Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) recently placed an order for no less than four ships to be completed between 2022 and 2025. These ships, to be built by Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, will be slightly smaller than Norwegian’s last ship category – Breakaway Plus.

The new vessels will have roughly 15% less overall space, translating to just over 20% less passengers onboard, than the Norwegian Escape’s current numbers. This is not the first time NCL has gone smaller. One of their newest ships, the Norwegian Breakaway, is smaller than the Norwegian Epic, which came before her.

So how does going smaller benefit NCL? By bringing down building costs and allowing the cruise line to reposition existing, larger vessels to other parts of the world. These new ships will cost less to build, simply because they are smaller. The reduced size will allow these ships to utilize smaller, premium home ports, and will free up the fleet’s larger vessels to reposition to areas more conducive to big-ship cruising, like the Caribbean.