Tag Archives: Med Cruise

Norwegian reveals entertainment for Getaway

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Norwegian reveals entertainment for Getaway

By Tom Stieghorst
The Norwegian Getaway, coming to Miami in 2014, will have three new entertainment options.

At a news conference aboard the Norwegian Breakaway, which is making its debut in New York, Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Kevin Sheehan said the musical version of “Legally Blonde” will be a featured production on the Getaway.

In addition, a new version of a Breakaway show called “Burn the Floor” will be produced. “Burn the Floor Ballroom Reinvented” will be a mix of Latin dance and ballroom with vocals in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Comedy on the Getaway will be supplied by Levity Entertainment Group, rather than Second City, as on the Breakaway. Sheehan said Norwegian is happy with Second City but that Levity is a leading name in comedy, booking more than 300 comedians a week at casinos, comedy clubs and events. That provides a deep supply of comic talent and lends itself to frequent changes in acts, he said.

Revenue rises, but IPO expenses put Norwegian Cruise Line in the red

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Revenue rises, but IPO expenses put Norwegian Cruise Line in the red
By Tom Stieghorst
Norwegian Cruise Line posted a $96.4 million first-quarter loss, but said accounting rules that require it to recognize some one-time expenses masked a solid improvement in its business.

Revenue rose to $527.6 million from $515.4 million.

Norwegian said that without $110 million in expenses related to its public offering in January, income would have been $12.9 million. Norwegian’s net profit was $3.3 million in last year’s first quarter.

“We had a fantastic quarter — above consensus,” said CEO Kevin Sheehan in an interview.

The expenses include costs tied to prepaying bonds and stock compensation for former executives.

Sheehan said by using the proceeds of the public offering, Norwegian was able to replace secured debt that carried 11.5% interest rates with unsecured debt that costs about 5%.

Norwegian raised $447 million in the quarter by selling 23.5 million shares for $19 each.

Excluding fuel, net cruise costs fell 1.5% in the quarter. Sheehan said the expense of introducing Norwegian Breakaway will likely raise cruise costs by 5% to 6% in the current quarter.

The New York-themed Breakaway is set to arrive before daybreak on May 7 at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. The ship will be named the next day by the Rocketttes before starting a series of seven-day cruises to Bermuda.

‘Transformational’ space on a cruise ship

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‘Transformational’ space on a cruise ship

By Tom Stieghorst

*InsightAs cruise ships get larger, how do ship designers find ways to distribute passengers throughout the ship and not bunched at a few headline attractions?

Maximizing space so that it accommodates different activities is starting to get more thought.

Efforts at several cruise lines involve creating spaces with different activities for night and day. Designers refer to “transformational space,” and a prime example will be Two70Degrees on Royal Caribbean International’s coming Quantum of the Seas.

The space is an aft lounge with a three-deck-high wall of windows that wrap the stern of the ship, giving passengers a 270-degree view of the fantail, the wake and the ocean beyond.

For day use, Two 70 Degrees will resemble a grand den, with a library, an activities room, a gourmet market, a bar and nested seating zones that occupy terraces cascading from the entry to the floor.*TomStieghorst

At twilight, the lighting in the room will begin to change, and ambient music will clue guests that something is about to happen. Blackout screens descend to cover the glass, and fourteen hidden devices will use a new technology called 3D Mapping Projection to throw startling three-dimensional images across the curved blackout surface.

The scene can be anything from a jungle to a Spanish galleon to the daytime exterior view from the ship, said Tim Magill, a partner in the California firm of 5+Design, which helped create the room.

To date the technology has been mostly used to stage elaborate promotions on the sides of buildings, such as a 2010 installation on the side of New York’s Guggenheim Museum.

On the Quantum, the screens will be used to bring a feeling of outdoors inside the ship, expanding its visual volume, Magill said.

In front of the screens, entertainers will descend on apparatus from the ceiling or ascend through the floor on hydraulic platforms.

The next morning, like Cinderella’s carriage, the space will be a lounge with a view of the sea.

“If we can make the spaces transform over time through the cruise,” said Magill, “then it provides more variety, more excitement, more things for the guest to do.”