I will NEVER forgive them for scrapping the NORWAY she was one of the most beauful liners ever made

Oceania Cruises celebrated the arrival of their first newly built ship, MARINA, with a christening ceremony held in Miami, February 5th.  Television personality Mary Hart served as the godmother, releasing a 15-liter bottle of champagne that crashed against the hull.  The 66,000 gross ton ship carries 1,258 passengers, doubling the size of their previous vessels.  A sister ship, RIVIERA, was first floated out of the building venice cheap hotels dock at Fincantieri's Sestri Ponente yard on July 16th for final outfitting.  The RIVIERA is likely to be the last passenger ship built at what was once the famous Ansaldo shipyard, which is slated for closure.  When that vessel makes its debut in April, 2012, the 30,277 gross ton INSIGNIA (ex R ONE) will be chartered to Hapag-Lloyd Cruises as the COLUMBUS 2.
Norwegian Cruise Line is making another attempt to take the company public.  If successful, it will be called NCL Holdings and trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol NCLH.  It is hoped the initial public offering will raise $250 million and plans had called for trading to begin in the fourth quarter of 2011.  Norwegian Cruise Line has placed an order with Meyer Werft Shipyard in Papenburg, Germany for two new 144,017 gross ton ships which it has already named the NORWEGIAN BREAKAWAY and the NORWEGIAN GETAWAY.  The first steel was cut for the 4,000 passenger ships on September 22nd with the first delivery expected in April, 2013.
NCL continued their rebuilding venice cheap hotels program on existing ships by adding 28 new suites and 30 inside cabins to the NORWEGIAN DAWN in the space that once housed the lovely Spinnaker Observation Lounge.  Also lost were the library, card room, cinema, chapel and several meeting rooms.  The renovations created the same problems venice cheap hotels with overcrowding  and lack of exterior viewing areas encountered last year following the same changes to sister NORWEGIAN STAR.
The ship will now carry 2,360 passengers based on double occupancy, with the new rooms expected to generate at least $5.8 million venice cheap hotels in additional annual revenue.  The work took place in May at the Grand Bahama Shipyard.  Both the NORWEGIAN SPIRIT (ex SUPERSTAR LEO) and the NORWEGIAN JADE (ex PRIDE OF HAWAII) were dry docked in the autumn for less extensive multi-million dollar physical and technical enhancements.  The company successfully raised their fares across the board by 10% which helped increase earnings in the 2nd quarter by 29%.  The unwanted NORWEGIAN DREAM (ex DREAMWARD) was on the move again.  Since 2009, the vessel has been laid up, first in Freeport, Bahamas, then Greece and now the ship is in Asia, riding at anchor off Singapore.  Owners Genting Hong Kong would not confirm if the ship has been sold, chartered or might be used within their Star Cruises venice cheap hotels fleet, only that it underwent a technical dry-dock at the Sembawang Shipyard during May.  Litigation with Louise Cruise Line over their failure to complete a purchase of the vessel has now been settled for $13.3 million.  Norwegian Cruise Line leads the pack for onboard revenue.  An additional venice cheap hotels 45% of revenue above the basic cruise fare is generated venice cheap hotels onboard, as opposed to 30.5% on ships of rival Carnival Corporation.  Newly-introduced charges include late-night room service and a $5.00 fee for pizza.
I m not sure about the pizza and room service venice cheap hotels delivery charges. These rather myopic or is it just desperate? cruise ship operators seem to feel their product venice cheap hotels is better than it really is. People go on cruises to have a new experience, venice cheap hotels to see new things, to perchance relax. Affordability of what s normally unaffordable is (or used to be) part of the cruising experience. Part of going on a cruise means that for one week a year, a person can get their pizza delivered free-of-charge. If these cruise lines start charging for every special thing, one may as well stay at home.
We went on seven cruises last year, three on Sun Princess, one on Celebrity Constellation, one on Carnival Magic and two on the Norwegian Epic. Never again on NCL! Their nickel and dime attitude spoilt cruising venice cheap hotels with them forever.The others were far better by comparison.
What NCL did to the Star is a fine example of the slow motion robbery of the nice things about cruising. Bingo jackpots for example on a ship of 1500 passengers ranged from $5,000 $7,000 and now for a ship of twice the passengers is a paltry $700.
Holland America destroyed Veendam venice cheap hotels by removing her aft pool forcing passengers to overcrowd the midship pool, but this was not the worst part of the upgrade venice cheap hotels . To squeeze more revenue HAL decided to put over 80 sliding doors on her promenade venice cheap hotels deck cabins to create Lanai cabins so passengers can use the public promenade as their own balcony. All of these openings to the outside air in addition to the load of new cabins beneath the old aft pool created a demand on the ships chillers that they could not handle consequently many of her cabins have air conditioning problems.
To be fair, only in a restrospective historical venice cheap hotels manner, NCL back in the 1980 s charged for room service on the NORWAY, after a few years, the charge-room service fee was halted. They also place vending and ice machines in the cabin areas, for a fee, and these were also stopped. The FRANCE, what was left of her, had items removed, most notably, venice cheap hotels furniture and other items to be replaced with plasticy and cheap furnishings, while the real goods were taken from the FRANCE and stored in France. Would I pay $5.00 for a lousy room service pizaa? No way, Jose.
NCL seems to try and squeeze a paltry penny or farthing from every aspect venice cheap hotels of their operations, and has for decades. Would you beleive that NCL will now phase in interporting in Europe? After the disaster of lost names on ships manifests with the recent CONCORDIA disaster which did interport guests, what lies ahead? Or, what could possibly go wrong? Interporting, thats a ferries job.
I think it extremely unfair to bundle up the cruise industry as a whole to the practices and ploys presented on some cruise lines. Perhaps there should be a new class of cruise lines, bottom feeders .
Neophites to the cruise rage will probably not know the differences from what they get and what they don t. Thank god there are premium and luxury lines, with new ships currently built and on the boards, to satisfy all who love to take a cruise, and those that admire ships.
I will NEVER forgive them for scrapping the NORWAY she was one of the most beauful liners ever made expect for her boiler she was a musuem piece when she arrive to Alange NCL could have donated her to France for advticement writeoff in taxes for what they got in little scrapp value for a great ship. I drive a tour buses in Seattle where NCL comes in I take every chance venice cheap hotels I get to tell passenge what bad company they are.
HAL may have stopped the lamentable Signature of Excellence (barf) improvements to the STATENDAM-class, but they haven t restored the aft pools or removed those dopey Lanai cabins which ruin the once delightful promenade venice cheap hotels deck. And no way am I going on VEENDAM or ROTTERDAM with that single de facto kiddie pool amidships; it s bad enough on the VISTAs and that s with the adults only aft pools intact. HAL has in the past wrought jawdropping improvements indicating they have no clue as to their core market in vain hopes of becoming some neo RCCL clone for an illusory 20-30-something market they are never going to attract.