Look who came to town. The Norwegian Spirit called into Apia on Wednesday morning with a passenger capacity of 2000 and crew of more than 900.

It is a Leo-class cruise ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). She was built in 1998 for Star Cruises as SuperStar Leo by the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany. In 2004 she was transferred to NCL and renamed Norwegian Spirit.

Norwegian Spirit was originally intended to operate cruises in Asia in 2020 following her refurbishment. However, this program was cancelled in February 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns and the ship was instead to operate cruises to the Greek Isles for the summer 2020 season.

However, this program was also cancelled due to NCL suspending all sailings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ship resumed operations in May 2022 with cruises in the South Pacific and Hawaii.