Princess Sphere Class: Sun Princess & Star Princess

Why build huge, when your promise is personal?

Our Built to Solve piece on Princess argues the company has spent fifty years paying off a debt it took on during The Love Boat: the televised promise that on this ship, someone notices you specifically. Attention doesn't scale — which makes a 4,300-guest flagship look, at first glance, like the promise being abandoned.

Sphere Class is the opposite bet. These are the first Princess ships designed around the Medallion rather than retrofitted with it — the whole vessel assumes the software knows where you are, so a crowd of thousands can be served as individuals: the drink finds your deck chair, the door opens as you reach it, the family shows up on a map. The scale pays for the Dome, the suspended glass sphere in the Piazza, and LNG engines; the software is what's supposed to keep the scale from swallowing you.

Whether that trade actually works is the honest question this guide keeps asking. A glazed dome holding 250 people on a ship carrying 4,300 is a beautiful room with maths attached — and the same maths runs through dining reservations, the theatre, and every popular venue. Princess's answer is reservations, spread-out spaces, and the Medallion smoothing queues you'd otherwise stand in. It mostly succeeds. It does not make the crowd imaginary.

The through-line

The older classes prove Princess can pay attention. Sphere Class is the experiment in whether it can pay attention at industrial volume — the Love Boat promise, load-tested.

Which Sphere Class ship is your ship?

Two flagships, eighteen months apart, more alike than any other pair in the fleet. Three questions to split them — and if you tapped the medallion above, it has already marked its suggestion.

Question 1 of 3

Which season are you actually booking?

Question 2 of 3

First ship of a class, or second?

Question 3 of 3

Does a christening story sway you at all?

Open her guide →

Tap in — this guide runs MedallionClass

Rather than describe MedallionClass, this page runs a small version of it. Tap the medallion, answer two questions, and the guide starts behaving the way the ship does — it notices, and what you need finds you.

MedallionClass, demonstrated

This page will notice you, if you let it

Aboard, the Medallion unlocks your door as you approach, sends drinks to wherever you've wandered, and keeps your family findable. Here, it personalises the guide. Nothing is stored; forget it ever happened by reloading the page.

Tap the medallion to begin — or ignore it, and the page stays exactly as written.

Who's sailing?

What decides it?

In-memory only · nothing saved · no account, no tracking — the point is the gesture, not the data.

Delivered to you · like a drink to a deck chair

Read her guide →

The Attention Ledger

The Medallion earns a lot of breathless coverage. Here is the sober version: what it genuinely removes from a cruise day, what it asks of you in return, and what the Plus and Premier bundles un-ration — at their real prices.

The Attention Ledger

What the software gives, what it asks, what the bundles buy

Tab one tallies the frictions MedallionClass actually eliminates against how the same moment goes on a traditional ship — including the two rows most coverage leaves out. Tab two prices the un-rationing.

The momentTraditional shipMedallionClass

Reaching your cabinarms full, key somewhere

Find card, swipe, retry

Door unlocks as you approach

Wanting a drink on deckthe sun-lounger dilemma

Abandon the chair, queue at the bar

Order in the app; a crew member finds you, by name

Locating your peopleteenagers, especially

Sweep the ship deck by deck

Shipmates map shows you where they are

Boarding daythe first impression

Documents, desks, queues

Medallion shipped ahead; walk-on lanes

Paying for anythinga hundred small moments

Card out, sign, wait

The disc on your wrist is the wallet

What it asks of youthe row the ads skip

Nothing

An app, a charged phone, and sharing your location with the ship

When it hiccupshonesty clause

A human fixes it at the desk

Software has bad days; the desk still exists for a reason

Every row describes the systems as designed; execution varies by sailing and, like all software, the Medallion has better and worse weeks. The location row is a genuine trade — most guests shrug at it, some reasonably do not, and the system is at its weakest for anyone who keeps their phone in the safe.

