The planned works will involve around 1400 people and 40+ onboard venues and areas. Following the refit, NCL Joy starts Alaskan cruises from homeport Seattle WA, then will be repositioned for Mexican Riviera cruise from homeport Los Angeles CA. The company specializes in cruise ship refurbishment and interior design services. The refurb project will be managed by MJM Marine (part of MJM Group (Northern Ireland UK). The ship will be relocated from China to the USA. In 2019, NCL Joy was drydock refurbished to become virtually identical to sistership Norwegian Bliss - NCL's most successful liner ever. The characters for “Joy” mean “Inner Joy”.
On Oct 12, 2015, was announced that the vessel will be renamed and designed specifically for the Chinese market, The new name “Norwegian Joy” (in Chinese glyphs 喜悦号 / Xi Yue Hao) was officially announced on Febru(leap year). Its construction (under the name Norwegian Bliss) started on Sept 16, 2015.
Norwegian Joy (2017-built, initially named “Norwegian Bliss”, last refurbished in 2019, scheduled refurbishment 2024 January-February) is the second of all four Breakaway Plus-class NCL cruise ships - together with the sisterships Norwegian Escape (2015), Norwegian Bliss (2018), Norwegian Encore (2019).
