Norwegian Cruise Line extends Hawai'i season

By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer

Norwegian Cruise Line will extend its fall sailing season in Hawai'i, effectively basing a second ship in the Islands all year long except for the summer.

NCL, which is set to have a ship based here in December, has traditionally offered a few 10- or 11-day Hawai'i cruises each fall as it repositioned ships from summer sailing in Alaska to their winter destinations.

It usually does the same in the spring, as those ships move from their winter homes back to their summer homes.

But NCL chief executive officer Colin Veitch said starting this autumn, the company will keep a ship here through the spring, offering regular cruises throughout the winter.

"A 10- or 11-day cruise in Hawai'i has got to be more appealing in these times than a 10- or 11-day cruise in Southeast Asia or the Mediterranean or something like that," Veitch said, adding that the decision was not related to last week's bankruptcy filing of Hawai'i's major interisland cruise provider. "Now we're moving to position a ship there as its main winter season deployment instead of having a ship do just a few cruises on a pass-through basis."

NCL recently canceled its Mediterranean sailings in light of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. That change may have raised demand for Hawai'i cruises.

Veitch said the ships being considered for the extended fall service in Hawai'i are the 1,700-passenger Norwegian Wind and the 2,000 passenger Norwegian Sky.

The news comes just days after American Classic Voyages, the largest provider of interisland cruises, filed for bankruptcy and ended its Hawai'i service. Although NCL's new sailing schedule may not completely fill the void, tourism executives said, they welcomed the development.

"It's not a complete replacement of what we had, but certainly, any visit from a cruise ship goes toward retail spending, activity bookings and overall enjoyment of the island," said Sue Kanoho, executive director of the Kauai Visitors Bureau. "So the fact that we lost a pretty significant partner in the cruise ship industry is still devastating. The good news is that right around the corner NCL is looking at an inaugural that will help stem the severe drop."

Norwegian will base its new 2,200-passenger Star here in December, making it the first foreign ship to choose Hawai'i as its homeport. The ship will offer seven-day cruises around the islands, with a stop in Kiribati.