New Norwegian Star to be deployed in Hawaii

Central & South America

Norwegian Cruise Line<.> (NCL<.>) has revised its plans for ship deployment in the…

Norwegian Cruise Line<.> (NCL<.>) has revised its plans for ship deployment in the Hawaii cruise market, announcing recently that the new US $400 million, 91,000-ton super-ship formerly slated for NCL`s parent company Star Cruises, will now join NCL`s fleet in December 2001 for year-round deployment in Hawaii. The new ship, which is under construction in Germany and was to be called SuperStar Libra, will now be outfitted to NCL specifications and named Norwegian Star, signifying the increasingly strong linkage between parent Star Cruises and daughter company Norwegian Cruise Line. It will be one of two sister ships, the second of which will be named Norwegian Dawn to be delivered to NCL at the end of 2002.

NCL and parent company Star Cruises had previously announced the transfer of the two-year-old, 76,000-ton SuperStar Leo to the NCL brand for the purpose of servicing the Hawaii market under a new name, Norwegian Leo. However, according to Colin Veitch, NCL`s president and chief executive officer, two things happened to persuade Star to move Libra over to NCL instead. First, the booking response to Leo`s maiden Hawaiian season indicated a strongly positive reception from both cruisers and travel agents. Second, the projected costs involved in stripping out Leo`s casino to comply with recently enacted federal legislation became so high that the lower cost alternative of tailoring the construction of Libra to exclude a casino from the outset became increasingly attractive.

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