You may recall that we (Mr. Makarma) recently noted that both Carnival and Royal Caribbean will be introducing some unique features on their new ships setting sail later this year. In Carnival's case, the features will be more evolutionary, taking their current ship designs up a notch. Here, we're talking things such as balcony staterooms set lower in the ship than previously found, and family-friendly staterooms with split bathrooms.
In Royal Caribbean's case, we're talking about their introduction (yet again) of the world's largest cruise ship (Approximately 220,000 gross registered tons versus the current champion at roughly 160,000 GRT). Imagine, if you will, having a cabin overlooking "Central Park" and taking a spin on the first carousel at sea. (We just knew something was missing!) Oh, and did we happen to mention zip-lining at sea?
Yet another ship isn't going to be out until mid-2010, bit it's already creating quite the buzz - it's Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Epic. This particular baby's gonna be interesting in a number of ways. For example, it won't be the world's largest (please see above), but it will be significantly larger than NCL's existing mega-ships. NCL originally planned to have two ships in this newer class but, for reasons too detailed to go into today, the order was reduced to just the one ship. This means that, for quite some time, Norwegian Epic will be their flagship, the one that will likely receive their highest level of attention.
Along with its unique cabin design (more about that in a future post), Norwegian Epic will be different because it takes NCL's "Freestyle" motto to greater lengths (pun intended). The ship will have an unparalleled variety of dining and entertainment venues. On the company's current ships, some dining rooms are included in the base fare, while others incur a separate charge. Now, with Norwegian Epic, there will no longer be a main showroom; "main" entertainment will be spread out to a number of facilities throughout the ship. And, as you may have guessed by now, some of these venues will require a separate cover charge. We're not certain we'll like this format, but we won't judge it until we know whether or not a guest on this cruise ship will be able to enjoy the full cruise experience without reaching into a wallet (or purse) over and over again.
What we are fairly certain of, however, is that we'll be one of the first to sail on (and check out, and report back on) Norwegian Epic firsthand.
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