Princess Cruises, which is part of the Carnival Corp & plc group, will base the 3,080-passenger Crown Princess in Southampton in the summer of 2013 to replace the 2,610-passenger Grand Princess which is switching to run cruises to Alaska from San Francisco, Travel weekly reports in a newsletter.

As part of the deployment, Crown Princess will be offer more departures of its 12-day British Isles cruises and will sail to the Norwegian fjords.

“We are so pleased with the success of Princess in the UK that we are increasing our capacity on cruises from Southampton with the introduction of Crown Princess,” Paul Ludlow, UK director of Princess was quoted as saying.

“Following feedback from our partners we are also supporting UK travel agents with some simplifications of our policies to ensure Princess is even easier to book, further enhancing the opportunities that are available through the brand.”

The news comes a few weeks after Royal Caribbean International said it would bring the 3,114 berth Adventurer of the Seas to Southampton next year to sail together with the current resident ship, the 3,600 berth Independence of the Seas.