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Love Boat visits Saipan for the second time
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Posted on Aug 01 2004
Love was in the seas as luxury ship Pacific Princess—popularly known as the “Love Boat”—docked on Saipan yesterday, bringing in close to a thousand crew members and passengers of diverse nationalities who had a quick tour of the island.
Towering over 50 feet high, the 601-foot long ship stopped by Saipan for the second time as part of its Pacific Theater Tour of mostly retirees, including World War II veterans. The ship became famous when it became the flag-carrier of the popular television show “The Love Boat.”
“She’s back again,” said Marciano Gordon, public relations officer of Pacific Development, Inc., the land agent of the tour. Saipan Shipping Company was the tour’s shipping agent.
Gordon said the 300-crew ship carried 690 passengers, who had the chance to have a quick tour of Saipan and Tinian for one whole day. Love Boat’s passengers include Americans, Japanese, Canadians, Europeans, among others, Gordon said.
The ship arrived at the Charlie Dock early yesterday morning after cruising Japan and other parts of Asia. Gordon said the ship first visited Saipan last June, bringing in World War II veterans from the U.S. mainland.
The passengers included veterans, who visited the American Memorial Park in the morning. Gordon said PDI toured some 360 passengers around the island, while some of them went strolling and sightseeing on their own on Saipan and on Tinian.
“Absolutely remarkable,” Gordon quoted some passengers as saying after the tour, especially with Tinian’s sunny day yesterday. The Love Boat cruise added to the tourist count of the CNMI’s recovering tourism industry.
Pacific Princess left Saipan early last night, heading to Guam, before cruising other parts of the world such as Papua New Guinea, Kwajelin, Majuro, Hawaii, Tahiti, Peru, before turning back to Florida.
