Why Norwegian Epic Is the Only Cruise Ship of Its Kind

Norwegian Epic was not originally intended to be a unique ship.

Norwegian ordered two ships under its ambitious “F3” project, with an option for a third. Unfortunately, a major disagreement with the shipyard resulted in the second ship being cancelled.

This left Norwegian Epic as the only member of the Epic class, which is very unusual for such a large and expensive modern cruise ship.

Almost every large cruise ship has sister ships. Think of the groundbreaking “Icon” class ships of Royal Caribbean, “Edge Class” ships of Celebrity or “Prima Class” and “Prima Plus” Class on Norwegian.

Once a cruise line has spent huge amounts developing a ship design, it normally builds several versions of it. That makes perfect sense.

Norwegian Epic is different. Despite being one of Norwegian’s largest and most recognisable ships, there was no Norwegian Epic 2 built.

This was not the original plan.

Norwegian had intended to build at least two ships and potentially three – but the project unravelled while the first ship was still under construction.

The reason had much more to do with contracts, construction costs and a dispute with the shipyard than with Epic’s later reputation.

Was Norwegian Epic Supposed to Have a Sister Ship?

Yes, she certainly wasn’t designed to be a “one-off”.

Norwegian announced their “F3” project in September 2006

“F3” stood for the third generation of their “Freestyle” cruising ships

The F3 generation of ships was designed to break with traditional cruise constraints. She would have a high ratio of balcony cabins and some unique interior layouts.

• The firm order was for two approximately 150,000-gross-ton ships.
• Each was designed to carry around 4,200 passengers.
• Norwegian also held an option for a third sister ship.
• The ships were originally expected to arrive between 2009 and 2011.
• Only one was ever completed: the ship eventually named Norwegian Epic

Norwegian Epic is sometimes described as a “one-off design” – but she is only “one-off” because the rest of the project was cancelled.

What Was Norwegian’s F3 Project?

“F3” stood for Norwegian’s third generation of Freestyle Cruising ships.

The ships were intended to move Norwegian into the era of enormous resort-style cruise ships.

They were designed to be considerably larger than Norwegian’s existing ships.

Norwegian promoted them as a major evolution of its less-formal “Freestyle Cruising” concept.

Early announcements focused on unusual nightlife venues, flexible entertainment and radically different cabin designs.

Some of the ground-breaking concepts announced were:

• The unusual “New Wave” cabin design.
  • Featuring curved “S” shaped cabin walls.
• No traditional cabin bathroom design.
  • A separate shower, toilet and sink area are split across each side of the cabin.
• Solo Studio cabins and a dedicated Studio Lounge.
  • The first on any Norwegian Ship, this concept proved to be a huge success and was carried on to later Norwegian Ships.
• A large private suite complex that later developed into “The Haven”.
  • This “ship within a ship” concept was later copied by other cruise lines.
• Large-scale entertainment and nightlife venues.
  • Similar to those found on newer Norwegian ships.

Epic was designed to be deliberately different, rather than accidentally ending up strange.

Some of the concepts, such as the solo studio cabins and separate Haven area, were a success and were carried on to newer ships.

Less successful concepts – such as the quirky cabin design – weren’t.

Have a closer look at my balcony cabin onboard Norwegian Epic here:

What Happened to Norwegian Epic’s Sister Ship?

A Dispute Developed During Construction

By September 2008, Norwegian and the French shipyard building the ships were involved in a serious disagreement.

Reports at the time described the dispute as being connected to construction costs and design modifications.

Work on the F3 project was thrown into doubt while the two sides negotiated to reach an agreement.

Epic was already partly constructed, so simply abandoning the entire project would have been extremely expensive

Norwegian’s eventual public announcement about the cancellation of future ships did not provide a detailed blow-by-blow explanation. It simply said an agreement had been made:

NCL president Kevin Sheehan said: “With this agreement, we can all focus on completing the new vessel successfully. We, along with our subcontractors, will now make the necessary adjustments to our plans for this project.”

Norwegian and the Shipyard Reached a New Agreement

In December 2008, Norwegian and STX Europe announced that the original contract had been revised.

The first F3 ship would be completed; the second ship would no longer be built.

The option for a third ship was never exercised.

This left Norwegian Epic as the only completed F3 vessel.

Cancelling the Ship Was Expensive

Norwegian later reported a $128.8 million impairment loss connected with cancelling the shipbuilding contract.

This shows that the second ship was not merely an idea that Norwegian quietly decided against.

It was a committed project whose cancellation cost the company a substantial amount.

Did the 2008 Financial Crisis Play a Part?

The cancellation happened during the global financial crisis of 2008.

Building new cruise ships requires enormous long-term financial commitments.

Norwegian was already dealing with losses, fleet changes and cost-control measures around this time.

Continuing with a second experimental megaship would have represented a significant additional risk to the company’s finances.

The clearest documented cause was the contractual and financial dispute between Norwegian and the shipyard, but the general global downturn in 2008 could well have had a bearing on their decision.

The financial crisis almost certainly made the timing worse, but Norwegian and the shipyard publicly framed the outcome as a revised agreement following their dispute, rather than naming the financial crisis as the sole reason.

Was the Sister Ship Cancelled Because People Hated Norwegian Epic?

No. It seems to be a widely held opinion that the Norwegian Epic was so hated by the public that another one was never built. This certainly wasn’t the case.

The agreement to cancel the second F3 ship was announced in December 2008. Norwegian Epic was not delivered until June 2010. Passengers had therefore never sailed on Epic when the decision was made.

Complaints about the ship’s bathroom arrangement, exterior appearance or layout could not have caused the cancellation.

