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An Empress bailed out a Princess Wednesday night when a British cruise ship made an unscheduled stop at Ogden Point after power failure at sea.
The Sun Princess (formerly the Spirit of London) was on the final lap of her last Alaska cruise of the season when generator problems delayed her for nine hours Tuesday night in the Queen Charlotte Strait just off the northeast tip of Vancouver Island.
When power was restored early Wednesday the 17,000-ton P and O cruise vessel decided to bypass Vancouver, sailing down the west side of the Island and arriving in Victoria Wednesday night.
Originally scheduled to dock in Vancouver Wednesday morning and sail at 5 p.m. for Los Angeles, the Sun Princess sailed early today direct for California and a Mexican cruise thereafter.
This meant that some 300 passengers expecting to board at Vancouver for their Los Angeles cruise were re-routed to Victoria by ferry where, after tea, dinner or drinks at The Empress, they boarded the ship at 9 p.m. at Ogden Point.
In the meantime disembarking passengers from the eight-day Alaska cruise were greeted at the Victoria dock by some 20 buses waiting to take them to The Empress, to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal, or to Pat Bay airport -- depending on their plans.
Empress sales director Larry Cooper said about 20 extra staff were called in to cope with the influx of people waiting to board the liner. Some 200 disembarking passengers stayed at The Empress Wednesday night.
