Pride of Hawaii Cruise Undergoes Various Changes

The cruise ship Pride of Hawaii, the most popular among tourists, will run on Hawaiian waters on seven-day roundtrips through a Jan. 28 cruise, but it will then get a new name Norwegian Jade. Also, it will have a new paint job and a new itinerary. NCL is ending the vessel's Hawaii deployment and instead assigning it to Europe.

The $500 million ship will undergo some modifications next February, including the addition of a casino and new hull artwork. The current artwork features tropical flowers. Following stops in Los Angeles and Miami, the ship will then arrive in Barcelona, Spain, on March 30, 2008, for its first European cruise, NCL said. The newly renamed ship is slated to sail 12-, 13 and 14-day cruises in the eastern and western Mediterranean before repositioning to Southampton, England, it said.

In its move to Europe, the ship will be joining two sister ships, Norwegian Gem and Norwegian Jewel. The departure of Pride of Hawaii will leave the state with two NCL cruise ships, Pride of Aloha and Pride of America.

Colin Veitch, NCL's president and CEO, had said the company needs to make sure those two ships can make a profit before Pride of Hawaii can be reintroduced into the Hawaii market. NCL earlier reported it had a net loss of $130.9 million on total revenues of $2 billion in 2006, compared with net income of $16.2 million on total revenues of $1.6 billion in 2005.

The company attributed the loss to "downward pricing pressure" in the Hawaii market following the addition of the Pride of Hawaii to its island fleet last summer. It also cited an increase in the amount of foreign-flag competition entering the Hawaii market from the West Coast.