Norwegian Cruise Line gave a first look at what it plans for its Project Leonardo cruise ships set to arrive in 2022.
The first of four 140,000-ton, 3,300-passenger ships to be built at Fincantieri shipyard in Italy will feature a lot of open deck space on the lower levels.
“Continuing the trend not only at Norwegian Cruise Line, but throughout the cruise industry of bringing the sea closer to our guests, this vessel has at the lower decks a huge expansive area where you’ll have infinity pools, restaurants, broad decks to be beach-like so people can really connect with the sea,” said Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Chairman and CEO Frank Del Rio today at a press conference at Seatrade Cruise Global 2017 in Fort Lauderdale.
The first of the as-yet-to-be-named ships will arrive in June 2022 with three more coming in June 2023, June 2024 and June 2025. The line has the option to order two more for delivery in 2026 and 2027.
The ships are large, but significantly smaller than the ships Norwegian has rolled out the last few years including the 165,300-ton Breakaway Plus Class ships like Norwegian Escape that sails out of Miami and its sister ships Norwegian Joy coming later this year and Norwegian Bliss coming in 2018.
“We’ve been asked many times, ‘Well in the cruise industry the next series of ships is always larger than the one before.’ Well you know we’re famous for breaking molds and going against the grain,” Del Rio said. “Not all destinations in the world and we do want to be a global cruise line, not all destinations in the world can handle 4,000-, 5,000-passenger ships effectively. So we believe these vessels are the perfect size to delivery the top return on investment for our shareholders while providing the flexibility we need as a company to deploy these vessels throughout the world.”
The ships are a little smaller than the two Breakaway Class vessels, Norwegian Breakaway that debuted in 2013 and Norwegian Getaway that arrived in 2014.
More details on the ships including names and home ports were not revealed. Del Rio did promise that they will be significantly technologically advanced.
rtribou@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5134
