Godfather is big hit for NCL

Norwegian Cruise Line is celebrating its most successful ever launch of a new cruise ship, which president and CEO Andy Stuart said might be due to its canny choice of godfather.

New York DJ Elvis Duran, who will christen the 4,000-passenger Norwegian Bliss in Seattle on May 30, has been bigging up the ship on his morning radio show in the US, which has had a direct impact on bookings, said Stuart.

Speaking as the Breakaway Plus-class ship set sail on its inaugural voyage, he said: "At launch, this ship is booked at record loads and at record prices." There is very little capacity left for its first summer season in Alaska, and bookings for its winter Caribbean cruises are ‘doing very well’, said NCL UK, Ireland and MEA managing director Nick Wilkinson.

Stuart said interest in the Norwegian Bliss had been very strong, with 1.4 million impressions on social media worldwide in the year up to this week’s launch.

Around 2,000 travel agents, including about 500 from the UK, experienced the Norwegian Bliss during its inaugural sailing from Bremerhaven to Southampton last week. For the first time, NCL is also staging launch parties in New York, Miami and Los Angeles before the ship’s official christening in Seattle.

From there, she will sail to Alaska throughout the summer, before moving to Los Angeles in the autumn for cruises to the Mexican Riviera and on to Miami for a winter season sailing round the Caribbean. In the autumn and winter of 2019, she will cruise from New York to Florida, the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

Built with Alaska in mind, one of her new features includes a vast, 180-degree observation lounge, which Stuart claimed was the biggest at sea, plus a separate, smaller observation lounge in its exclusive Haven section.

New speciality restaurants include Los Lobos, a Mexican diner, and the Q Texas Smokehouse. For the first time, NCL has a branch of Starbucks onboard and a coffee and chocolate shop, Coco’s. Evening entertainment includes the Broadway hit, Jersey Boys, and a new ‘Havana’ musical.

Norwegian Bliss features a larger top deck go-kart race track than the one on Norwegian Joy – and, apparently, the largest of any cruise ship. Other improvements include turning the main casino into a no smoking area (although there is a separate, smaller casino for smokers).

Like all other NCL ships, Bliss offers a premium all-inclusive product, which was introduced 12 months ago. Wilkinson said this had led to a double-digit growth in the number of UK travel agents selling its cruises.

"We have a long way to go in educating agents and consumers about premium all-inclusive and demonstrating the money spent is at the front end, but agents say they have more confidence in selling NCL now," said Wilkinson.

Norwegian Bliss will be followed by another Breakaway-class ship, Norwegian Encore, next year, after which NCL will launch a new class of ship, the Leonardo, which – with a capacity of 3,000 – is smaller and offers a more intimate experience.

NCL was recently named as the worst cruiseline by consumers’ association Which?, with the publication advising its members who wanted a big ship experience to switch to rival Royal Caribbean. Which? said NCL had been particularly poorly rated for the amount of space per passenger. While declining to comment specifically on the Which? report, Wilkinson said the new Leonardo class of ship would be more spacious.

The cruise line has four Leonardo class ships on order, to be delivered between 2022 and 2025, plus it has options on two further ships, which could be delivered in 2026 and 2027.