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| Name: | Coral Princess |
| Owner: | Carnival plc |
| Operator: | Princess Cruises |
| Port of registry: | Hamilton, Bermuda |
| Route: | Panama Canal, Alaska. |
| Ordered: | 2000 |
| Builder: | STX Europe Chantiers de l'Atlantique |
| Cost: | US$330 million |
| Yard number: | No.C32 |
| Laid down: | 2000 |
| Launched: | 2002 |
| Christened: | January 18, 2003 by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso. |
| Completed: | December 2002 |
| Maiden voyage: | January 3, 2003 |
| In service: | January 3, 2003 |
| Identification: | IMO number: 9229659 |
| Status: | In service |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Sun Class |
| Tonnage: | 91,627 gross tons |
| Length: | 964 ft (294 m) |
| Beam: |
122 feet (including bridge wing) 106 feet (excluding bridge wing) |
| Height: | 204’ |
| Draft: | 27’ |
| Decks: | 16 |
| Installed power: | Two Wärtsilä type 16V 46C and GE Marine type LD 2500 T gasturbine |
| Speed: | 22 knots (25 MPH/38 KPH) |
| Capacity: | 1,970 passengers |
| Crew: | 900 |
| Notes: | She is the longest ship in the Princess fleet. |
The Coral Princess is a cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises line. The vessel, along with sister ship Island Princess, was launched in 2002. The Coral Princess and Island Princess are the only two Panamax ships operated by Princess Cruises. She holds the highest paid toll to pass through the Panama Canal at over $380,500. Coral Princess was christened January 18, 2003 by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso while the ship was in transit on the Panama Canal. Princess President Phil Kleweno said the fact that the president agreed to be godmother is "symbolic of the close ties we feel with the people and government of Panama. The brief, dignified ceremony was held outside on deck under a hot sun, while slight breezes kept the well-dressed guests from melting. Built at Chantiers de l'Atlantique - France. The ship features a combined diesel and gas turbine electric powerplant. This should avoid visible smoke in sensitive areas such as Alaska. By manoeuvring at low speed P&O plans to use the gas turbine as the sole power source.The gasturbines are located on top of the ship near deck 15. The Coral Princess has no pods, but a conventional twin-screw arrangement, with drive thru long shaftlines.The Coral Princess, was specifically built for canal cruising, with a high percentage of balcony staterooms (85% of all outsides) and the maximum space possible inside a ship that can still squeeze through the canal. The 88,000-ton, 1,970-passenger Coral Princess is a bright, airy ship with lots of chrome, marble, lighter woods and colors of pale blue, sand and, of course, coral. She boasts the big-ship choice and small-ship feel that distinguishes the Princess fleet. Coral Princess is a fascinating blend of traditional Princess features and exciting new highlights. There's an Italian trattoria, a wedding chapel with video and web cam facilities, and a swimming pool with a retractable glass dome. Princess "firsts" on this ship include a New Orleans-style restaurant, a cigar bar, a TV studio, and a London-themed casino. Minigolf, the Lotus Spa, a sushi buffet, an Internet cafe, and 24-hour dining completes this spectacular floating resort.
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Angelo Faliva, in November, was a first cook on the Coral Princess cruise ship; his six-month contract was to end on February 20. The 31-year-old Italian had held positions with the ship's owner, American company Princess Cruise Lines, since 2006, and had sailed in the Caribbean before. He had passed all of the drug tests required of employees, and was not taking any medications. His sister, Chiara Faliva, 23, indicated that he “was very happy” with his job and that he sent her e-mails nearly every day. But on November 24, in the last e-mail she got from him, Angelo said that he had had a dispute with his boss on the ship three days before. That person, a sous chef, filed a formal complaint in the matter, but ship's Captain Mariano Manfuso told Chiara later that the argument was over something trivial, and that the complaint had been canceled.
It is believed that Angelo vanished from the ship on the evening of November 25. That day, he began work at about 4:30 p.m. in the kitchen of Sabatinis, a restaurant on the ship's “promenade” seventh deck. This deck, with several restaurants, is usually highly trafficked with passengers strolling and eating, and security video cameras monitor the area. Around 8:15 p.m., Angelo returned to the kitchen from the dining room, where he had been speaking with two passengers. He was seen entering a lift that went to lower decks, areas open only to employees. There is no security filming of workplaces (except for ship casinos) or non-public areas on board, and shipboard security cameras do not monitor restaurant dining rooms.
Although he said nothing to the staff on duty, this lift is used by workers who are going to dump trash into the ocean. Alessandro Pezzi, another cook who had worked with Angelo on a previous voyage and who shared his crew quarters, told Chiara that employees using these trash-dumping bins must enter certain codes; otherwise an alarm goes off. (No information is available about the size of these bins.) (Cruise ship personnel later told Chiara that the list of diners in Sabatinis that night had been deleted from records, an odd way to treat potential evidence. The cruise line, so far, has not cooperated with the family's attempts to contact passengers and seek information. In fact, although Chiara flew from Italy to Los Angeles in quest of information, and met with cruise line officials on December 7, Manfuso met with her for only 30 minutes.)
