Norwegian Epic’s Successor: Lessons learned.

One of the things I forgot to write about the other day, when I wrote my Cruise News article, was a small tidbit of information that NCL had released a few days back…the codename for their new ships…”Project Breakaway”.

Since the new ships were announced several months back in October (after weeks of rumors), there has not been much information released about them. All we really knew for a while was what NCL had initially released…the ships would be built by Meye- Werft in Papenburg, Germany, they would each be about 144,000grt (around 10,000grt smaller then Norwegian Epic), carry around 4,000 passengers, and they would be delivered to NCL in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Along with the announcement, a rendering of the new ships was released…which set off a flurry of speculation on the internet.

Then a few days ago, as I said above, NCL revealed the project name for the ships, “Project Breakaway”…not really anything too amazing. Then today, NCL released renderings of the cabins aboard the new ships.

(Mini Suite rendering)

(Standard Cabin rendering)

Now for my thoughts…

I have to say that I like the design so far. The outside of the ship looks good, certainly much better than Epic’s looks (she easily had the most controversial looks ever in the cruise industry). And though she's not really that spectacular by any means (like my beloved Queen Mary 2!!!!....I know, that’s not really a fair comparison), but she is un-offensive and pretty enough…not to mention that many of her yet to be revealed details, are not shown in the rendering, which means that she will look slightly different in the end. I am optimistic though! :D

As to the cabins, I admit, I have mixed feelings here. On one hand, the cabin design looks cool, trendy and pretty well designed. On the other hand, these cabins are interlocked (as in, they are not rectangular and fit together with the adjacent cabins in a…um…interlocking way), which at first glance doesn’t seem bad right? Well to me this says one thing…less space. Interlocking cabins allow designers to squeeze more cabins into less space (which for the cruise lines means more money out of less space) by making the cabins narrower overall, and having them bulge out into the next cabin in places where they need to be wider (such as the where the bed goes) and bulge in where they can be narrower (such as the sitting area). Cruise ship cabins, while comfortable, are already pretty small (at least compared to land based hotels), so any narrowing of the standard cabin is, in my opinion, a mistake, and a downgrade to the passenger experience.

I would love to be proven wrong here but, given this ships size and relatively big passenger number (for a ship this size), my gut feeling is that I am right. The fact that NCL didn’t release square footage estimates for the cabins, is also slightly suspicious.

(((Keep in mind that there are three other possibilities at this point...that I really could be wrong - I know, unlikely - or, that the cabins can, in fact, interlock and still be spacious, or, lastly, that the design will change)))

I do want to say though, that I really do like these cabins...even if they are small (which I am not positive they will be). The design looks great! One of the places where I think NCL can really be great is, in cabin design.

(Norwegian Epic Cabin)

Overall, after crunching the numbers and looking at the cabin design, I am inclined to believe that these ships will be really crowded, much like Epic (ugh...). One of the biggest and most common complaints against the Norwegian Epic, was her crowdedness. According to reviews (not all reviews), it is hard to escape the crowds onboard. This is unfortunate; NCL’s product revolves around the concept of “Freestyle Cruising” where you ‘can do whatever you want, whenever you want, and with whoever you want’…but how “freestyle” can it be when you are stuck waiting in long lines, and competing with so many other passengers to take advantage of the many amenities? These new ships carry 100 less passengers than the Epic, but at the same time they will be 10,000grt smaller! On top of this, using the somewhat crude, and flawed, ‘gross tonnage divided by passenger capacity’ method of determining a ship's passenger space ratio, these ships score less than the Epic, with a per passenger space ratio of about 35sqft compared to Epic's 38sqft.

This all sounds bad, but fear not! There is hope for these ships! I save the best for last… Yes, so far these ships looks like they could be just as crowded as Epic (if not more so)…however, there is one thing that can set these ships apart from the Epic and allow them to be great…good design. One of Epic’s problems is a somewhat weird layout. When you look at the ship's deck plans, you can see part of the reason this ship is crowded (or at least feels that way); it is dis-jointed, and doesn’t have really great ‘flow’.

In an example of how great design helps crowds, we can look at the Oasis and Allure of the Seas. Those ships can carry over 6,000 passengers and 2,000 crew (that’s over 8,000 people!), and yet, according to reviews, the ships hardly ever feel crowded. Part of this is because the Oasis Class is huge (the largest cruise ships in the world) at over 222,000grt, but another part of it is Royal Caribbean’s good design. The layout of these ships ‘flows’ very well, public spaces are spread out, and the ships are “intuitive” to get around.

There are many reasons why Epic turned out to be the quirky ship she is (that’s a subject for another article, for another day), such as mismanagement on the part of NCL’s old management team, and trouble with the ship yard, and new owners. However, I hope and think that NCL has learned from these past mistakes and that this new ship will be as awesome as it could be!

Back to the cabins. You can already see that NCL has at least learned something from the mistakes with Epic, in fact, one of the biggest mistakes with Epic…the bathrooms. (picture at right - Standard Cabin bathroom rendering)

As anyone who follows the industry (or who has been reading this blog since the beginning) knows, Epic’s cabins caused quite a stir for a number of reasons, but mostly because of their bathrooms…or lack thereof. The reason was because, they aren’t really bathROOMS per se. Each standard cabin has 2 stalls (with frosted glass doors that don’t leave much to the imagination), one with the toilet, and the other with the shower (the sink and vanity are out in the open inside the cabin). This has been easily one of Epic’s biggest flaws (in fact, many won’t sail on the ship for this reason) as there is not really any privacy in a normally very private spot.

However, NCL has fixed this problem on the new ships. These cabins have the standard bathroom…the kind that is an actual room. For me, this by itself already makes the ship more appealing than Epic. (picture at left - Mini Suite Bathroom rendering)

Anyways, I started this article with the intention of making it short, yet here we are (I am not good at writing short things….), time to finish. Considering everything I said above, I am really looking forward to learning more about these ships! As of right now, the ships could go either way, we don’t know enough about them, yet, to be able to say with way is more likely. However, I am confident that NCL could build a great ship (they have before), they just need to learn from past mistakes, and perfect the good aspects of what they already have! What ever they do, I am looking forward to seeing it!