Norwegian Dream

The Norwegian Dream was built as Dreamward by Chantiers de L'atlantique at Saint Nazaire, France. This wharf originates from the French Line when it was started up by its founder Eugene Pereire in 1862. Her yardnumber was C30 and the ship had a lenght of 190,04 meters, a width of 28,80 meters and a draft of 6,80 meters. As built, her tonnage measured 39.172 and she was designed for 1246 passengers. Already during the building, there was thought about the eventual lenghtening possibilities of the ship, so the company did not have to order new ships to get more capacity.  When she was launched, at the 24th of february 1992, she was the first of a pair of two. Her sister, launched one year later, was the Windward, later Norwegian Wind. 

Dreamward was named at Port Everglades at the 5th of december 1992 by the wife of the former American president George W. Bush, Barbara, starting Caribbean cruising to Bermuda the following day. At that moment, the company was still called Norwegian Caribbean Lines and Caribbean cruising was the core business for the Norwegian company. The livery of the ships then was the original NCL livery, with a white funnel and red and blue stripes at the hull. Hullart, as we see today on the newest NCL ships, was not yet introduced.

In 1997, Norwegian Caribbean Lines had grown significantly and they started offering cruises outside the Caribbean. Because of this, the company changed its name to Norwegian Cruise Line, so they kept their initials because the company was more or less known as NCL. Following this namechange, also the names of the ships were restyled. They lost their original names ending at -ward and got the 'Norwegian' names. The -ward naming was started with the companies first ship Sunward when she was ordered for Klosters Rederi. At this time, Klosters still was planning to become a car ferry company, sailing between Southern England and Spain. 

Dreamward was not only renamed to Norwegian Dream, but she was also lenghtened, as planned. She was split into two and a new midsection of 40 meters was placed in the middle. After rebuilding, that was carried out at the Lloyd Werft at Bremerhaven, Germany, the ship measured some 50.764 tons and she now had a lenght of 229,84 meters. Of course, this was all done to increase her passenger capacity, that was now 2156. They were served by 700 crewmembers. After the lenghtening, the ship was also sailing European cruises, mostly from Dover in England. The newer ships of the company, that were also built, although it was meant thet the lenghtening of the Windward and Dreamward was to be done instead, were now sailing the Caribbean.

On the 24th of august of 1999, Norwegian Dream collided with the Ever Decent, an Evergreen container ship some 17 miles out of the coast of Margate, southern England. This happened because there had been a fire aboard the container ship and she was powerless, and next to that there was a dence fog so the crew of the Ever Decent was not able to spot Norwegian Dream on time. At Norwegian Dream, three people were injured and those were brought to a hospital, taken there by helicopter. Several cargo containers from Ever Decent plunged into the sea and two landed on the bow of Norwegian Dream. The ship was damaged at her bow and bridgewing and she was heading for Dover to be inspected.

In 2004, ownership of the Norwegian Dream was changed to that of the mothercompany of NCL, the Malaysian company Star Cruises. It was thought that the ship would be transferred to the Asian fleet to make room for more modern ships within the NCL fleet, or that the ship would be sold in time. But she kept sailing for Norwegian Cruise Line for the time being. On the 10th of december 2007, Norwegian Dream again was in a collission, this time off Montevideo, Uruguay. She colided with a barge this time, that lost five containers and several cars. These had plunged into the harbour entrance, causing the port to be closed for some time before they were recovered.

On april 22, 2008, Norwegian Dream was finally sold to Louis Cruise Lines of Cyprus, that were looking for ships to modernize their aging fleet. The sum for the ship was 218 million dollars, way too high for the value of the ship. But Louis agreed to pay this sum upon delivery, but backed out of the deal due to 'technical issues related to the vessel'. Because of this, Norwegian Dream was sometimes in lay up and sometimes she sailed the Mediterranean to keep running her engines while she awaited a buyer. Meanwhile, Louis Cruise Lines as well as Pullmantur Cruises inspected the ship for maybe an eventual deal, but nothing seem to happen to the ship. In november 2012, she was laid up at Freeport at the Bahamas. Later, she went back to the mediterranean and was also seen in Singapore.

inally, on the 9th of september 2012, the mothercompany of NCL, Star Cruises, announced that they were going to refurbish the ship and give her a new lease of life. From the end of december 2012 onwards, she sails for Star Cruises as SuperStar Gemini in the Far east, homeported in several ports but one of her main departureports seems to be Singapore.

The pictures show Norwegian Dream at an unsceduled stop in Amsterdam at the 9th of may 2003. She was supposed to dock at Copenhagen, but due to too much ice here she was reverted to Amsterdam. It was the first and only time the ship docked in The Netherlands.