Tom Stieghorst
Discovery Channel's Shark Week has been around almost as long as sharks themselves, or so it seems.
The first Shark Week debuted in July 1988, making it the longest-running cable TV programming event ever. Shark Week is a year older than the Simpsons, which arrived on America's TV screens in 1989.
For the past few summers, Princess Cruises has been leveraging the audience of Shark Week through its Discovery partnership, which brings nature-related TV programming and events aboard its ships.
This year, for the first time, Princess will be celebrating Shark Week in the Caribbean. Because it hasn't had a year-round ship in the Caribbean for four years, Princess was left observing Shark Week in places like Alaska and the Mediterranean, which are not the first places people think of to look for sharks.
Now it's in the Caribbean, where sharks are a part of the landscape as much as pirates, calypso and swaying palms.
While Princess is holding July Shark Week festivities for two weeks on its other ships, aboard the Caribbean Princess it will be a summer-long affair. Kids will get their faces painted with shark stuff, sporting shark tattoos, making foam molds of shark teeth, coloring shark posters and posing for pictures against a green backdrop, where an enormous Great White will menace them in photos them via projection technology.
Adults get a few fun things out of Shark Week, too, such as shark-themed cocktails. And there's an early look this month at the 2018 Shark Week programming, which won't break on Discovery Channel until July 22.
For the first time, Princess has slapped a giant decal on the side of the Caribbean Princess promoting Shark Week. It also has some new promotional partners, such as Vineyard Vines, the apparel chain with clothing inspired by Martha's Vineyard.
The decal will remain on the Caribbean Princess through the end of the season in September.
Like Shark Week, Princess has been sailing from Fort Lauderdale for a long time - more than 30 years. But rarely in the summer.
In an area that includes some competitive sharks of a different kind - Royal Caribbean International, Carnival Cruise Line, MSC Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line - it's important both for loyal travel agents and Captain's Circle members to be able to have a Caribbean option year-round on Princess.