Seabound about Royal Class

A queen, a TV cast, and a coin-sized machine

Which Royal Class ship is your ship?

Wear the disc — a Royal-class habit, demonstrated

Six sisters. Let the page shortlist them for you.

The Retrofit Ledger

One class, before and after the disc

Nine years, six hulls: the drumbeat

Years into the build programme at each delivery

Six sisters, told apart

Fifty feet shorter than the flagships, and six ships wide

Royal Princess

Regal Princess

Majestic Princess

Discovery Princess

Sky Princess

Enchanted Princess

Tables, and what follows them

Feeding 3,600

When the sun goes down

Where the long port days happen

Royal Class, judged plainly

Choose this class when you…

Look up or down the fleet when you…

Asked often

Ask Seabound about Royal Class

Six near-identical options is a lot. Hand it over.

The full Royal shelf