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Norwegian Pearl Norwegian Pearl was built in Papenburg at Jos L. Meyer's in 2006. Gross tonnage is 93.503, her lenght is 294,13 meters, width 32,20 meters and some 2380 passengers are cared for by 1154 crew. She was meant to enlighten the world and she is the first ship to be taken into service after NCL changed their logo to that of the lonely white fish swimming upstream while the other blue fishes go downstream. But enlighten is not really what she did when a cable overhanging the Eems river in northern Germany had to be cut down for her safe passage. Not everything went smoothly, because a small dozen of coutries became pitch-black. But every ship, sorry… resort, should have a nice story to tell, and when you tell a story even before you ever had one paying passenger on board you are the ship The Norwegian Pearl, the newest resort (as she is called in the brochures) of Norwegian Cruise Line introduced herself to me on a misty morning in the port of Rotterdam. She came here directly from the Eemshaven in the Northern part of the Netherlands, so it was her first port of call. For me there was something more, because I had the opportunity to not only see her from the outside, but also take a look inside. Believe it or not, before her I have never been onboad of a cruiseship, so I was a little excited. She left Eemshaven with some people from travel-agencies and from the press on her way to Rotterdam where she arrived on the 29th of november. She stayed here overday and took off in the end of the afternoon to present her guest (this time really guests because they are not paying for the trip) a one-night cruise. I was just to late to see her again coming in the next morning so I sat down beside the river and waited for the sun to give me some more light for my first pictures of her. Soon after that, I had to go to the check in desk for the beginning of my tour. I had heared some stories of her being to blue and turquase on the inside, but because I have never been on a cruiseship before I do not have any comparissements. So I look at her in a fresh way and I think she is a splendid looking ship. It helps that it is Christmas soon and she is decorated with Christmas trees, lights and decorations, off course. But I did not think she was too blue. She has some great spaces on board, the one level Summer Palace restaurant on deck 6 is truly beautiful, looking somewhat classical with a split-stair entry surrounded by nice yellow flowers and a roman statue in the middle. This is not the only choice you have, because thanks to the Freestyle concept of the ship, there are twelve restaurants to choose from, from Asian, Japanese American steaks, French cuisine to Italian elegance. For some restaurants a small reservation fee is to be paid. The Bliss Ultra Lounge at deck 7 does have an Asian atmospohere, with golden statues of dragons and snakes and even a couple of beds to lounge yourself through your evening. I did not try them out because it was a really early morning and I think I was going to wake up in Southampton if I tried them. But the beds and the dragons are not the most distinctive items that can be found in the lounge, because the Norwegian Pearl is the first cruiseship in the world that has some bowling alleys on board. They are situated in the lounge in pairs of two. It seems nice to try them out in a heavy storm or so. No one will have the advantage then! The ship is looking modern and she is not a classical oceanliner like we know these. As a special addition to the tour we were able to see a part of the new show ‘tubes’ that is designed especially for the Norwegian Pearl. It is a very modern performance, based on old-school New York hiphop. Some older guests disliked this and they complained about it but I think they did not see the point of showing this. As we heared several times, Norwegian Cruise Line is a very child-friendly company and they really like to have families, teenagers and children on board. There is a very big space reserved especially for them and I think that this is what the line wanted to show to their hopefully soon-to-be passengers. This was only the second time that it was performed. And then, you walk out of the ship, and you are back on the quay. When you walk ten minutes you are in the city center and here you miss the ‘grand decor’ of the ship. You miss the colour blue in the sky. You miss the girls, dancing in short skirts to entertain you (in Holland they do not do that on the last day of november). You also miss the truly friendly smiles of the international crew of the Norwegian Pearl. I like this ship, I felt at home. NCL opened a lot of doors for me when thinking about taking a cruise within a few years. I think I also like this company and I hope they like me ‘cause I will be back. |
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