There's a new ship heading to Indian waters. Cordelia Cruises, the India-based line, has officially taken delivery of the former Norwegian Sky from Norwegian Cruise Line under a long-term lease, with CEO Jurgen Bailom announcing the handover on social media: the paperwork is signed, and the vessel now sails as the Cordelia Sky.

Before it reaches India, the 2,000-guest ship is in drydock at Yalova in Turkey for a refurbishment, according to AIS tracking data. It will join the Empress in Cordelia's fleet, which sails from Mumbai and Chennai.

The inaugural programme kicks off on October 23, 2026, with short two- to five-night cruises from India calling at Goa and the Lakshadweep islands — the coral atoll group off the southwest coast that India has been pushing as a homegrown alternative to the Maldives. From June 2027, the ship is due to switch to longer seven-night sailings between Chennai and Singapore, with stops in Malaysia and Thailand along the way.

The ship itself has a long history. It was originally ordered by Costa Cruises as a sister to the 1996-built Costa Victoria, but Norwegian acquired it before completion and had it finished at the Lloyd Werft yard in Germany. At 77,104 tons, it entered service in mid-1999, then spent four years in Hawaii as the Pride of Aloha in Norwegian's U.S.-flagged operation before returning to its better-known Norwegian Sky name. It wrapped up 27 years with Norwegian earlier this month with a nine-night Mediterranean cruise. A planned 23-night repositioning to the Middle East ahead of the handover was cancelled over security concerns in the region.

Why does this matter for travellers? Indian-based cruising has been growing fast, but options remain limited compared with the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. A second dedicated ship gives Cordelia more capacity out of both Mumbai and Chennai, and the Singapore run is a genuinely appealing itinerary — a week at sea linking two of Asia's great food cities via Malaysia and Thailand, all without a flight change mid-trip. For anyone in India who has wanted to try cruising without the long-haul flight to a European or Asian embarkation port, the entry price and convenience just got a lot better. Short Lakshadweep sailings are also one of the few ways to reach those restricted atolls at all, since access to the islands is tightly controlled for regular visitors.

Worth watching: the ship is a quarter-century old, so expectations should be calibrated accordingly — the refit in Turkey will tell us how much of the Norwegian Sky experience carries over. But as a value play for short-haul cruises from India and a new Chennai-Singapore link, the Cordelia Sky adds real choice to the region's cruise map from late October 2026.

Via Cruise Industry News.