Norwegian Cruise Line will upsize its third, fourth, fifth and sixth Prima-class ships. While the company had already announced an upsizing to 3,550 berths for the ships, vessels five and six will now be more than 20 percent larger than the 2022-built 3,215-guest 140,000-ton Prima.

While part of the extra space will be for the methanol tanks, the vessels are also set to carry more passengers. The changes to the ships will carry a price tag of $1.2 billion.

“We now expect gross tonnage for the third and fourth Prima class to be approximately 10 percent larger and the fifth and sixth Pima Class ships to be approximately 20 percent larger than Norwegian Prima and Viva,” said Frank Del Rio, president and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, speaking on the company’s year-end and fourth quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

The delivery schedule has also changed, with Norwegian now getting one ship per year from Fincantieri in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028.

Harry Sommer, president and CEO of the Norwegian Cruise Line brand, said it was about tweaking the ship design.

“When we looked at the platform now that it’s in operation, we think we can take that great guest experience, great financial performance and get slightly better economies of scale by driving the ships a little bit bigger, hence, the slight increase for Prima three and four, which will be delivered in 2025 and 2026,” he said.

“So again, the key is to deliver a fantastic guest experience and see what we can do to leverage scale and become more decarbonized along the way,” he added.

Mark Kempa, executive vice president and CFO, said the ships would be longer and wider.