Are the Venues on Norwegian Prima and Viva Really That Small?

March 21, 2025 Randy Young

Since the Norwegian Prima debuted in 2022, there’s been much talk about the odd choices Norwegian made in their newest class of ships, the Prima Class. Both the Prima and its sister ship, the Viva, are nearly identical and share many of the same unusual design decisions. If you look up reviews for these ships, you’ll likely see a lot of mentions about “small spaces.” But is it all just perception? We look at the numbers to find out if the spaces are really that much smaller.

Norwegian’s Prima Class Are Smaller Ships

To start with, the Prima Class is smaller than Norwegian’s previous class of cruise ships, the Breakaway Class. It’s 14% smaller in gross tonnage than its predecessor, Norwegian Encore, and carries 22% fewer people (at double capacity). The reasoning behind this downsizing is so the ship could access ports that larger ships can’t visit. It also gives the Prima and its sister ship, the Viva, a more intimate and high-end feel.

That being said, the designers made some really odd choices—one of the biggest being venue size. If you read any reviews online about the Prima or Viva, one of the first things you’ll see is a complaint about smaller venues. But is that perception accurate, or are they actually smaller?

Comparing Prima Class to Other Ships

While official dimensions of venues aren’t provided, Norwegian and other cruise lines display the capacity per venue. For this analysis, we compare that information to the total number of guests on board to see how many of the ship’s guests can fit in the space at one time. That way, we can fairly evaluate ships of different sizes and capacities.

For our research, we’ll compare the spaces on the Prima Class ships to Norwegian’s previous Breakaway Class. For a well-rounded perspective, we also look at the Celebrity Ascent, a ship of similar size and age, as well as Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas, their newest ship and the sixth in the popular Oasis Class.

	Norwegian Prima	Norwegian Encore	Celebrity Ascent	Royal Caribbean Utopia of the Seas
Gross tonnage	143,535	167,800	140,600	236,860
Passengers (double occupancy)	3,099	3,998	3,260	5,668

Downsizing Main Dining Rooms

Norwegian Cruise Line is known for its “freestyle cruising,” where you can dine when and where you want. No sharing tables with other people or eating at a set time; dinner on Norwegian is much like a restaurant at home. Each Norwegian ship has a variety of restaurants on board, but many are specialty and come at an extra cost. Still, several restaurants serve the same purpose as a “main dining room” or a complimentary dining venue where most guests will eat dinner.

On the Norwegian Encore, the last ship before Prima, three restaurants serve as the main dining room: The Manhattan Room (holding 560 guests), Taste (256), and Savor (262). These restaurants can accommodate 1,078 guests at once—or 27% of the ship’s capacity. Of course, since seating is rotating, they can serve even more overall, but it’s a good way to compare dining availability.

On the Norwegian Prima and Viva, there are only two dining rooms: Hudson’s (which holds 458) and The Commodore Room (228). That’s 686 guests, or 22% of the ships’ capacity at once—an 18% decrease compared to the Norwegian Encore. True, Hudson’s is beautifully designed and offers amazing panoramic views, but does it hold enough guests?

How’s that stack up to other cruise lines? The Celebrity Ascent has four main dining rooms—each with a similar menu but a few select specialty dishes—and together, they can hold 50% of all guests onboard, nearly double the Prima Class percentage. It shows Norwegian’s reliance on getting guests to purchase extra dining and specialty restaurants.

Downsized Buffet, but New Food Hall Added

While some guests never go to a buffet on a cruise ship, a majority will have at least one meal there during the day. It’s usually the quickest and easiest way to get breakfast and lunch, especially on port days when you want to get off the ship. Unfortunately, the buffet is what you’re most likely to hear complaints about on the Prima Class ships.

On the Norwegian Encore, the main buffet (The Garden Café) seats 658 people indoors and 180 outdoors, totaling 838 seats—or roughly 21% of the passengers.

On the Prima and Viva, however, the buffet, called Surfside Café, is drastically smaller. It holds 238 people indoors and 16 outdoors, for a total of 254 seats—about 6% of guests!

To be fair, Norwegian said they downsized the buffet on the Prima Class ships because of a new concept called the Indulge Food Hall. This area has eight different food stalls, but instead of a buffet, you order from tablets, and the food is made to order. This space does provide additional seating; Indulge Food Hall can seat 286 people inside and 164 outside.

Combining the capacities of Indulge Food Hall and Surfside Café, you reach 704 seats, or 18% of the guests—a figure still 16% smaller than what Norwegian Encore offers.

How does that compare to other lines? On Celebrity Ascent, the expansive main buffet holds 25% of all guests onboard.

For Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas, the buffet holds 18% of guests, which actually matches Prima Class capacity. But the main difference is that Utopia of the Seas also has multiple other venues serving food simultaneously—such as Spare Tire Food Trucks, Café Promenade, Sorrento’s Pizza, El Loco Fresh, and The Park Café. That means guests are spread out across many locations, so the buffet doesn’t see the same pressure. If we added venues in, like we did for Indulge Food Hall for Norwegian, Utopia of the Seas‘ capacity would be much closer to 50%!

Severely Downsized Entertainment Areas

One of the most puzzling decisions on the Norwegian Prima and Viva is the size of their entertainment spaces. Both ships have three main venues: the main theater, Syd Norman’s Pourhouse, and the Improv at Sea comedy club.

The Main Theater

The main theater hosts the big production shows. Originally, the Prima launched with Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, but that was replaced by “Burn the Floor,” while the Viva features “Beetlejuice.” These theaters also host live game shows (The Price is Right on Prima and Press Your Luck on Viva).