The ship’s later mixed reputation may explain why Norwegian never returned to this exact design, but it did not cause plans for the original sister ship to be cancelled.

How Rare Is It for a Cruise Ship to Have No Sisters?

It is not completely unheard of, but it is unusual for a large modern cruise ship to have no sisters.

Cruise lines normally order ships in groups or classes.

Reusing one design spreads development costs across several ships.

It also simplifies crew training, maintenance, spare parts, deck planning and marketing when ships are of the same design.

Even when sister ships are not identical, they generally share the same hull and underlying structure.

There are two types of one-off ship:

Ships Deliberately Designed for a Unique Purpose

For example, Queen Mary 2.

She was built as an Ocean Liner capable of undertaking regular North Atlantic crossings.

She remains the world’s only operating Ocean Liner. Ocean Liners are designed to make “line crossings”. (From one country to another – New York to Southampton, for example.

Her design needed to be different to meet the challenges of crossing vast oceans in bad weather.

Find out more about the unique Ocean Liner features that Queen Mary 2 has here:

Queen Mary 2 vs. Other Cruise Ships: What Makes Her Unique?

Ships That Became One-Offs Because Plans Changed

Norwegian Epic falls into this category.

She was intended to have sisters.

The design was not originally supposed to stand alone.

Contractual, financial and construction problems stopped the class after one ship.

This makes Epic’s situation more unusual than a ship that was purposefully commissioned as a single specialised vessel.

What Would Norwegian Epic’s Sister Ship Have Been Like?

She would have generally shared the same F3 design.

Norwegian’s early announcements discussed the unusual cabins, nightlife and public spaces as features of both ships.

It would probably have had the same basic exterior profile and much of the same internal arrangement.

There may still have been design tweaks between the first and second ships, as happens across most ship classes.

There is no finished mystery sister ship sailing for another cruise line. The order was completely cancelled, rather than the completed vessel being sold and renamed/rebranded.

Why Didn’t Norwegian Build Another Epic Later?

After Epic, Norwegian changed direction.

The next generation of ships was the Breakaway class, beginning with Norwegian Breakaway and Norwegian Getaway.

These ships were smaller than Epic and were built by Meyer Werft in Germany rather than the French shipyard responsible for Epic.

The popular Breakaway design was then developed into the larger Breakaway Plus ships.

Norwegian therefore continued building large resort ships, but did not repeat Epic’s exact design.

Features from Epic ( such as the solo studio cabins) were repeated, and new features, such as “The Waterfront”, where venues and restaurants spill out onto the Promenade deck, were introduced.

I particularly like this “Waterfront” design. It makes good use of the promenade deck, and means you don’t have to sit up on the top deck to get fresh air and sea views.

Sailing on the Norwegian Epic recently, I can definitely see her as a “stepping stone” between the small, more traditional layout of the older Norwegian ships and the newer ships – Breakaway, Prima, Luna, Aqua, etc.

Was Norwegian Epic a Failed Experiment?

Some see Norwegian Epic as a failed experiment. Reasons given are often:

• No second Epic-class ship was ever built.
• Several aspects of the ship remain divisive – the cabins in particular come in for a lot of criticism.
• The split bathroom design was not repeated in the same form across Norwegian’s later mainstream ships.
• Norwegian changed shipyard and created a different class for its next new vessels, rather than trying this design of ship again.

Norwegian Epic does have lots of positive points though:

• Epic has remained in service since 2010.
• Norwegian has continued investing in and refurbishing the ship.
• Epic introduced or expanded ideas that became important to Norwegian.
  • Solo Studio cabins and studio lounges continued on to later ships.
  • The private suite complex developed into The Haven, found on all later ships.
• Large-scale entertainment, speciality dining and resort-style attractions became central to Norwegian’s later ships.
• Norwegian announced further upgrades to Epic in 2025, showing that it still sees value in the vessel and she will remain in the Norwegian fleet.

Although Epic’s exact design was never repeated, many of her original design ideas survive on newer ships.

Have a closer look at my last cruise on Norwegian Epic here:

My Personal Experience Of Epic

My first memory of seeing Norwegian Epic was when I was on a family holiday to the Azores in October 2011.

She had made a stop in Ponta Delgada as part of a transatlantic repositioning cruise.

I was stunned by how big and square she was! She must have been only a year old at that time.

A few years later, my family took a Christmas cruise on her from Barcelona to the Canary Isles.

At that point I had no thoughts of posting cruise reviews on the internet, and accepted her for what she was.

I had no idea that the cabin design was controversial, as I hadn’t had much experience of other ships to compare her with.

I shared an inside cabin with my brother, and we didn’t give the cabin design a second thought.

In 2026 I took another cruise on her, and had a balcony cabin.

I can see why the split bathroom arrangement wouldn’t suit everybody, but it didn’t have any real negative impact on my cruise.

I found it very easy to see how the design of the ship had evolved into the newer ships.

The best ideas from Epic were carried forward, and the unsuccessful ones were never used again.

I must say, I think the outside design of the newer ships is far more streamlined and pleasing to the eye than the bulky, square Epic. She is a bit of an ugly duckling!

Have a look at one of the newest ships in the Norwegian fleet, Norwegian Luna, in the video below.

You can clearly see how the design of the Norwegian ships has evolved in the last sixteen years since Epic was launched.

Before You Go

When I was on Epic, I took a free “behind the scenes” tour, which took us to some very interesting areas of the ship – including the pilot door. Find out more about that here:

The Cruise Ship Door Most Passengers Never See (Behind The Scenes Tour)

Find out which of the Norwegian ships have the popular solo cabins and solo lounges here:

Which Norwegian Cruise Ships Have Studio-Specific Cabins For Solos