| IMO | 9751511 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 169,116 GT |
| Length | 333.44 m |
| Beam | 41.36 m |
| Passenger capacity (double) | 3998 |
| Crew | 1735 |
| Service speed | 22.5 knots |
| Builder | Meyer Werft |
| Hull number | S.708 |
| Launched | 2019 |
| Maiden voyage | 2019-11-02 |
| Class | Breakaway Plus-class cruise ship |
| Operator | Norwegian Cruise Line |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Norwegian Encore is the fourth and final ship of Norwegian Cruise Line's Breakaway Plus class, built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg, Germany, and commissioned in November 2019. She is the largest ship Norwegian has operated, and the dataset's tonnage of 168,800 GT should be read against the figure in her own ship article, 169,116 GT — a small discrepancy of the kind that arises when a roster records a design or orderbook tonnage rather than the as-delivered measurement. The as-delivered figure is the one used in Norwegian's own fleet material.
Encore arrived just months before the COVID-19 shutdown of 2020, so her first year was largely spent laid up rather than sailing — a strange debut for a billion-dollar flagship. She has carried one name and one operator throughout.
Key specifications
The dataset records only IMO number, builder, hull number, year and tonnage for this hull, so the fuller picture comes from her ship article. She is 333.44 metres long overall, with a waterline beam of 41.36 metres and a maximum beam of 48.13 metres over her extremities, a draught of about 8.7 metres and 20 decks in total, 16 of them passenger decks. Her capacity is 3,998 passengers at double occupancy, and published crew figures vary between about 1,735 and 2,100 depending on the source and what is counted.
Her machinery is a diesel-electric plant built around five MAN B&W 48/60CR engines with a total installed power of about 76,800 kW, giving a cruising speed of about 22.5 knots. She cost a reported US$1 billion, the most expensive ship Norwegian had ordered at the time.
Design and construction
Encore was ordered on 14 July 2014 as the last of the Breakaway Plus quartet, an enlargement of Norwegian's Breakaway design. Meyer Werft builds ships of this size in a covered building dock at Papenburg and then conveys them down the River Ems to the North Sea. Her keel was laid on 28 November 2018 and she was floated out on 17 August 2019 — a fast build by the standards of a ship this size, reflecting a mature, repeated design.
She was completed and delivered on 30 October 2019. Her hull carries artwork by the Spanish artist Eduardo Arranz-Bravo, a colourful abstract composition in the line's tradition of painted hulls that began with its earlier ships.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
Encore was christened on 21 November 2019 in Miami by her godmother, the singer Kelly Clarkson. Her maiden voyage had in fact already taken place: she sailed from Bremerhaven on 2 November 2019, crossing the Atlantic to begin her inaugural programme — as with several ships in this directory, the ceremonial naming followed the commercial debut rather than preceding it.
The name itself was a piece of theatre language — an encore, one more performance — fitting both the ship's entertainment-led design and her position as the final, largest repeat of the Breakaway Plus design.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2019–present | Norwegian Encore | Norwegian Cruise Line |
Encore has had a single operator and a single name. Her early career was defined less by deployment than by interruption: commissioned in November 2019, she had been in service only a few months when the industry-wide pandemic shutdown of March 2020 took her out of service, and she returned as cruising restarted. Itineraries are deliberately not catalogued here; this directory records the ship, not her sailings.
Onboard character
The Breakaway Plus class's defining architectural idea, carried furthest in Encore, is The Waterfront — a quarter-mile oceanfront promenade on Deck 8 lined with bars and restaurants with outdoor seating, wrapping the ship at the level where earlier designs put enclosed public rooms. It was Norwegian's answer to a criticism of mega-ships: that passengers could spend a week at sea barely seeing the ocean.
Her era-defining attractions sat on the top deck: the Encore Speedway, a two-level go-kart racetrack — the largest Norwegian had built — and an open-air laser-tag course, alongside the Galaxy Pavilion, an indoor virtual-reality complex. At the bow of Deck 15 sat the Observation Lounge, a two-storey windowed lounge that was among the largest quiet spaces on any ship of her generation. Together these defined late-2010s Norwegian: competitive, activity-led, and organised around "freestyle" choice rather than fixed routines.
Major refits and incidents
Encore underwent a significant revitalisation drydock in late 2024, her first major refit. Reporting on the work describes the addition of the adults-only Spice H2O lounge, an enlargement of The Haven suite complex including new suites, and changes to her restaurant mix. No structural change to the hull was involved.
No major incident involving Norwegian Encore was found in the sources consulted for this guide.
Sister ships and class
The Breakaway Plus class comprises Norwegian Escape (2015), Norwegian Joy (2017), Norwegian Bliss (2018) and Norwegian Encore (2019), all built by Meyer Werft at Papenburg as enlarged derivatives of the two Breakaway-class ships, Norwegian Breakaway and Norwegian Getaway. Joy was originally designed for the Chinese market and later refitted for the North American market, the class's most divergent member. Encore, as the last and largest, closed Norwegian's run of Meyer-built mega-ships before the line moved to Fincantieri for its Prima class.
Fate and where she is now
Norwegian Encore remains in active service with Norwegian Cruise Line, registered at Nassau in the Bahamas, as the dataset records. Still the largest ship in the fleet by tonnage on her article's figures, she is a young hull whose recorded history is so far one of a pandemic-interrupted debut and a single early refit rather than of changes of name, owner or role.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Encore