The theater itself is well designed with comfortable seating, beautiful LED screens everywhere, and excellent sight lines. It has a convertible setup where the stadium seating can retract to create a dance floor. After the shows are done at night, the seats are pushed back, the LED chandelier descends, and it becomes a nightclub.

Over the years, theaters across many cruise lines have become smaller. They used to seat half the guests onboard; now, most current ships are closer to 25% capacity in the theater.

On the Prima and Viva, the main theater seats 627, or about 16% of guests. That means if Norwegian schedules “Beetlejuice” for two nights with two performances each, only 67% of guests could see the show.

How’s that compare to other ships? On the Norwegian Breakaway, the main theater holds 787 guests, or around 20% of the ship—so the Prima Class theater is roughly 20% smaller.

Celebrity Ascent offers a more expansive theater that accommodates about 25% of guests.

Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas Royal Theater also holds 25% of all guests, but it has three large show venues: the AquaTheater, the main theater, and Studio B ice rink, which often operate shows at the same time. That splits the crowd so up to 60% of the guests onboard can see a show at the same time.

Syd Norman’s Pourhouse

Syd Norman’s Pourhouse is a bar with rock performances—often a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. While people rave about the show, they also complain about how tiny the venue is. Syd Norman’s Pourhouse seats only 70 guests—just 2% of the ship. They were going for the vibe of a small, intimate, hole-in-the-wall music club, but with so few seats, many travelers miss out.

By comparison, Royal Caribbean’s two-story Music Hall, which offers similar live performances, holds about 446 guests or around 10% of its ship. That’s four times larger! The Celebrity Ascent has a similar venue, The Club, which holds 300 guests or 9% of guests on board.

Thankfully, Norwegian has tried to rectify this issue. They’ve moved its most popular Syd Norman’s show, Rumours, to the main theater, where it draws a much bigger crowd.

Comedy Club

The comedy club, called Improv at Sea on the Prima and Viva, might be the most glaring issue on board the Prima Class ships. The space is incredibly small, with only 73 seats. On the Norwegian Encore, the Social Comedy & Night Club seats 231. The Prima and Viva clubs are nearly half that size.

Unfortunately, under-sized comedy clubs are common on many new cruise ships. On Utopia of the Seas, the comedy club (The Attic) is similarly small, holding just 3% of the ship’s guests, compared to 2% on the Prima. That’s not much higher, but Utopia also has multiple other entertainment venues running at once.

Not Everything is Smaller

While the venues above are undersized on the Prima and Viva, Norwegian expanded some of its other offerings onboard.

Upsizing of The Local and Food Republic

The Local, an almost 24/7 complimentary restaurant that’s part Irish pub, part diner, is actually bigger now. It seats 229, or roughly 6% of the guests, making it about 15% larger than the Norwegian Encore’s version. The Prima and Viva also have a separate bar area within The Local where food can be ordered.

It’s the same story for Food Republic, an Asian Fusion restaurant. On the Prima and Viva, Food Republic can seat up to 150 guests or 4% of the ship. That’s double the capacity of Food Republic on the Norwegian Encore.

Cabins Are Larger

If you’ve sailed Norwegian before, you’ll find the cabins on the Prima Class are much larger than past ships. Prima balcony cabins are 20–35% larger than those on the Breakaway Class, and the balconies themselves are 50% larger. These new cabins are also larger than the standard balconies on Norwegian’s competitors. They’re 28% bigger than on Utopia of the Seas.

Interior cabins are noticeably bigger too—19–70% larger than on other Norwegian ships. However, the difference is less drastic against other lines. For example, interior cabins on the Prima match Carnival Mardi Gras but are 20% smaller than on Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas.

A Design Choice, Not A Necessity

Since the Prima Class ships are indeed smaller than their predecessors, did all the spaces have to be smaller as well? No, there is still plenty of room on the ship; it’s just how Norwegian chooses to allocate it. For example, they added a new Mediterranean specialty restaurant, Palomar. That restaurant is directly next to the main buffet and nearly identical in setup. It could have been, and very well have been planned to be, part of the main buffet offering sufficient capacity for a ship this size. Instead, they crammed in another restaurant.

Similarly, for the comedy club, they could have easily converted one specialty restaurant into a comedy space and solved the capacity issue.

Another odd design choice they made was not to have an Entourage Teen Club on board when they built the ships. After reports of teenagers roaming the halls and stairwells all day and night, they rectified the problem by removing the Speedway Bar and adding a dedicated teen space late in mid-2024. It’s an issue most people could have seen coming but somehow escaped the ship’s designers.

Some Hope for Future Prima Class Ships

Does it mean you should avoid these ships? That’s a personal preference. I’ve sailed on both the Prima and Viva and had an amazing time on both (follow along on these cruises here). I loved the high-end look, the wrap-around exterior promenade, the Indulge Food Hall and the atmosphere. Still, it’s hard to overlook the glaring design issues on these new ships.

Norwegian plans to launch a total of six Prima Class ships. Fortunately, future ships will be larger. Norwegian Aqua and Luna will be 10% bigger than the Prima and Viva, and Prima #5 and #6 will be 20% larger—making them Norwegian’s biggest ships yet. Still, just because a ship’s overall size increases doesn’t guarantee that its public spaces will follow suit.

While venues’ capacities have not been released yet, Norwegian has confirmed that the Improv at Sea Comedy Club and Syd Norman’s will be larger in these two new ships. So, while the Prima and Viva might have smaller venues now, future Prima Class ships promise some improvements—though whether they truly fix the small-space complaints remains to be seen. You can see all the changes they’re making to the Norwegian Aqua, here.