Norwegian Cruise Line’s 2024/25 season will triple its offerings in Asia Pacific, and allow guests to explore deeper than ever before.
Norwegian Cruise Line is set to expand its sailings in Asia next year, bursting back into the region with three ships – Norwegian Spirit, Norwegian Sun and Norwegian Sky (the latter two making their debut in Asia) – tripling the line’s offering in the region and extending a full eight months from October 2024 through to May 2025.
For the new season, expect port-rich and country-intensive itineraries with fewer sea days and even more overnight stays in-country, thanks to the smaller size of Norwegian Sun and Norwegian Sky allowing access to smaller ports.
Cruisers can choose from hundreds of shore excursions, from a night in vibrant Phuket to a cycle rickshaw tour around Ho Chi Minh City’s colonial architecture, pagodas and markets.
Norwegian Sun and Norwegian Sky have joined the Asia sailings for 2024/25.
Asia destinations
With new ships heading to Asia, Norweigan Cruise Line is offering a deeper dive into Asia than ever before: Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia are all on the itinerary. Some itineraries will even take you through parts of Africa and The Maldives.
Departure ports include Tokyo and Osaka; Singapore; Colombo; Ko Samui; Bali (Benoa); Kuala Lumpur (Port Klang); Lembar (Lombok); Malé; Seoul; and NCL’s first departure from Akita.
Relax in idyllic Ko Samui.
Itinerary highlights
Asia cruises range from 10 to 14 days, with an average of fewer than two sea days per voyage, and a great mix of tropical islands, major cities and lesser-known ports.
Discover the stunning colours of Japan in Autumn with Japanese autumn foliage cruises board Norwegian Sun, or view the iconic spring sight of cherry blossoms on a collection of popular Japanese spring cherry blossom cruises aboard Norwegian Sky.
View the iconic spring sight of cherry blossoms in Japan.
New voyages to and from Seoul in March 2024 will include an excursion to the fascinating volcanic landscape – from craters to cavelike lava tubes – on Jeju Island.
Explore further around Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines thanks to a suite of country-intensive Asia cruises aboard both Norwegian Sky and Sun.
Or take your adventure beyond Asia with a new 17-Day Asia: Maldives, Thailand & Seychelles Extraordinary Journey sailing across the Indian Ocean from Mauritius to Singapore. Stop along the way at 10 different ports from Madagascar and the Seychelles to Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Stop in the Maldives before ending your cruise in Asia.
What to expect onboard Norwegian Cruise Line
Returning for another year, mid-size Norwegian Spirit can accommodate 2,376 passengers in 1,118 recently revamped cabins and larger suites. The Haven, located in an exclusive area at the top of the ship, offers the most luxurious suites and villas for up to eight people, with concierge and butler service, and a private sundeck and pool.
Enjoy a tipple in the Champagne Bar.
Among the 15 dining venues are Sushi, Teppanyaki and Chin Chin, which serve freshly prepared Asian cuisine, a Brazilian steakhouse, a French bistro, an Italian restaurant, a cafe with a bakery, and plenty of complimentary options. Speciality bars focus on specific beverages such as sake, whiskey, beer, cocktails, Champagne and wine, or guests can enjoy the poolside bar, O’Sheehan’s Bar & Grill, and the Ultra Bliss Lounge nightclub.
A theatre hosts free shows including Rock You Tonight, covering hits by Queen, Journey and The Who, as well as Blazing Boots, a full-scale production that is a tribute to pop country.
Spend sunny days on the pool deck.
Guests can get also be pampered at Mandara Spa® and Thermal Suite, which houses a thalassotherapy pool, steam room and sauna. Other amenities include pools, spas, casino, kids and teens clubs, a card room, a library, video arcade, and basketball, tennis and volleyball courts.
Norwegian Sun and Norwegian Sky provide more intimate experiences, with a guest capacity of 1936 and 2004 respectively. A smaller size certainly doesn’t mean less to do, however.
Norwegian Sky, refurbished in 2019, offers guests 10 dining options and plenty of bars and lounges to relax in. Take a splash in its two spacious outdoor pools or head to the award-winning Mandara Spa for some pampering between destinations. Find a further range of activities and entertainment to keep guests busy, from dance floors to the Comedy variety show at the Stardust Theatre to outdoor Basketball and Volleyball courts. Kids can stay busy at the Splash Academy kids club and children’s pool, plus there’s the teen hangout, Entourage.
Splash in one of two spacious outdoor pools.
Aboard Norwegian Sun, a full 15 dining options, plus bars and lounges, keep culinary choices fresh. Stop by Cagney’s Steakhouse for a prime steak, or let your tastebuds travel the world with French, Italian, Brazilian, Asian and Japanese cuisine options. Here, you can also enjoy Rock You Tonight and once again, Splash Academy keeps kids busy (as well as a video arcade) while adults relax in Mandara Spa.
Stop by Cagneys Steakhouse for a hearty feed.
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Key dates for Asia season
Thanks to the two new ships the 2024/2025 season will be longer than ever, stretching out to a full eight months. Sailings start in October 2024 and continue through to May the following year.
The Asia season for Norweigan Jewel includes some incredible destinations.
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After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
Asia Cruises With NCL Expand in 2024/25 - International Traveller
