Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), also known as Norwegian, is the third-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, controlling about 8.7% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market by passengers.

The cruise line was founded as Norwegian Caribbean Line in 1966 by the Norwegian Knut Kloster and the Israeli Ted Arison, with a cruise ship/car ferry Sunward, which in 1966 operated as a car ferry between Southampton UK and Gibraltar, for that one short season only. Arison soon left to form Carnival Cruise Lines, while Kloster acquired additional ships for Caribbean service. Norwegian pioneered many firsts in the cruise industry, such as being the first cruise line to buy a private island, the first combined air-sea program, and the first company to develop new ports in the Caribbean, such as Ocho Rios in Jamaica. Overall, Norwegian was responsible for many of the cruise innovations that have now become standard throughout the industry.

Norwegian acquired Orient Lines in 1998, and shortly after, Norwegian itself was acquired in 2000 by Star Cruises, a subsidiary of Genting Hong Kong. In the following years, crew members and ships were exchanged between the companies as a way of uniting the relationship between the companies. In 2013, while still under Genting, NCL bought Prestige Cruise Holdings, which had ownership over Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, actively forming Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH). In 2018, Genting sold out all remaining shares of the company, actively forming two separate conglomerates.

Norwegian Cruise Line is the only major cruise line with a ship under the United States flag, the Pride of America, making it the only cruise ship with the rights to sail year-round in Hawaii.