Thoughts from Viva (Long-ish)

[AllHandsAstern]

Just got off Viva a week ago. I was fortunate enough to go on several cruises pre-shutdown and haven't cruised much since. Did a week on Celebrity Reflection for my honeymoon in Feb'23.

 

 

Part of this post is to sanity check my own opinions, part review. Would love some feedback on this.Overall really enjoyed the experience. So I don't want this to seem like a gripe fest.

 

1) Free-At-Sea plus seems like a great deal. NCL loves the upsell and I thought the FAS+ package took a lot of that away with wifi included, practically every beverage included, Starbucks included, plenty of speciality dining. Really enjoyed it.

 

2) the open hours of eateries seemed silly in the context of our port stop and messed with what few places were actually open.

All aboard time was around 3:30 generally, but the powers that be only had the seaside grill and the local open after 2:30. The net effect was that both options seemed overwhelmed. The local had a wait for tables but then service took forever too. Between waiting for the table and waiting for the waiter and waiting for the food it took an hour to get fed, which seems like a long time for what the venue is marketed as, 24 hour quick bites. I would think that shuffling opening hours isn't so hard, but I don't know.

 

3) having to pay for an adult only area is ridiculous.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if there was more pool space but there's like 5000 people on this ship and like 1000 square feet of pool area. Seems like they could make the infinity pools on deck 8 (9?) adult only and let people enjoy themselves. Coincidentally we went over spring break, so it could be there were just more kids. Ymmv.

 

4) the food was generally great!

The MDR on viva was better than anything on reflection. Probably not a fair comparison but so be it. There were some duds, the buffet was generally bad, all of the sushi was not good, but overall very solid. Los Lobos was excellent. I live in California so I can't walk to work without tripping over great Mexican food, los lobos was legit.

 

5) the speedway is a waste of space.

Between the straight up vandalized shooting gallery, the never-open speedway bar, and the sheer *slowness* of the carts and the layout, the whole affair gave abandoned mall vibes. There were supposed to be 12 or 15 blasters but there were only 3 and oh by the way the scoring system didn't work at all, so I'm sure NCL is writing off that asset.

 

That's it! let me know if I'm right or wrong!

Overall viva is a weird ship and we didn't really like it in the moment but in retrospect I think that's just what they're doing for big ships now. We're booked on Ascent in April '25 and Prima in Feb '25, looking forward to both!

 

[dexddd]

Thanks for the review.

 

We sailed Prima and Viva sounds pretty much the same.

[Fogfog]

10 hours ago, AllHandsAstern said:

Just got off Viva a week ago. I was fortunate enough to go on several cruises pre-shutdown and haven't cruised much since. Did a week on Celebrity Reflection for my honeymoon in Feb'23.

 

 

Part of this post is to sanity check my own opinions, part review. Would love some feedback on this.Overall really enjoyed the experience. So I don't want this to seem like a gripe fest.

 

1) Free-At-Sea plus seems like a great deal. NCL loves the upsell and I thought the FAS+ package took a lot of that away with wifi included, practically every beverage included, Starbucks included, plenty of speciality dining. Really enjoyed it.

 

2) the open hours of eateries seemed silly in the context of our port stop and messed with what few places were actually open.

All aboard time was around 3:30 generally, but the powers that be only had the seaside grill and the local open after 2:30. The net effect was that both options seemed overwhelmed. The local had a wait for tables but then service took forever too. Between waiting for the table and waiting for the waiter and waiting for the food it took an hour to get fed, which seems like a long time for what the venue is marketed as, 24 hour quick bites. I would think that shuffling opening hours isn't so hard, but I don't know.

 

3) having to pay for an adult only area is ridiculous.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if there was more pool space but there's like 5000 people on this ship and like 1000 square feet of pool area. Seems like they could make the infinity pools on deck 8 (9?) adult only and let people enjoy themselves. Coincidentally we went over spring break, so it could be there were just more kids. Ymmv.

 

4) the food was generally great!

The MDR on viva was better than anything on reflection. Probably not a fair comparison but so be it. There were some duds, the buffet was generally bad, all of the sushi was not good, but overall very solid. Los Lobos was excellent. I live in California so I can't walk to work without tripping over great Mexican food, los lobos was legit.

 

5) the speedway is a waste of space.

Between the straight up vandalized shooting gallery, the never-open speedway bar, and the sheer *slowness* of the carts and the layout, the whole affair gave abandoned mall vibes. There were supposed to be 12 or 15 blasters but there were only 3 and oh by the way the scoring system didn't work at all, so I'm sure NCL is writing off that asset.

