Supplement to Travel Trade
Novermber 2001

Norwegian Sun:

Freestyle Cruising Leaps Forward

By Nick Verrastro

Norwegian Cruise Line will celebrate its first two Freestyle Cruising-built ships with a double inaugural this month in Miami, officially marking the debut of the Norwegian Sun and welcoming the Norwegian Star to the fleet.

A recent preinaugural cruise on the Norwegian Sun provided a glimpse, and a taste, of what Freestyle Cruising on a Freestyle Cruising built ship will be all about.

It's like going to a seaborne resort. The choices in dining and the quality are like those you would get at, say, the Bellagio or Mandalay in Las Vegas. The choices in activities are like a Renaissance Weekend on Hilton Head Island or a Chattaqua at sea.

Freestyle Cruising provides opportunities for cultural and intellectual enrichment both onboard and at the destinations, along with plenty of opportunity and space for relaxing at the pool, hanging out at one of the many lounges or reading a book on your private balcony.

Freestyle Cruising is really a great concept and one that should open up new sales opportunities for travel agents, and the Norwegian Sun is an eye opener to the new Norwegian Cruise Line.

As Andy Stuart, NCL senior vice president of marketing and sales, said during the preinaugural, "the 1,960-passenger Norwegian Sun marks a great leap forward for Freestyle Cruising.

"This ship truly differentiates the NCL product and what is perhaps most remarkable is the number of dining options," Stuart said. "There are nine full-service restaurants delivering a tremendous difference in food service. The two formal dining rooms offer two different menus, so even there we are offering more choice."

The variety of full service restaurants means that your clients can dine in a different one every night during the Norwegian Sun's 7-day Western Caribbean cruises -and still not have tried them all.

In Freestyle Cruising, vacationers can eat when they want and where they want with whom they want - even in the formal dining rooms, the Four Seasons at mid ships, and in the Seven Seas with wraparound windows aft, both on Atlantic Deck 5.

Between the formal dining rooms is one of the Sun's other restaurants, the intimate (84 seats) Italian Il Adagio Restaurant with banquettes and tables for two - all with views to the sea. The Norwegian Sun's other restaurants include Las Ramblas for tapas and wine; Ginza East Meets West, complete with a sushi bar, teppanyaki room and a California/Hawaii Asian fusion restaurant that features what NCL calls the first live lobster tank at sea (you pick it, they cook it); and the alternative Le Bistro, an NCL hallmark - all on the Sports Deck 12.

More eateries are on the Pool Deck 1: the Lido buffets, Garden Cafe and Great Outdoor Cafe, which is al fresco under a canopy around the stern. The Lido Deck is also home to Pacific Heights Restaurant, the Norwegian Sun's Cooking Light cuisine dining room.

But as Stuart said, Freestyle Cruising is more than dining options.

There are plenty of lounging options aboard the Norwegian Sun - with 12 bars and lounges including the room with a view, Observation Lounge with its floor-to-ceiling windows forward on Sports Deck 12, and the very popular Windjammer Bar and adjacent Havana cigar club on Promenade Deck 6, which also shows off a couple of other sides of Freestyle Cruising - mind and body.

For the mind, Deck 6 contains the Internet Cafe wrapped around the ship's central atrium and the adjacent Life Styles Room and Tech Styles Room, where cultural enrichment programs will take place - on technology and a range of topics that will initially include Cooking Light demonstrations.

Promenade Deck 6 also has a wraparound outdoor deck that does double duty as a jogging/walking track. The Norwegian Sun's other facilities for the body include the Body Waves Spa, which includes a fitness center and aerobics area along with the usual Mandara Spa treatments and a beauty salon - all on Pool Deck 11, where expansive teak decks wrap around the ship's two pools. The management promises enough deck chairs (there are more than passengers) so that vacationers don't have to get up at 5 a.m. to claim one with a beach towel.

There's also a Splashes kids' pool and hot tub reflecting Freestyle Cruising's emphasis on family vacations. An expanded children's program is centered around the Kids Korner facility on International Deck 7.

Supervised by trained youth counselors, the Kid's Crew program is offered year-round for Junior Sailors (ages 3-5), First Mates (6-9), Navigators (10-12) and Teens (13-17). The Teen Club on International Deck 7 serves as a teen center by day and disco for teens after dark.

And a Wedding Chapel, an NCL first, is another feature that should appeal to the family market. (There are two honeymoon suites on the Norwegian Sun.) You enter the ship on Atlantic Deck 5, the base of the ship's central eight-deck atrium, which has a reception desk and another NCL hallmark, the Java Cafe, as well as a grand staircase leading to Promenade Deck 6.

In addition to the aforementioned Windjammer Bar and lifestyle rooms, Deck 6 also contains the ship's disco, Dazzles, and the main entrance to its two-deck main showroom, the Stardust Theatre, along with the East Indies Conference Center, accommodating 100 persons. It can be divided into three rooms of 12 to 42 seats each - Bali Room, Malaysia Room and Borneo Room. The East Indies Library is adjacent to the conference center.

"The Norwegian Sun," said Stuart, "is a true differentiation that really gives travel agents something new to talk about to their clients. Four hundred rooms have private balconies; there are more deck chairs than passengers; there are more terminals in our Internet Cafe; we are providing technology education in our Tech Styles Room; and enrichment programs in our Life Style rooms."

One of the biggest changes the Norwegian Sun ushers in is with passenger accommodations.

The Norwegian Sun offers more than 650 outside staterooms, 67% of the total. The 432 outside cabins with balconies are 172-square feet. Thirty mini suites with balconies are 267-square feet. The four Owners' Suites, above the ship's bridge, are 502-square feet each.

An Oceanview stateroom with balcony on Deck 8 has a queen bed (reading lamps on each side, storage underneath), with a couch in a sitting area that pulls out into a second queen size bed. The desk/dresser has seven shelves and a corner shelf along with six drawers, a coffeemaker, TV/video player (CNN and five music channels), safe and mini fridge.

The closet contains three shelves and three wire bins, 17 hangers and two pull down shelves with bars for additional hanger space. Two cabinets adjacent to the closet each have two adjustable shelves. There are also two wall hooks.

The bathroom has three shelves on each side of the vanity, four hooks, a hairdryer, soap and shampoo dispensers and two shelves in the shower, which has a wraparound curtain that is very effective at keeping the water inside the shower area. The shower is great.

Glass patio doors lead out onto the balcony, which has two chairs and a coffee table.

The passenger accommodations are very spacious and comfortable and tastefully done with blue patterned carpeting and green patterned bedspread, both with a nautical theme. Wall coverings are a white/off-white speckled pattern and furniture is cherrywood laminate.

The Norwegian Sun is sailing year-round on 7-day Western Caribbean cruises roundtrip from Miami to Grand Cayman, Roatan, Belize City and Cozumel.

Originally, the Norwegian Sun was to have been NCL's first ship in the Mediterranean, sailing on 7-day Eastern and Western Med cruises next summer.

But with the September 11 attacks on the United States, NCL decided to deploy the Norwegian Sun year-round in the Caribbean.