Royal Princess (Picture: Princess Cruises)
[Editor’s note: This post was originally written in 2013]
The news that the Duchess of Cambridge will christen the cruise ship Royal Princess in Southampton in June makes her the latest in a line of royal ‘godmothers’:
- At the age of 12, the Queen saw her mother – then Queen Elizabeth – launch the first Queen Elizabeth for Cunard in 1938
- Her Majesty was back on the Clyde in 1967 to christen QE2
- She also named P&O Cruises ship Oriana in 1995, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 in 2004 and the new Queen Elizabeth in 2010
- Her daughter Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, launched P&O Cruises’ Aurora in 2000 and Oceana in 2003
- The Queen’s daughter-in-law, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, named Cunard’s Queen Victoria in 2007
- Prince Charles’s former wife, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, named Princess Cruises’ former Royal Princess ship in 1984