Norwegian Cruise Line execs talk state of the cruising industry | Interview
Go behind the scenes with us at the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Creative Studios as we hear from NCL’s leadership about the company’s future and the state of the cruise industry.
Norwegian Cruise Line is already the world’s fourth-largest cruise line, and their Florida footprint is set to grow even further when the new NCL Aqua launches this April out of Miami.
Norwegian recently invited a select group of media to tour their Creative Studios near Tampa, a massive facility where every element — from sets and costumes to singers and dancers — is meticulously assembled for the scores of live shows performed aboard their global fleet. Here are excerpts from an exclusive interview with NCL President David J. Herrera and Bryan White, VP of Entertainment Production.
What first sparked your interest in the cruise industry?
David J. Herrera: My very first cruise would have been in 1981 and it was a one-day cruise to the Bahamas. I don’t remember the cruise line, but I remember vividly going because I was standing next to my mother and my father in the casino, and my sister was next to me. They said, I’m sorry, you have to be 18 to be here. And I was 11, 10 years old. And my sister is only two years older than I am, but she looked older, so they asked me to leave, and I turned and looked my sister and said, “You have to come too, because you’re not 18.” I just love cruising. I love being in the business of cruising. I love watching people have family life moments together, so that, for me, is the real origin of it.
Bryan White: My first contract as a shipboard crew member was on the Norwegian Epic, which was at the time, the third-largest ship in the world, and one of the most confusing ships for a crew member who’d never been on a ship before. The first cruise I ever took as a crew member was a transatlantic crossing, so two weeks on the ocean, and what can I say? I fell in love with it.
How has the cruise industry recovered post-COVID?
Herrera: We were shut down for literally 500 days, so we weren’t able to start sailing until July 2021 and we knew that 2022 was going to be a ramp-up year, and we all expected that 2023 was going to be a transitionary year. I would tell you that timeline moved up. It took a little while before we started getting new-to-brand or new-to-cruise [passengers], more specifically, to come back.
The past guests, they were excited; the moment that we started sailing, our ships were significantly over-indexed to past guests. I don’t think people woke up and said, “You know, now’s the perfect time to take a cruise.” We did well in ‘21; ‘22 wasn’t so much a transitionary year, it was that pent-up demand really, really took off.
In the cruise industry, unlike a theme park, there’s usually a longer tail. People don’t buy a cruise for Friday on a Tuesday. It’s usually anywhere from three, six, up to 12 months, depending on the product. So we were very excited when we saw the booking activity in 2022, and it really came full bore in 2023. In 2024 we had record yields, record load factor, and 2025 has started very strong. Obviously, as a public company, we can only say so much prior to earnings. But I would tell you that we are very happy, not only with our performance in 2024, but we’re very happy with our overall outlook as an organization.
We continue to be very optimistic, because the underlying demographics of the cruise industry continue to develop favorably. Over the last year or so, I think the entire industry, we’ve all been pleasantly surprised with the abundance of Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, who are proactively looking to get on a cruise for slightly different reasons. They’re not looking to acquire products, they’re not looking to acquire assets; they’re looking to acquire experiences. And there’s no better value to get lifelong experiences than on a cruise: it’s a great value, it’s a great experience, and we pride ourselves in delivering both for our guests.
Who is NCL’s target demographic in Florida?
Herrera: We have a saying here at Norwegian Cruise Line: we offer something for everyone, but our goal is to be everything for someone. So whether it is a baby-boomer couple that is now retired and finally has the opportunity to see the world — either through our European cruises, or Alaska cruises, or more exotic Hawaii week-long product, or even Asia, Australia, South America — that cruiser has the ability to check their bucket list. But at the same time, we have a wide variety of Caribbean/closer-to-home cruises. We sail out of New York and go to Bermuda. We have 19 home ports in the United States for 2025.
Specifically out of Florida, we sail out of out of Miami, out of Port Canaveral, [and] out of Tampa. We have five ships sailing out of Tampa in 2025 and six ships sailing out of Orlando [Port Canaveral] in 2026. In fact, two of our newer ships are sailing out of Port Canaveral in 2025.
If you live in Florida, you have access to all these different ports of embarkation … I would tell you that our Florida guests are some of the more astute shoppers. They see that there is an opportunity to take advantage of the Florida resident rate as well as take advantage of everything that Norwegian has to offer. So I’m very, very happy with the sourcing that we have been able to achieve in the Florida market.
How do the Florida theme parks influence NCL’s entertainment offerings?
White: I think that the theme park entertainment product certainly does influence some of the preferences of some of our guests, in terms of the type of entertainment that they’re wanting to see.
One of the things that is really interesting about the theme park industry and the cruise ship industry and the physical environment that you’re in: there’s a lot of competition for attention. If you’re on a ship, the competition is for the casino and the buffet and the destination and your cabin. If you’re in a theme park, the competition is the roller coaster. So we create in very similar environments, and I do think that there’s a little bit of a feedback loop of a guest who loves theme park entertainment. Their preferences are going to be slightly different than a guest who doesn’t when they come on a cruise.
Image courtesy of weigand.waterrides
Herrera: One of the things that I think our guests really appreciate about our cruise ships and our private islands is the diversity of amenities, diversity of activities, not only from an entertainment perspective. On our private island, you can go snorkeling, you can go zip lining; there’s a lot of adventurous opportunities, both on the island and also on the ship.
Aqua, our newest ship, she’s gonna have the Aquaslide coaster, first of its kind. It’s a hybrid water coaster slide. It projects you out, you go through the loop, you go around and go off the side of the ship, and you come back in. We’re thrilled.
When you juxtapose the theme park industry with cruising, some of the similarities are the opportunity to have a little bit of something for everyone. I love the Florida theme parks. I absolutely do. I’ll tell you what, though; my kids, who are 14 and 15, they like it a lot more than I do. But what’s great about being on a cruise ship is the idea of everyone goes off and does their thing in a safe environment, where you get together as a family, you have a meal together, you spend quality time together, you create those lifetime memories. But it’s the diversity [and] variety of options for you that I think is really compelling for a cruise vacation.
Why build NCL Creative Studio in Central Florida?
White: From a talent standpoint, because of where we are in Tampa, we have a lot of great universities and training programs that give us access to some of the top theatrical talent in the world, but also folks that come from the various theme parks in Central Florida. We’re able to attract all of that talent here. They’re able to bring their diversity of experience, their different perspectives, and it just continues to enhance what we’re able to deliver to our guests.
It’s an attractive area to live in, as anybody who’s looked at the housing market in the Tampa/St. Pete area can attest. It’s a very attractive area for people to live in, having access to one of the nicest and most direct international airports in the world.
We are bringing cast members in from all around the world, so we’ve got to get these folks in and be able to get them out really cleanly, as well as having really nice access to various ports. Being able to access Port of Tampa Bay, being able to access Port Canaveral, being able to access Miami all within within a day has proven to be really valuable for some of the training processes that we have to put our team members through.
So it really has worked out to be a fantastic location for us, and has allowed us also the space to be able to physically grow so that we can continue delivering more entertainment for our guests.
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