A familiar ship from the Norwegian Cruise Line fleet is about to get a whole new life in Indian waters. The 2,000-passenger former Norwegian Sky has been handed over to Cordelia Cruises and is currently en route to Mumbai, where it will begin sailing for the Indian line later this month.

The vessel's journey to its new home was a long one. After a drydock refit at a shipyard in Yalova, Turkey — where Cordelia refreshed the livery and public spaces — the 1999-built ship departed on September 26, 2026, and transited the Suez Canal. Despite ongoing security worries in the region, it then passed through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait into the Indian Ocean, with a first Mumbai docking scheduled for October 9, 2026.

Cordelia, which launched with the former Empress of the Seas (a ship that started life with Royal Caribbean), is positioning the newcomer for the fast-growing Indian cruise market. From October 23, 2026, the ship will run short itineraries out of Mumbai, including three- to five-night cruises to Goa and the Lakshadweep islands, plus two-night weekend "cruises to nowhere" — an easy, low-commitment way to sample life at sea.

Bigger things are planned for 2027. The ship is slated to offer weeklong voyages between Chennai and Singapore, calling at ports in Malaysia and Thailand such as Phuket, Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur. That gives Indian travellers a cruise option that doubles as a Southeast Asia holiday without needing multiple flights.

There's more fleet growth on the way, too. Under a deal announced in early 2025, the former Norwegian Sun — built in 2001 — will wrap up a farewell season for Norwegian in Europe and debut for Cordelia in Mumbai on November 1, 2027. That will give the line three ships, all with well-known cruise pedigrees.

Why does this matter to travellers? For anyone in India curious about cruising, the barrier to entry just dropped: short, affordable sailings from a major homeport, with routes spanning beach states, island archipelagos and eventually international waters. For travellers elsewhere, the 2027 Chennai–Singapore itineraries are a fresh way to combine a cruise with two of Asia's most convenient gateway cities. Watch this space as Cordelia scales up.

Story via Cruise Industry News.