Norwegian Cruise Line names new ship Prima, sending it to Port Canaveral

Norwegian Cruise Line is feeling a little Italian. The line is naming the first of six planned ships in a new class Norwegian Prima, and it’s going to send it to Port Canaveral.

Currently under construction at the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy, the first of what the line has been calling Project Leonardo, and now the Prima class of ships, will debut in 2022, the first new class of ships for the line in 10 years.

Some details about the ships were revealed in 2017, notably their size being dialed back from the 165,300-ton Breakaway Plus class ships like Norwegian Escape. Norwegian Prima and its sister ships will be 140,000-ton, 3,300-passenger vessels.

“Not all destinations in the world can handle 4,000-, 5,000-passenger ships effectively.” Del Rio said in 2017. “So we believe these vessels are the perfect size to deliver the top return on investment for our shareholders while providing the flexibility we need as a company to deploy these vessels throughout the world.”

Today, Norwegian announced Prima’s first year of destinations, including a debut in summer 2022 to sail in Northern Europe and the United Kingdom followed by short sailings from New York, Galveston, Miami and finally homeporting from Port Canaveral beginning Dec. 11, 2022.

“In terms of homeporting, we love Miami and we continue to base some of our newest ships in Miami depending on the year, Encore, Bliss, Joy will come here depending on the year, but we’d like to show some love to Port Canaveral,” said NCL President and CEO Harry Sommer. “It’s been a while since we got a new ship out there. We think it’s a market that we can expand - very popular destination from all of the U.S.”

The ship will become one of two based at the port that hopes to pull from the popularity of Orlando along with Norwegian Encore in fall 2022. Prima will sail 15 roundtrip Western Caribbean voyages on five-, seven- and nine-night itineraries through March 19, 2023 hitting ports including Cozumel, Mexico; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and NCL’s private island, Great Stirrup Cay, in the Bahamas.

The line has been sharing space at Cruise Terminal 10 with Disney Cruise Line, and was before the pandemic planning to sail from the port over the summer months with one of its older vessels. A year-round presence in a post-pandemic sailing world, though, is not in the cards currently for the cruise line, Sommer said.

“I think in the near term we continue to view Port Canaveral as a winter destination, and not a summer destination,” he said. “I think we will get to a point in time where we consider having it year-round, but I don’t see that happening in the next couple of years.”

Putting a new ship at Port Canaveral, though, is not the normal move for the line, which had no ships there from 2013-2015. Since then, the line has sent ships that were at least six years old including Norwegian Epic and Breakaway. This fall, the port is set to welcome the first of what the line calls its Breakaway-Plus class of ships, Norwegian Escape, but once again, six years after its debut.

With Prima, though, Port Canaveral will be among those ports getting a first taste, which is also part of the line’s strategy to cast as wide a net as possible to show off its new ship design.

“We think this itinerary where we spend a little bit of time in different areas will really allow us to expose the ship to many, many different markets,” Sommer said. “Remember we have six of them coming, so we want as many guests to see them as possible.”

When it debuts, the line will have grown to 23 ships in the fleet.

Before Port Canaveral, the ship will debut with inaugural cruises and an Aug. 17-Sept. 13 series of 10-night voyages from Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Copenhagen, Denmark, to visit Northern Europe, Norwegian Fjords and the Baltic regions.

All of its inaugural year sailings will go on sale at ncl.com starting Wednesday, May 12, when the line plans on announcing more details about spaces on the ship.

On Sept. 23, the ship will sail a 12-night transatlantic voyage from Southampton, England visiting Lerwick, Scotland; Reykjavik, Iceland; Halifax, Nova Scotia,; and arriving in New York.

On Oct. 10, the ship will sail to Bermuda, the leave New York on Oct. 15 on a 12-night Caribbean voyage to end up in Galveston.

From Galveston, Prima will sail on Oct. 31 to Miami where it will then sail from Nov. 19-Dec. 3 on a three- and seven-night voyages.

Then it will spend four months in Port Canaveral before migrating back to New York for a mini-season of sailings to Bermuda and Norfolk, Virginia through May 7, 2023.

After that, the ship heads back to Europe, offering from May 25-Sept. 7 a mix of 10- and 11-night Norway and Iceland sailings from Reykjavik, Iceland, and Southampton, England.

Those voyages will include in-port times between nine and 14 hours to allow for more exploration on shore. Destinations include the Heritage Fjords as well as Geiranger and Olden, Norway.

“There are not that many ships that can actually go to Norway, they have very, very strict emission controls,” Sommer said. “We’re very proud of what we’re doing with Prima, that is a very low-emission vehicle, certainly for a ship its size.”

Finally, the ship will sail Sept. 17 from Southampton on a 14-night roundtrip voyage with stops to Dublin, Ireland; Isafjordur and Akureyri, Iceland, with an overnight in Reykjavik; and visits to Geiranger, Olden, and Stavanger, Norway.

“We’re not hiding. We are really proud. We’re going to show her off as much as possible,” Sommer said.