What's bundledPrincess Plus · $60/dayPrincess Premier · $90/day

Drinksper-glass ceiling

To $15, capped at 15 alcoholic/day

To $20, the premium shelf

Wi-FiMedallionNet

One device

Four devices

Crew appreciation$17–19/day otherwise

Included

Included

Specialty diningthe big divider

Not included (2 casual meals)

Unlimited

OceanNow & room servicedelivery fees

Waived

Waived

Theatre seatingthe scarce commodity on a 4,300-guest ship

General entry

Reserved seats

Photos, desserts, fitnessthe sweeteners

2 desserts/day, 2 classes

Unlimited, plus a photo package

Prices are Princess's published 2026 per-person, per-day rates and change without much ceremony — treat them as the current shape, not scripture. The honest catch our own article names: the bundles include so much that guests spend sea days working through the checklist. That's not a scam; it's the texture of genuine value. But budget your energy like you budget your fare.

The growth curve the promise has to survive

One chart

Guests per ship, class by class

Princess has more than doubled the crowd since the Coral era. Each step up made the attention problem harder — and each step was answered with more system: reservations, packages, and finally a ship designed around the Medallion from the keel up.

Coral Class (2002–03)

~2,000

Grand Class (1998–2008)

~2,840

Royal Class (2013–22)

~3,600

Sphere Class (2024–25)

~4,300

Double-occupancy figures as published in our Princess fleet guide; Grand Class shown at the midpoint of its 2,600–3,140 range. The line worth pondering: the crowd grew 115 per cent in two decades, and the crew's memory didn't. The Medallion is what Princess built to fill that gap.

Sun and Star

Eighteen months and a few refinements apart. The full guides carry cabins, dining and the honest take on each.

Drawn to scale

1,133 feet of ship, and the attention problem that comes with it

Every Princess class at its real overall length on one shared scale. Sphere Class is the longest hull the line has ever put to sea — and the further that bow gets from the stern, the harder the promise of being noticed becomes to keep.

Sphere ClassSun · Star1,133 ft

Royal Classsix ships1,083 ft

Coral ClassCoral · Island964 ft

Grand Classseven ships951 ft

Overall lengths as published. Note the pair below the flagships: Coral Class is longer than Grand Class despite carrying far less tonnage, because Panamax rules constrained the width of a ship, never its length.

◆ Delivered Feb 2024 · The class original

Sun Princess

The first glazed dome ever sent to sea.

177,882 GT~4,300 guests2024Godmother: Hannah Waddingham

Built at Fincantieri's Monfalcone yard and delivered on Valentine's Day 2024 — a date Princess surely enjoyed — Sun Princess introduced the Dome, the suspended glass sphere above the Piazza, dual-fuel LNG power and 2,157 staterooms. She is the ship that defined what a Medallion-native vessel looks like.

Best for

Travellers who want the class original, the Mediterranean lean, and the full Sphere spectacle first-hand.

Skip if

You'd rather let a first-of-class work out its kinks on someone else — that's her younger sister.

Read the full Sun Princess guide →

◆ Delivered Sep 2025 · The refined sister

Star Princess

Same bones, second draft.

177,800 GT~4,300 guests2025Godmother: Camila & Matthew McConaughey

Delivered eighteen months after her sister and christened at Port Everglades by the McConaugheys — Princess's first godparent couple — Star Princess is the second draft of every Sphere idea, with a Caribbean-forward opening deployment and the title of youngest ship in the fleet.

Best for

Travellers who want the newest hull Princess sails, with the class's first-year lessons already absorbed.

Skip if

The original-ship romance matters to you, or your season points at the Mediterranean's Sun-heavy schedule.

Read the full Star Princess guide →

Eating and evenings aboard

Scale bought range: more venues than any Princess ship before, run through reservations and delivered — literally — by software.

The tables

The spread is the widest in the fleet — main dining across multiple rooms, the signature International Café in the Piazza, specialty tables, and casual venues that Plus's two included meals were practically designed for.

OceanNow changes the geometry. On a ship this large the nearest venue can be genuinely far away; ordering to wherever you are — deck chair, Dome, cabin — is the difference between the size working for you and against you.

After dark

The Dome turns from pool to stage as the day ends, and the three-deck Piazza under its glass sphere is the ship's living room — Princess kept its tradition of the ship's centre being a social space rather than a shopping mall.

