Norwegian Aqua

This post is a construction recap and update, and it's something I plan to do both for ships under construction as well as ships which have been delivered in the past.  Feedback is much appreciated in the comments, and I do read every one of them and take it into account for future posts.  It is much longer than my previous posts, but I have tried to summarize a great deal of information in the most concise way possible.

The soon-to-be latest ship in Norwegian's fleet, once flaunted as the 'youngest in the industry,' the future Norwegian Aqua has risen fast in Fincantieri's Marghera yard, near Venice.  She is not scheduled for delivery until spring 2025, where perhaps there was a scheduling error, with the yard stating April and her maiden voyage for Norwegian in late March.  In any case, eight months out, she is largely structurally complete, and so I'll review her construction processes.  If you see a mistake, please let me know - Fincantieri is far less open to public observation and flaunting of their newbuildings than Meyer.  Therefore, I have less to work with, and what I do have may not be precise.

To start, a review of her changes from the earlier Prima-class ships is useful, as this ship is roughly 10% larger than Norwegian Prima and Norwegian Viva.  This added gross tonnage results in added 'real' tonnage, and both are achieved by two hull extensions, much like the enlargement of TUI's recent series of ships (from Mein Schiff 6 to Mein Schiff 1).  This extends the ship a combined 22.8 meters in length, with no corresponding increase in beam, as is typical with these series of ships.  These extensions are located just ahead of midships in way of the atrium, and just aft of where the superstructure narrows aft of midships.  For the aft extension, this results in an enlarged Haven area, which will apparently feature duplex cabins.  Additionally, both the Haven pool deck and the main pool deck have been enlarged, each sitting atop it's own extension when compared to the earlier ships.

Perhaps more notable to passengers is the removal of the ship's racetrack, a staple of NCL's newbuilds since 2017's Norwegian Joy.  Reportedly, this was done due to the excessive topweight of the feature, and it will be replaced on Norwegian Aqua by (appropriately enough) a pair of waterslides.  At least, from the renderings, their ascent is open to the sea, unlike the water coaster on Disney Wish and Disney Treasure.  On the topic of slides, two of the three dry slides were removed, both on the starboard side, leaving only a single dry slide on the port side.  The omission of a racetrack, which would have been enlarged due to the aft extension (and perhaps further due to the forward one), leaves NCL with five ships that boast the feature (Joy, Bliss, Encore, Prima, and Viva).  If they continue the trend of waterslides on later Prima+ class ships, they will have three distinct subsets of large ships: ropes course (Breakaway/Getaway/Escape), racetrack (Joy/Bliss/Encore/Prima/Viva), and waterpark (Aqua and beyond).  Norwegian Epic, ever the outlier, once again boasts a group all her own.

Many interior changes were made as well, several of which are the direct result of passenger complaints on the earlier ships.  With prior deliveries in July 2022 and August 2023, there was simply not enough time to amend the contract and prefabricated components to make these changes on the second ship.  As with the Breakaway class, these changes are appearing now on the enlarged third unit of the class.  For the Prima class, these changes affect the atrium and a number of dining venues, which have been enlarged, moved around, or simply omitted.

Of course, this group isn't just about design, which means it's time to cover her construction thus far!  In researching this, I have gained a greater appreciation for the processes at Fincantieri, and for this class as a whole.  For example, I knew they used blocks built at other yards of theirs, and have since Disney Magic's bow was towed to meet up with her stern in 1997.  This has been done (off the top of my head) on Seven Seas Explorer, Queen Anne, and now apparently on the Norwegian Prima class.  This is not unlike Meyer, who often does this two or three times in certain builds.  The lowest portion, with main and auxiliary machinery fitted and built up to the bulkhead deck, is assembled in Neptun Werft and floated to the yards in Papenburg and Turku.  In Papenburg, they can also build up to a third of a second ship while one is being assembled in full, so two of these are usually done while the first is being built.  After that is floated out, the two 'gigablocks' are floated in and the remainder is built quite rapidly.

In any case, I've attached an interesting photo from the "Everything Norwegian Aqua" thread on CruiseCritic, where I learned a lot and found a jumping off point for me to start my research.  It also provided all of the pictures I've attached to this post.  The upper ship is Norwegian Aqua (6300) and the lower is Norwegian Prima (6298).  They have been roughly scaled and aligned by FreestyleNovice, one of the most vocal and informative members and a leader in the NCL build threads on CruiseCritic since at least Joy (created 2015).  In any case, I traced these back to VARD Tulcea, a Fincantieri subsidiary yard in Romania, based on the fact that the photos were taken as the blocks passed Istanbul, Turkey, on their way to the Marghera yard.  If this assumption is wrong, please let me know, but it is what I'll be working off of for the purposes of this and other Fincantieri ships I cover in this format.

From the arrival of the machinery block from Romania in mid-May (it passed Istanbul on the 14th of that month), the assembly of Hull 6300 seems to have progressed fairly rapidly.  By early January, the hull had been completed and the superstructure was assembled to the pool deck midships and was rapidly moving forward.  Six weeks later, in late February, the superstructure had been completed and the bridge was in place atop the forward end of the ship.  By mid-April, the hull art was being painted onto the ship's sides, and on 23 April she was floated out.  Unlike Meyer float outs (far easier to find videos of online, at least for me), Aqua seemed to be floated out as soon as she could be, with scaffolding still towering along her superstructure.   This was still in place as of the last update I could find, in mid-July.

As the build progresses, I'll try to post updates here with the insight I have.  If anyone knows anything different, I welcome any corrections in the comments.  I'm not a professional and I don't work in either the cruise or shipbuilding industry, so my understanding is limited to what I've gleaned from various public sources over the years.  If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!