NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE said its third generation of Freestyle cruise ships will not have main dining rooms, main theaters or Lido deck cafes and will not have traditional cruise ship cabins. The 4,200-passenger vessels, NCL's largest, will have many features that will be "unrecognizable" to cruisers, said Colin Veitch, NCL's president and CEO. The first of  the two 150,000-gross-ton ships will be delivered in January 2010. Veitch also said that the Norwegian Jade will be the first NCL ship to get the multimillion-dollar enhancements of the line's Freestyle 2.0 initiative when the vessel, the former Pride of Hawaii, debuts in the Mediterranean on March 30.

SINGAPORE said its new international cruise terminal at Marina South will open in 2010, doubling the port's capacity and allowing it to accommodate the largest cruise ships currently in service or development. The Singapore Tourism Board specifically said that its new terminal would be able to accommodate Royal Caribbean International's Genesis class of ships, at 5,400 passengers, which are scheduled to debut in 2009. Singapore said it hoped to handle 1.6 million embarking and disembarking cruise passengers per year by 2015, a 70% increase over last year's cruise passenger volume.

CDF CROISIERES DE FRANCE will take delivery of its first ship, the Bleu de France, in April, the first for Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd's new French cruise brand. The ship is currently sailing for RCCL's Spanish brand Pullmantur Cruises as the Holiday Dream. The ship will undergo a $46 million makeover in Barcelona, to be tailored to French travelers, before entering service in Marseille in May.