Norwegian Cruise Line has officially brought 14 of its 17 current ships back into service, as Norwegian Star welcomed her first passengers in nearly two years. The Dawn-class ship set sail from Barcelona today, on the first of a number of Mediterranean sailings that bring her back into active service.
Norwegian Star Resumes Service
Norwegian Star‘s first cruise with passengers since the global pandemic shutdown is a 10-day, one-way sailing from Barcelona, Spain, to Trieste, Italy.
Along the way, the ship will visit nine amazing ports of call, including St. Tropez along the French Riviera, Rome and Naples in Italy, Corfu Island in Greece, and Dubrovnik in Croatia, among others.
Through mid-May, the ship will offer a variety of Mediterranean sailings departing from Barcelona and Trieste. For the summer, Norwegian Star will reposition to Northern European itineraries, embarking from Southampton and Reykjavik, including ports of call in Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and Greenland. Cruise lengths range from 10-12 days.
At the end of the summer season, the ship will return to the Mediterranean briefly before a transatlantic crossing departing Lisbon, Portugal, on November 27. That 14-day sailing will reposition the ship to Rio de Janeiro for the winter season in South America.
Norwegian Star‘s winter sailings are particularly spectacular, as they are a series of 14-day roundtrip Antarctica voyages setting sail from Buenos Aires.
In the spring of 2023, the ship will return to Europe, with similar seasonal itineraries planned for 2023 and early 2024.
Norwegian Star was built in 2001 and had her most recent refit and renovation in 2018 as part of The Norwegian Edge program. The 91,740-gross ton ship can welcome 2,348 passengers at double occupancy, and is staffed by 1,031 crew members.
14 Norwegian Ships Sailing, 3 Yet to Come, 2 to Debut
Norwegian Star is the fourteenth Norwegian Cruise Line ship to resume sailing. After the pandemic shutdown that suspended passenger cruise operations worldwide, the cruise line began its “Great Cruise Comeback” when Norwegian Jade first set sail from Athens, Greece, in July 2021. Since then, various vessels have restarted in different parts of the world.
To date, 14 Norwegian Cruise Line ships have restarted, with only Pride of America, Norwegian Sun, and Norwegian Spirit yet to set sail.
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Pride of America is scheduled to resume passenger operations on April 9, with 7-day sailings around the Hawaiian islands.
Norwegian Sun will restart her sailing calendar on May 5 out of Seattle, Washington, where she will offer 5-9 day Alaska itineraries until repositioning to Asia in mid-October.
Norwegian Spirit is already in Polynesia, and she will restart operations from May 7 with a series of one-way voyages between Tahiti and Hawaii, before moving to Seattle to sail Alaska cruises for the summer.
By early May, then, Norwegian Cruise Line will be back to full operation, with all 17 of its current cruise ships welcoming guests aboard. In August, Norwegian Prima will join the fleet, and will eventually homeport in Galveston, Texas after her inaugural season.
Then, in the summer of 2023, the fleet will expand yet again with the arrival of Norwegian Viva, the second in the Prima-class ships. Norwegian Cruise Line has also already ordered several Prima-plus-class vessels, though details and arrival dates for these new ships have not yet been announced.