The last confirmed sighting of Angelo was when he entered the lift. However, another employee reported seeing Angelo on deck seven at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. At that time, the Coral Princess was about two miles offshore from Cartagena, Colombia. Since it was operating under the Bermuda flag, Bermuda police were the investigating authorities ... although they did not bother to show up until ten days after Angelo was reported missing. (The FBI subsequently joined the investigation.) And when they did appear, they talked only with one worker at Sabatinis – Pezzi. They told Chiara they believed the employee who said he saw Angelo on deck. But Pezzi told her that Angelo did not return to his cabin on the night of November 25. If he had been on deck seven the next morning, she wonders, how could security videocameras have failed to take note? Or was he filmed, and did the cruise line, for whatever reason, tamper with the recordings before handing them over? Moreover, if this sighting were genuine, how could someone jump or be thrown from an upper deck of a cruise ship at 6:30 a.m., when the sun was up and people were out in public, and not be seen? Why would someone swim two miles to Cartagena when the ship was docking there at 9 a.m. that same day? Why would Angelo walk away from a job he enjoyed?
Bermuda police also told Chiara that a life preserver was missing from deck seven, and that night illumination flares had been ripped off of it and were left on the deck. There is no evidence, however, connecting this to Angelo's disappearance. Nobody taking to the water voluntarily would jettison this gear, and nobody attempting suicide – an idea the family rejects out of hand – would use a life preserver. According to the cruise line there is no evidence on film of who tampered with this life preserver, seemingly leaving in question how effective the security surveillance is. There is no way to rule out that someone may have used this to mislead investigators, if it is connected to the case at all.
Other possible explanations seem even less likely. Could Angelo have been decoyed to a storage area, subdued, put in a crate and taken onshore while cargo and luggage was moved? This is a legitimate hypothesis in the case of Amy Bradley, as there have been several credible reports of her being seen on shore, in a situation of duress, after her disappearance, but no similar sightings have been reported of Angelo. No plausible explanation why someone would want to do this has been advanced. It has been widely reported that drug rings operate on cruise ships; the possibility that Angelo stumbled upon something by accident is plausible. It is worth noting that Julie Benson, a spokesperson for Princess Cruise Lines, said that the crew searched the ship thoroughly. One would like to speak with whatever crew members carried out this search to see if this statement is true. We know that in the case of Amy Bradley, the captain and the head of security assured the family that a thorough search of the entire ship was carried out ... but when the FBI boarded the vessel,, this statement was found to be untrue. The FBI then insisted on a complete search ... after 48 critical hours had passed.
Whatever happened is part of the mystery; what the cruise line and Bermuda authorities have done, have done tardily, and have not done at all is another. Why is it, for example, that (according to an Italian newspaper) the Bermuda police, in an e-mail to Angelo's family two months after his disappearance, said they have not yet examined the data on his laptop computer, camera, or three cell phones because they are “very busy” with other matters? (They did, however, find time to warn Chiara that her family are “on the verge” of harassing (!) the Bermuda police, presumably because of their interest in the fate of their family member.)
It is not known yet whether Bermuda police have checked all, or any, of the surveillance cameras on the ship (one source puts their number at six thousand). Perhaps, since the cruise line told the family that the cameras “didn't show anything,” the police can't be bothered. After all, who are Bermuda police to contradict what a cruise line says? Who are the real law-enforcement authorities? A report says that Angelo's disappearance became known 12 hours after he descended in the lift. Apparently, though, no attempt was made by the ship to backtrack and check the ocean. As the ship's vice captain said: “We obviously cannot stop the cruise.” To whom is that obvious, especially given maritime traditions? Yet another question: Pezzi told Chiara that on November 26, cruise line authorities cut the padlock to Angelo's desk in his cabin, photographing and noting down the contents. These included his wallet, credit cards, driver's license, a digital camera and mobile phones. All of these items are now in the custody of Bermuda police. But the family also received money and a gold necklace that, Chiara said, Angelo always wore. Pezzi said that neither money nor the necklace were in that drawer. How, then, did the cruise line obtain them? A statement from a public relations person for the cruise line seems to leave everything up in the air. It reads: “This is highly unusual and clearly we are concerned for his safety. It may very well be that he went overboard, but we don't know that for a fact.” So, apparently, Angelo may be on board or may not, despite the thorough search that the crew was said to have carried out. This rather indefinite statement is no more accurate than is the “highly unusual” reference.
The Coral and Island Princess were originally intended to have an extra deck - like the Super Grand's Riviera deck - but the ship builder "forgot" them and that's why they'll never build anymore like them - too expensive on a space/crew versus passenger ratio. Also there were many delays and problems with the construction. The budget of the ship went over the original plan and there were many issues with the rudder. As one captain put it, they get all their ships from Fincantieri now. He said it's a case of choosing between the devil you know, and the devil you don't. In a way, that's sad, because Island and Coral consistently get great reviews, and the build quality of Diamond and Sapphire is very high. That is why Princess Cruises will most likely never build a ship at the French ship yard again.
The Coral Princess's main itinerary consist of 7 day Alaskan cruises from Vancouver, Canada to Whittier, Alaska during Summer months. During fall, winter, and spring the Coral Princess and her sister ship Island Princess run 14-15 day Panama Canal cruises with stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, San Juan del Sur, Puntarenas, Costa Rica, Cartagena, Columbia, and Oranjestad, Aruba.
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