 

That's it! let me know if I'm right or wrong!

Overall viva is a weird ship and we didn't really like it in the moment but in retrospect I think that's just what they're doing for big ships now. We're booked on Ascent in April '25 and Prima in Feb '25, looking forward to both!

 

 

Spring break --ugg  I hear you and we try to avoid sailing then so its more adults

 

Starbucks--I thought that was an upcharge and required premium plus (same for bottled waters) Was that not the case on Viva?

 

Vandalism... that sounds awful. What a shame that some ruin it

 

Were the open eateries busy between meal hours? Meaning it was after lunch (and a later afternoon all aboard 3:30p) and Before dinner service which is maybe 2-3 hours later. 

[JIMESOPUS]

The Speedway bar was never open during our 21 days aboard. It has been posted here that they changing that area over to an " all new Entourage " https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2024/04/norwegian-viva-to-undergo-enhancements-during-crossing-venues-closed/, so maybe it's in the works for the Prima as well.

 

Had the same experience in the Local with slow service and overcrowding at peak times, especially when the outdoor section was closed due to the weather.

 

Hopefully, some things will be addressed on the Aqua but NCL always had the very same pool design, too small.

 

Thanks for the review.

[GirlWriter]

Interesting. We sailed on the Prima last summer and hated it (the ship itself, not the vacation!). I wrote a lengthy complaint to NCL that included your #2 issue, plus others. We enjoy NCL in general but won't be giving this class of ships any more tries.

[KeithJenner]

10 minutes ago, Fogfog said:

Starbucks--I thought that was an upcharge and required premium plus (same for bottled waters) Was that not the case on Viva?

 

They had free at sea plus, which includes the premium plus beverage package.

[Liljo22]

We were on the Prima but I pretty much had the same experience except for the Speedway which we loved. Here are my thoughts on your topics.

 

1. 100% agree.  I don't think I can sail without at least the Premium Plus upgrade but can easily make FAS+ work.  I think we covered the cost in Starbucks alone.

 

2. My biggest gripe with the Prima was the lack of free options during the day.  Indulge and the buffet closed to early and there is not really any grab and go options.  Everyone has to go to the Local for late breakfast and after coming back from the port. 

 

3.  We never saw more than a 10-20 people at any time when we were looking down from the Speedway Bar during the day.  Felt it could be better used as a Spice H2O since there is limited space by the pool.

 

4.  Overall the food was great both in the MDR and SD.  A few misses but most was good to great.  Onda was our favorite SD.  

 

5.  We rode the speedway 3 times and could have done it more.  The Speedway Bar was always open during the day and was a nice quiet retreat with one of the best bartenders.  I do agree about the guns though.  They didn't seem to be working.  For me, the waste of space was the Galaxy Pavilion.  Every time we walked by on our way to the OL, it was closed.  It seemed like it was open during the pass time and very little outside of that.  

 

I felt the same as you.  Prima was a weird ship and we enjoyed it at the time but I think back and remember how much fun we had all week.  I think another cruise on a Prima class would allow us to take advantage of its weirdness.  I do think that it lacks a big meeting place around the pool and in the atrium.   Wish it had a balcony around the Lido deck so they can have bigger crowds.  We also spent a ton of time at the Penrose bar area listening to the bands play or learning different dances.  It needs to be a bigger space if you plan on using it for that.  

 

 

[AllHandsAstern]

38 minutes ago, KeithJenner said:

They had free at sea plus, which includes the premium plus beverage package.

Correct, the premium plus package includes Starbucks and big water bottles. Worked great for us, since we were doing something rum related every day. The ship would set up a little beverage table just before the gangway area at port stops so my wife and I would get 2, 1L bottles each and that was generally sufficient for the 7 in our group.

[AllHandsAstern]

1 hour ago, Fogfog said:

Were the open eateries busy between meal hours? Meaning it was after lunch (and a later afternoon all aboard 3:30p) and Before dinner service which is maybe 2-3 hours later. 

 

The only eateries that were open were Local and Seaside Grill which is basically a hamburger hotdog station in the back of the buffet. Both of these options were slammed.

(Aside: it would seem that they should have put the grill closer to the pool deck instead of having everyone come through the entire rest of the buffet to get to it.)

 I want to say everything reopened at 5 for dinner, and dinner service was always trouble free. We had to sprint through dinner at Onda to get to Beetlejuice, and our waiter was very accommodating on that.

