Aboard the Norwegian Prima: Is This The Best Ship In The Fleet?

Almost two years after we booked it, we finally boarded the Norwegian Prima last September for an epic ten day cruise. It feels like a lifetime ago now but we sailed from Reykjavik in Iceland around Iceland, Norway, Holland and Belgium before arriving back in the UK.

The trip itself was a dream and we saw so many amazing places. But what was the ship like?

The Norwegian Prima ship

The Norwegian Prima is one of the newest ships within the Norwegian line. It was built in 2022 and was the first of the Prima class of ship.

It’s quite a big ship (compared to Norwegian ships) with a guest capacity of just over 3,000. But when you compare it to other cruise liners it’s not that big at all.

When we booked this cruise back in 2022 we chose it partially for the actual destinations, but also because we wanted to try a newer ship with a few more things to do. But considering the price increase for a newer ship, I’m not convinced it was worth it.

Things we loved about the Norwegian Prima

I’ll start with running through some of the things we enjoyed about this particular ship. This is mainly compared to the Star that we’d previously sailed on.

The Indulge Food Hall

Most ships have similar dining, and on Norwegian you’ll get a main dining room, buffet and some sort of bar/ local grill all included within the price of your cruise. But the Prima had somewhere called the Indulge Food Hall. It was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and it was one of our favourite spots.

Breakfast was just a smaller buffet, but we always found it so quiet (and peaceful). Then for lunch and dinner you ordered via a terminal on your table where you could chose small dishes for multiple different food stands. There was an Indian, Latin, Smokehouse, Tapas and so much more. We both loved being able to order loads of smaller dishes, and we had some strange combinations.

I remember one night sitting there with a garlic naan bread, pesto gnocchi and some steak all at once. It’s such a great concept and you can order as many rounds as you want.

The amount of specialty dining

As the Prima is a larger ship there were a huge amount of choice when it came to specialty dining with eight restaurants in total. We had two free dining passes when we booked and we also added on an extra two each. As we love it we did go to Cagney’s Steakhouse twice which was excellent as usual.

Then this time we tried Los Lobos, a Mexican restaurant and Onda the Italian. And both meals were excellent.

The spa

We love going to the spa and having treatments anywhere we go. So for our Prima cruise it’s something we had budgeted for. And the spa onboard the Prima was exceptional. It was much bigger than the on the Star and had so many different sauna’s, steam rooms and salt rooms to try out.

We opted to head there while we were docked as it’s always quieter. And for a few hours we had the space either to ourselves or with just a handful of other people.

Syd Norman’s Pour House

As well as the main theatre there were a few smaller spaces to catch evening entertainment including Syd Norman’s Pour House. It was decked out like a bar and each day there would be two performances from a band or act. I absolutely loved the vibe of the place, it felt a bit like the bar’s in Camden. And the show we saw was rock and roll theatre so the performers did a show featuring loads of Broadway music which I loved.

The only thing which was tricky on this was that it was so small and if you wanted to get in (never mind a seat) you had to queue quite a while before the show started. We queued for about 45 minutes before doors opened the night we went and we only just got seats. It was worth it for a show but I wouldn’t do that every night.

Things we didn’t love about the Norwegian Prima

Indoor seating

The Prima has a lot of outdoor seating across various decks and around the pool. And for the destinations in the Caribbean I’m sure these spaces are massively used. But the Prima does a lot of Northern Europe cruises, and Transatlantic cruises when it’s a lot colder so these spaces can’t be used much or any of the time.

The indoor seating was very minimal, especially for a busier cruise. So many times we wandered round spots on about five different floors couldn’t find a single seat. Then after admitting defeat we ended up going to sit in our rooms.

Activity maintenance

While the choice of additional activities was really cool and we enjoyed what we did, we did encounter quite a few issues. On the mini golf my ball just wasn’t being tracked so it showed that I got a hole in one every time. While this made my score look insane, it wasn’t as fun. And the people working at the mini golf couldn’t/ wouldn’t do anything about it.

Then when we played darts (which was electronic) the board wasn’t fully aligned. So you’d hit the 20 right in the middle but it would register as the next slot which was a 1, etc. It made playing games when we needed specific scores almost impossible to play. And again the staff couldn’t offer us anything, especially as half of the other booths just weren’t open.

For a ship as new as the Norwegian Prima I’d have expected the activities to have worked properly so this was a little disappointing.