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Norwegian Gem to debut in New York
March 16, 2006

Norwegian Gem will make its debut in New York in October 2007 when the new 93,000gt ship replaces Norwegian Dawn, which will redeploy to Miami for the winter.

‘We want to put a new ship in New York to freshen the fleet. The only negative comment we get on Dawn is that people have been on so many times,’ said NCL Corp. president and ceo Colin Veitch, in making the announcement at the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention in Miami.

Norwegian Gem is the sister to Norwegian Pearl, which will be delivered in November this year by Meyer Werft.

In other 2007 deployment news, NCL will operate Norwegian Pearl from Seattle for the Alaska season, following the ship’s inaugural season of Caribbean sailings from Miami this winter. The Pearl will join Norwegian Star in Seattle, while Norwegian Sun will operate Alaska cruises from Vancouver.

Norwegian Dream will return to the Baltic, while Norwegian Jewel will sail the Mediterranean with a second season of seven- and 12-day cruises. ‘We’ve been particularly successful this year with the 12-day cruises so we’re doing more of those next year,’ Veitch said.

NCL will offer its biggest Bermuda program in 2007, with four ships. Norwegian Dawn and Norwegian Spirit will add one-day calls in Bermuda to their Caribbean and Bahamas itineraries, while Norwegian Majesty from Boston and Norwegian Crown from New York will reprise their weekly sailings with three days each in Bermuda. Some cruises will also operate from Philadelphia and Charleston.

2007 additionally sees the first full year of NCL’s four-ship Hawaii program, with Pride of Hawaii, Pride of America and Pride of Aloha sailing in the islands and Norwegian Wind offering longer Hawaii-Fanning Island cruises.

Seatrade Insider

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Originally posted by Waynaro:
It seems like NCL is more committed to New York more than the UK . I wonder if NORWEGIAN DAWN will return to New York, or stay in Miami year-round....When is NCL going to move older tonnages to Star???

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Wayne,

NCL won't be moving any more tonnage to Star until the demand in the Asian markets prove that the demand is there.

As we've seen, the move of the Lbra to summer cruises in the Med has shown that the Pan-Asian market is still a lackluster performer.

While many have automatically construed that the NCL restructuring which saw the titles of the lder ships moved to Star, it was more of a financial restructuring than anything else.

NCL Corp. is FAR outperforming Star in return on capital and demand. As long as the U.S. markets remain healthy and NCL can keep the tonnage in North American and U.K. markets, the tonnage NCL isn't going to release Wind, Dream or Majesty to Star.

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Originally posted by Beezo:
I personally think that the Norwegian Spirit will come to Boston in the future doing cruises to Bermuda...is the Star too big to go there?

~Brian

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The SPIRIT would seem to be an ideal ship for the Boston-Bermuda market, even though she's nearly as large as the STAR and later sisters. Any of these ships would be too large to get into St.George's, and maybe Hamilton, too. They would no doubt have to berth out at King's Wharf, at the Dockyards.

The Bermudian government closely monitors and restricts the numbers of cruise passengers allowed in. They could possibly say "no" to the big, newer NCL ships on a weekly basis.

Also, these ships could be difficult for NCL to fill without drastically reducing rates, which the cruise lines are loath to do, because of lower profits on this run. Also, Bermuda wouldn't want to see bargain-priced cruises coming in, bringing in a different type of clientele than they prefer. Bermuda is still very much a restricted resort area.