 

I'm remembering now that the observation lounge has small bites available until maybe 3:30? But this space would easily get overwhelmed and you'd have nowhere to sit. This could have been another space that's adults only but alas.

 

generally there were lots of larger groups on board and that made dining anywhere somewhat challenging. The venues are sized a certain way so they had a hard enough time accommodating the pairs and 4-packs, throw a few larger groups into these spaces and 20% of the seating is gone from the jump.

 

edit: my biggest gripe during the cruise was the dearth of options during this inter-meal period, the fact that I was hangry didn't help!

Edited April 8 by AllHandsAstern

[schmoopie17]

1 hour ago, GirlWriter said:

Interesting. We sailed on the Prima last summer and hated it (the ship itself, not the vacation!). We enjoy NCL in general but won't be giving this class of ships any more tries.

Ditto.

 

We had to choose between the Pr1ma (nod to @cruiseny4life) and the Pearl for a TA next April. Having been on the Pr!ma (and not loving it) and the Jade (and loving it)...and since the Pearl and Jade are sister ships, we're opting for the Pearl. Besides, the Pr1ma isn't a great cold weather ship, and we figure crossing the Atlantic in April from NY will still be cold-ish.

 

Edited April 8 by schmoopie17

[Fogfog]

41 minutes ago, AllHandsAstern said:

edit: my biggest gripe during the cruise was the dearth of options during this inter-meal period, the fact that I was hangry didn't help!

Hangry and other peoples kids does make for unfortunate circumstances

 

Thanks for the post

[JinxyB]

We were on the 3/24 Viva sailing and I agree with you! Every day was a port day and finding snacks at 4PM was impossible. Why they don’t open the buffet longer is beyond me. They didn’t even have the ice cream machine open. Makes zero sense. At least they could open Indulge?

 

I also did not care for the Galaxy Pavilion- it was always closed and the games were minimum $9 a piece which is craxy. Don’t get me started on the mini golf for $10pp! Pure insanity! We did the go carts once and it was a waste of money. We waited over an hour while they kept letting Haven and single riders through. It was poorly managed.

 

We did specialty dining 6/7 nights and enjoyed it. Ship is beautiful, ports amazing. Poor selection of merch in the onboard shops. Overall had a great time and loved spending time in PR pre and post cruise! 

[AllHandsAstern]

That was the sailing I was on, it was I think 15$ a person for the shared track and 30$(!!!) if you did the hot lap sessions by your self.

Mini golf was 10$ for 9 holes, darts was 5$ for I think 45 or 50 minutes. Insane!

 

Indulge food was generally really good but I'm not sold on the concept. The bar inside/outside indulge runs a cut down menu for some reason? But somehow has the broadest beer selection on the ship. Go figure.

 

Really wish we had more time in San Juan, but alas.

[KarenRB]

I'm currently doing a B2B on Prima and agree with your points.  I do have perspective on spring break vs non and the deck 8 Ocean Walk over crowding issue.  Last week, we had over 600 kids on board. There was literally no place to sit at either the pool deck or on deck 8.  I couldn't get a Vibe pass last week and on sea days, I'd walk for an hour looking for somewhere outside to sit. This week, very few kids and still pretty much every lounger has a caboose sitting on it. Way too much real estate is taken up by Vibe and The Haven.

 

I think deck 17 (pool, buffet, Vibe, Observation Lounge) was designed by someone with a substance problem. 

 

Although the staff has been excellent, the price would need to be really great to get me on a Prima class ship again. 

 

 

[AllHandsAstern]

I was shooketh (sorry, shocked) by how small all the venues were. I get that not everyone is going to want to go to karaoke or the show or whatever, but "not everyone" shouldn't translate to a single digit percentage of your capacity.

 

To me, the design of the prima class slaps of an overly corporate design process. Everyone had to get their thing in so everything shrank more and more.

 

SEPARATELY: I thought it was weird that the beer themed syd Norman's pour house, with *this* sign out front had *four beers on tap* like someone explain that to me

[PATRLR]

On 4/7/2024 at 10:45 PM, AllHandsAstern said:

2) the open hours of eateries seemed silly in the context of our port stop and messed with what few places were actually open.

All aboard time was around 3:30 generally, but the powers that be only had the seaside grill and the local open after 2:30. The net effect was that both options seemed overwhelmed.

yep.  We were in Vibe and there was always a long line outside seaside buffet (which we could see from Vibe) during this time frame.  At least once, we saw the line going up the stairs to the speedway.