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Norwegian Prima

Norwegian Cruise Line · Cruise · In service · built by Fincantieri

Norwegian Prima led a new class in 2022 at 142,500 GT, ending NCL's twelve-year run of ever-larger ships in favour of more space per passenger.

Length overall294 m
Beam42 m
Gross tonnage142,500 GT
Passengers3,099
Speed21 kn
Delivered2022
Our numbers

Derived metrics

Computed by ships.fyi from the core specification — see how we calculate these.

Passengers per metre#73 of 116
10.5 pax/m passengers (double occupancy) ÷ length overall
Length-to-beam ratio#118 of 142
7.00 length overall ÷ beam
Sense of scale

How big is it, really?

The Norwegian Prima's length overall, against things you already know the size of.

Norwegian Prima294 m
Eiffel Tower (height)330 m
Titanic269.06 m
Football pitch105 m
Boeing 747-876.3 m
Blue whale25 m
You (probably)1.75 m

The 747-8 held the longest-airliner record for over a decade, until Boeing's 777-9 took it by about 19 inches (76.72 m) — our sibling site aircraft.fyi measures everything that flies the same way.

One Norwegian Prima = 1.09 Titanics · 2.8 football pitches · 12 blue whales · 3.9 Boeing 747-8s laid end to end.

Plan a sailing on Norwegian Prima

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Specification

The numbers

Length overall≈294 m
Beam≈42 m
Gross tonnage142,500 GT
Passengers≈3,099 (double)
Crew≈1,388
Decks20
Service speed≈21 kn
Entered serviceAugust 2022

Last verified: 2026-07-15 · Spot an error? business@luck.fyi

The story

What makes it different

Norwegian Prima is the ship where NCL stopped chasing tonnage. Every class since 2010 had been larger than the last, ending with Norwegian Encore at 169,116 gross tons and nearly 4,000 passengers. Prima came in at 142,500 GT carrying around 3,100 — smaller, and deliberately so.

What the reduction bought is visible everywhere on board: Ocean Boulevard, a promenade circling the entire ship at Deck 8 with infinity pools cantilevered over the sides; a three-deck atrium with a glass sculpture rather than a shopping arcade; and the widest outdoor deck space per passenger in the fleet.

She was also the first NCL ship built by Fincantieri, ending a long relationship with Meyer Werft, and the first of six under the Prima programme. Christened in Reykjavík in August 2022, she signalled a strategy that the industry has broadly followed since — that beyond a certain size, the selling point stops being how much ship there is and becomes how much of it you can actually use.

The class

The Norwegian Prima line

Prima class
Lead ship of a six-ship programme: Prima (2022), Viva (2023), the stretched Prima-Plus pair Aqua (2025) and Luna (2026), and two Prima-Plus-Plus ships of 172,000 GT from 2027.
Project Leonardo
Developed under the project name Leonardo, and the first NCL ships built by Fincantieri rather than Meyer Werft.
Operators

Who operates the Norwegian Prima

All 1 operator of record, verified 2026-07-15. Figures marked ≈ are approximate.

NCLNorwegian Cruise LineNorthern Europe and Caribbean; christened in Reykjavík in August 2022.1
Quick answers

Norwegian Prima, asked and answered

How long is the Norwegian Prima?
294 m (965 ft) length overall — the #102 longest of the 142 ships on ships.fyi, and 2.8 football pitches end to end.
How big is the Norwegian Prima compared to the Titanic?
The Norwegian Prima is 1.09× the Titanic's length — 294 m against her 269.06 m. By volume the gap is starker still: 142,500 GT against Titanic's 46,328 GRT — roughly 3.1 times the tonnage, measured across two different rule eras.
Who operates the Norwegian Prima?
Norwegian Cruise Line. Current status: in service.
Does the Norwegian Prima fit through the Panama Canal?
Not the original locks — but yes through the 2016 Neopanamax locks: at 294 m by 42 m on a 8.5 m draft she clears the 366 × 51.25 × 15.2 m expanded gauge.