Facts about Diamond Princess: Diamond Princess is a British-registered cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises. She began operation in March 2004 and primarily cruises in Asia during the northern hemisphere summer and Australia during the southern hemisphere summer. She is a subclassed Grand-class ship, which is also known as a Gem-class ship. Diamond Princess and her sister ship, Sapphire Princess, are the widest subclass of Grand-class ships, as they have a 37.5-metre (123 ft 0 in) beam, while all other Grand-class ships have a beam of 36 metres (118 ft 1 in). Diamond Princess and Sapphire Princess were both built in Nagasaki, Japan, by Mitsubishi Industries. There have been two notable outbreaks of infectious disease on the ship – an outbreak of gastroenteritis caused by norovirus in 2016 and an outbreak of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 in 2020. In the latter incident, the ship was quarantined for nearly a month with her passengers on board, and her passengers and crew were subject to further quarantine after disembarking. At least 712 out of the 3,711 passengers and crew were infected, and by mid-April 2020 nine had died. ()