If you’ve been eyeing the Sanctuary Collection on Sun Princess or Star Princess but didn’t want to sail a Sphere Class ship to get it, Princess Cruises just gave you more options. The line announced today that it’s rolling the Sanctuary Collection out to five of its Royal Class ships, starting with Royal Princess and then moving to Regal, Discovery, Sky and Enchanted Princess over the next couple of months.
Princess is calling this the first phase of a multi-year fleet modernization effort, so it’s a pretty good bet this isn’t the last we’ll hear about changes to the Royal Class ships.
What Is the Sanctuary Collection?
The Sanctuary Collection is Princess’ take on the ship-within-a-ship concept. It debuted on Sun Princess and Star Princess and bundles select suites and staterooms with access to private spaces, exclusive dining and a stack of included extras. I took a closer look at how it stacks up against similar programs from other lines in Ship-Within-A-Ship: How to Avoid Crowds on Mega Cruise Ships.
What’s Coming to the Royal Class Ships
Here’s what Sanctuary Collection guests can expect:
- Sanctuary Club: A private retreat with lounge areas and social spaces, plus a dedicated Sanctuary pool with upgraded loungers and poolside food and drink service. Shaded cabanas will be available, but they’ll cost extra.
- Sanctuary Restaurant: An exclusive dining room with menus inspired by the destinations Princess visits.
- Princess Premier included: Everyone booked in the Sanctuary Collection gets Princess Premier, which covers premium drinks, specialty and casual dining, high speed WiFi, crew appreciation, room service and OceanNow delivery. If you’ve seen how much Premier pricing has crept up, that’s a good chunk of value baked into the fare.
- Extra perks: Priority access and reservations, in-room amenities, special daily programming and dedicated service throughout the cruise.
- For suite guests: A dedicated suite concierge and access to a private Suite Lounge.
One detail that caught my eye is that the Sanctuary Collection will include newly constructed oceanview staterooms. Princess didn’t say where those cabins are going in the announcement, but the updated Royal Princess deck plans tell the story, and it fits a trend we’ve been watching closely, as lines keep finding ways to add more cabins during refits.
What’s Changing on Royal Princess
Princess has already posted updated deck plans for Royal Princess, so I went through them deck by deck and compared them to the current layout. Here’s what’s actually changing on board. Keep in mind deck plans can still change before the work is done, but this is what Princess is showing right now.
15 New Cabins Squeezed Into the Bow
All of the new staterooms are going in the same place: the very front of the ship, between the two forward suites on decks 8 through 12. On the current plans that space is blank, which usually means crew, storage or mechanical areas.
- Deck 8: Two new interior cabins, E1001 and E1003
- Deck 9: Two new oceanview cabins, D119 and D120, plus two new interiors, D117 and D118
- Deck 10: Two new oceanview cabins, C1003 and C1004, plus two new interiors, C1001 and C1002
- Deck 11: Two new oceanview cabins, B1003 and B1004, plus two new interiors, B1001 and B1002
- Deck 12: One new oceanview cabin, A1003
That’s seven oceanview cabins and eight interiors. Royal Princess doesn’t have an oceanview category today, so these are the newly built oceanview staterooms Princess mentioned. Given where they sit, I’d expect them to look forward over the bow, which could make them some of the more interesting cabins on the ship.
The Sanctuary Becomes the Sanctuary Club
Up on Deck 17, the layout doesn’t change at all, but who gets to use it does. The Sanctuary becomes The Sanctuary Club, the Retreat Pool becomes the Sanctuary Pool and the Retreat Bar becomes the Sanctuary Bar.
This is the change that’ll sting for a lot of regular Princess cruisers. Today, anyone can buy their way into The Sanctuary, and the Retreat Pool is an adults-only pool open to every adult on board. Once the Sanctuary Collection arrives, both look like they’ll be reserved for Sanctuary Collection guests.
