Iceland, Katy Perry, a new $1.5 billion cruise ship and me

You could be forgiven for considering that a new $1.5 billion, 3215 passenger-strong cruise ship, featuring a three-tiered electric go-kart racing circuit, a 10-storey, corkscrew slippery dip and an on-board theatre that converts to a discotheque, would in itself be star power enough to mark its launch.

But no. Internationally, the cruise industry has somehow, almost triumphantly, emerged from a pandemic-induced, close-call collective scuttling, even with many liners succumbing to the scrapyards. It’s time to celebrate, albeit a little circumspectly.

Indeed the excited, and no doubt relieved, custodians of the cruise liner in question, the Norwegian Prima – aboard which I embark on a more than week-long European cruise – decided that they required their own prima donna (hopefully in the non-pejorative definition of the term), aboard to supercharge the vessel’s official launch in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik.

Enter, stage starboard, Katy Perry, the global American singer-songwriter superstar whose provocative 2008 hit, I Kissed a Girl, launched her international career.

She’s been signed, at no doubt considerable expense, to serve as Norwegian Prima’s godmother, or, more precisely “godparent”.