Norwegian Joy

Norwegian Joy is the only ship in the fleet that was designed for a market she no longer serves. Meyer Werft delivered her on 27 April 2017 as the first cruise ship purpose-built for Chinese passengers, she was christened in Shanghai that June by the singer Wang Leehom, and she was out of that trade inside two years. Everything interesting about her follows from that.

Built for a market that did not last

The Breakaway Plus class is Norwegian’s 1,094-foot workhorse platform, Norwegian Escape first, then Joy, then Bliss and Encore. Joy was built on those plans and then specified differently. She got twenty-nine restaurants instead of the usual count, a much larger casino, far more retail space, more connecting cabins and family suites, a two-level electric go-kart track, the first at sea, and the Galaxy Pavilion, a hall of virtual-reality simulators. Her hull was painted with a phoenix designed by the Beijing artist Tan Ping. Norwegian ran her on four- and five-night runs from Shanghai and Tianjin to Japanese ports.

The economics did not hold. In July 2018, fifteen months after delivery, Norwegian announced she would leave China for Alaska.

The conversion, and the conversion after that

The 2019 job cost $50 million. She spent twenty-one days in drydock at Singapore in March, kept working on the interiors through the transpacific crossing, and finished with a five-day wet dock at Seattle in late April. She sailed her first Alaska voyage on 4 May 2019. The work was cosmetic and programmatic rather than structural: public rooms redesigned for Western expectations, the retail and casino footprint cut back, the dining lineup rearranged to match Bliss. The hull art stayed.

The 2024 drydock did more damage to what made her unusual. Three weeks at Damen Shiprepair in Rotterdam in January and February took out the Galaxy Pavilion and the laser tag arena entirely, cut twenty-four new balcony staterooms into the Observation Lounge, converted forty cabins to spa-access “spa balcony” categories, fitted a new thermal suite in the Mandara Spa, redesigned two Haven owner’s suites, and expanded the Vibe Beach Club onto the space the laser tag had used. She came out on 13 February 2024 and crossed from Southampton to Miami.

The result is a ship that reads almost identically to Bliss on paper and does not quite feel it aboard. The bones are still a China ship: the corridors run where the shops used to be, and the crew complement she was given for that market (1,821 people, against 1,716 on the larger Bliss) never came down. That is the one legacy of the original specification that is unambiguously good news for a passenger.

The Haven

Same arrangement as her sisters. A keycard-locked block of suites near the top of the ship with a private restaurant, bar, courtyard, pool and sun deck, its own elevator lobby, and butler and concierge service, from which the rest of the ship is optional. It works well and it makes for a two-class vessel, and the larger the ship the more obvious that division is. This is a large ship.

Where she actually sails

Two seasons in two oceans. Summers are Alaska from Seattle, seven nights through the Inside Passage, with a few Pacific Northwest and Vancouver runs at the shoulders. The rest of the year she works out of Miami on Bahamas and Caribbean itineraries, which is where the largest single block of her sailings sits, plus a handful from Los Angeles. Trips run three to seventeen nights; seven is the median.

Who she suits

People who want a big Norwegian ship at what is usually a lower price than Bliss commands for the same itinerary. The crew ratio is the best in the class and it shows in service. For a Miami short break she is a lot of ship for three or four nights.

She does not suit anyone hunting for the novelty attractions she was famous for; the VR hall and the laser tag are gone, and the go-kart track is the only survivor of that original brief. She does not suit anyone who wants the Observation Lounge experience Bliss was built to give, because a quarter of hers is now cabins. And like every ship her size, she does not suit anyone whose idea of Alaska involves a quiet dock.