Half of Concerto Becomes the Sanctuary Restaurant
The Sanctuary Restaurant isn’t new construction either. On Deck 6, the Concerto Dining Room is being split down the middle, with roughly the port half becoming the Sanctuary Restaurant and Concerto keeping the starboard half.
On a ship that carries around 3,600 passengers, losing that much main dining room seating is going to be felt somewhere, whether that’s longer waits for anytime dining or tighter reservation slots in the remaining dining rooms.
Wedding Chapel Out, Suite Lounge In
On Deck 14, the Wedding Chapel and the Concierge Lounge are both gone. In their place is a single Suite Lounge for Sanctuary Collection guests staying in suites.
A Cabin Category Shuffle
Beyond the new construction, a lot of existing cabins are getting new categories. The MA mini-suites midship on decks 10, 11, 12 and 14 become M1, and the forward cabins on Deck 16, right below the Sanctuary Club, get a big category reshuffle with many switching to mini-suites. Deck 15 also picks up a new S9 suite category. If you’re already booked on Royal Princess, it’s worth checking whether your cabin’s category has changed.
When Can You Book?
Royal Princess is first up, with Sanctuary Collection staterooms on sale starting today. The first sailing is a 12 night South Pacific cruise departing January 4, 2027. The rest of the rollout looks like this:
- Regal Princess: On sale November 5, 2026, starting with the April 17, 2027 Transatlantic cruise from Port Everglades
- Discovery Princess: On sale December 4, 2026, starting with a seven night Mexico cruise roundtrip from Los Angeles on April 24, 2027
- Sky Princess: On sale December 10, 2026, starting with a 14 night Baltic cruise from Southampton on May 29, 2027
- Enchanted Princess: On sale December 17, 2026, starting with a seven night Mediterranean cruise from Civitavecchia on June 12, 2027
That Regal Princess date is worth noting for those of us here in South Florida, since it means the program will debut on the ship as she leaves Fort Lauderdale for Europe.
What About the Reserve Collection?
This is the question I suspect a lot of Princess regulars will have. On Royal Princess, guests who booked before October 22, 2026, and already have a Reserve Collection stateroom will get the Sanctuary Collection experience and its added amenities at no extra charge. The one exception is Princess Premier, which isn’t included for those existing bookings.
Princess hasn’t said anything specific about existing Reserve Collection bookings on the other four ships yet, so if you’ve got one of those reserved, it’s worth checking with Princess or your travel advisor as each ship opens for sale.
I’ve stayed in Princess mini-suites and wrote about whether upgrading from a mini-suite to Reserve Collection is worth it. On my recent Regal Princess Eastern Caribbean cruise, I passed on a Reserve Collection upgrade offer because the perks just didn’t justify the price. With Premier, a private restaurant, a private pool area and a dedicated lounge rolled in, the math could look very different, depending on how Princess prices it.
One Royal Class Ship Missing
If you’re counting, you’ll notice Majestic Princess isn’t on the list. She’s the sixth Royal Class ship, and Princess didn’t mention her in this announcement. Whether she’s getting the Sanctuary Collection later as part of this multi-year plan or something else entirely remains to be seen.
The Royal Class ships have always had The Sanctuary, and anyone willing to pay could enjoy it. I spent time around The Sanctuary on Enchanted Princess, and it’s one of the better quiet spots on those ships. Based on the new Royal Princess deck plans, that’s going away. The Sanctuary and the adults-only Retreat Pool become the Sanctuary Club, and half of a main dining room becomes the Sanctuary Restaurant.
From a business standpoint, I get it. Princess has watched other lines win over premium guests with private enclaves, and bringing a proven Sphere Class concept to older ships is a lot faster than waiting on the new Voyager Class ships. But the trade off is that most of the space for the Sanctuary Collection comes from areas everyone used to share, while only 15 new cabins were added to pay for it. If Royal Princess is the template, Regal, Discovery, Sky and Enchanted Princess will likely see the same changes, and I’ll be comparing those deck plans as each ship opens for sale.