Reserve, or arrive early. The honest note for a 4,300-guest ship: the theatre does not scale with the manifest, which is precisely why Premier's reserved seating exists — and why it's this class where that perk earns its keep.

Light, glass and the Dome

Glass is the class signature — a dome instead of a waterslide, a suspended sphere instead of a climbing wall. The architecture says what the brochures say, in a material.

Sunlight through curved glass over an indoor-outdoor pool space — The Dome — the first fully glazed dome built on a cruise ship, holding about 250 of the ship's 4,300 guests at a time. Beautiful, and arithmetic.

One staged frame, waiting for real photography of the Dome or the Piazza sphere — drop princess-sphere-dome.jpg into the site's image folder and it renders untouched. Until then the panel stays a quiet placeholder; borrowed or wrongly licensed glass would be a poor look on a page this fond of honesty.

The honest verdict on Sphere Class

Book a Sphere ship if you…

Want the newest, largest, most technically ambitious ships Princess has ever run
Are genuinely excited by the Medallion rather than tolerating it
Like big-ship range — venues, spaces and crowds to disappear into
Sail with a family or group that the Shipmates locator was invented for
Want LNG-era hardware and don't mind paying flagship fares for it

Step down a class if you…

Chose Princess specifically to avoid 4,000-person ships — Royal or Grand Class keeps the promise smaller
Keep your phone in the safe on holiday; the Medallion assumes otherwise
Want the Panama Canal's original locks — that is Coral Class's whole reason for existing
Prefer a fare over a flagship premium

Quick answers

What is Princess Sphere Class?

The newest and largest Princess class: Sun Princess (2024) and Star Princess (2025), each around 177,800–177,882 gross tons carrying roughly 4,300 guests at double occupancy — LNG-powered, built at Fincantieri's Monfalcone yard, and the first Princess ships designed around MedallionClass from the start.

What is the Dome on Sun Princess and Star Princess?

A South-of-France-inspired top-deck space under the first fully glazed dome ever built on a cruise ship, with an indoor-outdoor pool by day and performance space by night. It holds roughly 250 guests, so on a 4,300-guest ship it rewards arriving early.

Who christened the Sphere-class ships?

Hannah Waddingham christened Sun Princess in Barcelona in April 2024. Star Princess was christened at Port Everglades in November 2025 by Camila and Matthew McConaughey — the line's first godparent couple.

Sun Princess or Star Princess — how do I choose?

They're near-identical sisters, so choose by season and temperament: Sun has leaned Mediterranean and carries the original-ship aura; Star opened Caribbean-forward, is eighteen months younger, and benefits from the class's first-year refinements. The ship-matcher above will split them for your specific trip.

Is a 4,300-guest ship too big for Princess's style?

It's the fair question, and the class's whole design is the answer: reservations, spread-out venues and the Medallion exist to make the crowd feel individually served. It mostly works — drinks find you, doors open, family stays locatable — but the theatre and the Dome don't grow with the manifest, and travellers who chose Princess to avoid mega-ship crowds should look at Royal or Grand Class first.

Ask Seabound about Sphere Class

Which flagship are you circling?

Tell us who's sailing, the season, and how you honestly feel about crowds and phone-based everything — and we'll say plainly whether a Sphere flagship or a smaller Princess class serves your trip better.

Sun or Star Princess?Is the Dome worth the hype?Is Premier worth it on a Sphere ship?Are these ships too big?Best Sphere-class cabins

Instant answers drawn from these guides · every detail re-checked with Princess before anything is booked.

Weighing a Sphere flagship against a smaller Princess ship?

Ask Seabound about Sphere Class

Why build huge, when your promise is personal?

Which Sphere Class ship is your ship?

Tap in — this guide runs MedallionClass

This page will notice you, if you let it

The Attention Ledger

What the software gives, what it asks, what the bundles buy

The growth curve the promise has to survive

Guests per ship, class by class

Sun and Star

1,133 feet of ship, and the attention problem that comes with it

Sun Princess

Star Princess

Eating and evenings aboard

The tables

After dark

Light, glass and the Dome

The honest verdict on Sphere Class

Book a Sphere ship if you…

Step down a class if you…

Quick answers

Ask Seabound about Sphere Class

Which flagship are you circling?

Keep going