Norwegian Aura is ahead of schedule.
NCL’s largest ship was due to take her first passengers from Trieste on 21 May 2027. Now she’ll sail nearly three weeks earlier, on two new Mediterranean voyages.
The line says they exist because it expects Fincantieri to hand the ship over early.
Ten nights instead of seven
The first sailing leaves Trieste on 2 May and ends ten nights later in Athens (Piraeus). It calls at Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia, Bar in Montenegro, and the Greek islands of Corfu, Santorini and Mykonos.
The second sails the other way. It runs nine nights from Piraeus on 12 May back to Trieste, via Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini, Corfu, Bar, Split and Zadar.
That makes the seven-night Trieste sailing on 21 May, until now Aura’s maiden voyage, her third cruise.
Marc Kazlauskas, NCL’s president, said the early delivery lets the line “welcome guests aboard sooner than expected”.
One way, twice
Both new sailings are one-way. You join in one country and leave from another, so you’ll be flying out to one city and home from a different one.
Don’t plan those flights from the headline on NCL’s UK booking pages. The 2 May sailing is labelled a “Return Trip” from Venice, and the 12 May sailing is labelled Rome to Venice (Ravenna).
Neither title matches the sailing. The dates and ports say ten nights from Trieste to Athens, then nine nights from Athens back to Trieste.
You could book both back to back to make a 19-night round trip from Trieste. Before you do, compare the two lists of ports.
Mykonos, Santorini, Corfu, Bar and Split all appear on both, so you’d see five of the twelve ports twice.
Longer, and cheaper
On NCL’s UK site, the ten-night 2 May sailing starts at £1,475 per person for an inside cabin, and the nine-night 12 May sailing at £1,350. Both are based on two sharing, with taxes and port charges included.
That’s about £148 and £150 a night. A balcony is £2,165 on the first sailing and £1,980 on the second, or around £220 a night either way.
Then there’s the seven-night sailing on 21 May. It was sold as Aura’s maiden voyage from January, and it’s still priced like one.
Inside cabins on that sailing are already sold out, so its cheapest way aboard is an oceanview at £2,561. That’s about £366 a night, and a balcony is £2,891, about £413 a night.
That’s roughly double the new sailings, and double the transatlantic crossing that follows it too. An oceanview on that 13-night voyage to Miami works out at about £184 a night.
Put another way, a balcony on the ten-night 2 May cruise costs £726 less than a balcony on the seven-night one.
Book both new sailings together and an inside cabin for 19 nights comes to £2,825 per person. A balcony comes to £4,145.
The cheapest guarantee cabins and every solo cabin already show as sold out on both new sailings. On 21 May the list is longer still, taking in guarantee balconies and most of The Haven.
Those are NCL’s Just Cruise fares, with no drinks or extras. Adding Free at Sea, the line’s package of drinks, speciality dining, Wi-Fi and excursion credit, took an oceanview cabin on the 2 May sailing from £3,589 to £4,207 for two.
That’s £618 a cabin, or about £31 a night each, which is cheap for a premium drinks package alone.
Read what’s in it before you pay. The Wi-Fi is 150 minutes of Starlink, not unlimited. The $50 credit off each shore excursion goes to the first guest on the booking only, and the drinks package is for over-18s.
Fares captured from ncl.com/uk on 10 October 2026, per person, two sharing, including taxes, fees and port charges.
Early, if the shipyard agrees
NCL calls the early delivery anticipated, and it hasn’t put a date on the handover. Aura was floated out at Monfalcone in April, at the point where the work moves to fitting out her interiors.
The two new sailings only exist because of that early handover. If the yard timetable slips, nothing else depends on them, so they’re the ones most exposed.
That’s worth weighing before you book flights you can’t change.
Then she’s off to Miami
After 21 May, Aura’s European season is over. That sailing ends at Tarragona, which NCL sells as Barcelona, about 100km down the coast. The ship then crosses the Atlantic to Miami.
From June she sails the Caribbean, following the rest of NCL’s newest fleet away from Europe.
At about 170,000 tons and nearly 1,130 feet long, she’s 10% bigger than her sisters Norwegian Aqua and Norwegian Luna.
She carries an Indian restaurant and a spa pool that stages a thunderstorm, and a Whitney Houston show at the top of the bill.
The bottom line
For British cruisers, these two sailings are the only chance to try Aura in Europe at a normal fare. They’re longer than the sailing she was going to open with, they call at better ports, and they cost about half as much a night as that one still does.
The catch is a shipyard keeping to NCL’s hopes. Book it as you would any new ship’s first cruise: flexible flights, good insurance, and a plan B.
