Viva recap 2/18-2/25

[Hmmcminn]

Hi all,

 

I got back from our cruise on the Viv on Sunday.  We had a fantastic time!  Now I’m just disappointed that I don’t have another cruise booked yet to look forward to.

 

I won’t do a full day-by-day recap.  But, I will tell you a little of what we did and post the dailies.  Feel free to ask any questions.

 

——-

Pre cruise:  We booked the BOGO airfare as usual.   We flew into San Juan a day early from Albany on JetBlue with a layover in Fort Lauderdale.  We arrived around dinner time.  We stayed the night at the Hyatt Place.

 

This was my 7th cruise, my fifth on NCL.  My brother and I are Gold latitudes members and our parents are Silver.

 

Cabins:

We were a party of 4 in 2  cabins: we were in balcony 16130 and our parents were in inside 16139.

Our itinerary:

1. Embarkation in San Juan, Puerto Rico

2.  Tortola, BVI

3.  St. John’s, Antigua

4.  Bridgetown, Barbados

5.  Castries, St. Lucia

6.  Philipsburg, St. Maarten

7.  St. Thomas, USVI

 

Dining:

Specialties:  Los Lobos, Onda

For our other dinners we ate three times in the Hudsons, once in the Commodore Room, and once at the Indulge Food Hall.  For breakfast, we ate in the buffet, the Local, and Indulge.  We had lunches/snacks in The Local, Indulge, and the Observation Lounge.  We, as always, thought the food was great.  But, five cruises in we are getting tired of the same old menus in the main dining rooms … I know there are supposed to be many different rotating menus, but we always have basically the same ones on every cruise.  On the other hand, we loved Indulge and thought it definitely lives up to the hype!  This was also our first time at Onda and we loved it!

 

Excursions:

Tortola - Discover Tortola

Antigua - Scenic Antigua Drive

Barbados - Barbados Beach Break

St. Lucia - Between the Pitons Catamaran 

St. Maarten - Open-Top Double-Decker Sightseeing Bus

St Thomas - Discover St. Thomas  and Magen’s Bay

 

Onboard Activities:

We utilized one of the infinity pools on deck 8 the afternoon of day 2.  We found that it wasn’t too crowded.  But, we were surprised by how cold it was.  We preferred the hot tubs on the pool deck.  We were able to basically have them to ourselves in the mornings before our later excursions.  We also enjoyed Tee Time.  It was fun, but I’m not sure it was worth the $10/pp charge.  We were interested in darts and the escape rooms as well, but we waited too long to look into it and no reservations were available.  We also attended the 80s Party on the Pool Deck for a bit which is always a good time.

Entertainment:

We made reservations in advance for Beetlejuice and Press Your Luck the same day we did our online check in. No other shows required reservations.  We enjoyed Press Your Luck much more than we thought we would.  It was pretty entertaining and there were some opportunities for audience participation.  Unfortunately, our performance of Beetlejuice was canceled due to a cast injury.  Originally, they said they might reschedule for the next night, but that didn’t pan out.  We were able to see Icons which was quite fun!  We also saw three comedy shows in the theater.  We diid not bother to try to see the comedians in the Improv since most of the show times conflicted with other entertainment options that we prioritized.  In addition to the theater shows, we saw three shows in Syd Norman’s, including Rumors.  The shows were all fantastic even though it was a brand new cast (it was the first cruise for both the girls, at least).  While we love Syd’s, the criticism of this venue is valid.  It is too small and there is not enough seating.  We stood in line probably about 45 minutes before showtime for Sail Away with Syd’s and were able to get seats.  For Rock the Pour House 1, I stood in line almost an hour and a half before showtime and did not get a seat, but enjoyed the show anyway.  For Rumors, I got in line at 7:12 for a 9pm show.  We did get seats, but had a bit of a conflict just before showtime as a couple tried to stand right in front of us.  I feel like Sy’s shows need to require reservations and/or they need to do something about the seating to address the small venue size.  We also caught Nil and San, one of the lounge acts, several times and thought they were really great.  Overall, we enjoyed all the shows we saw on the Viva, but we disappointed, not only that our Beetlejuice show was cancelled, but also that there was no Syd’s Prom in the theater or Ocean Music Fest offered on this cruise.

 

Post Cruise:

We had late flights, so after disembarking, we booked a sightseeing bus through San Juan Happy Tours.  The tour was $40pp and made 3-4 stops over 3.5-4 hours.  The tour ended at the airport.  Our only real complaint about our BOGO flights was that NCL booked us and our parents on separate flights on the way home.  We had Southwest with a layover in Baltimore and our parents flew United with a layover in Washington.  Fortunately the flights were at about the same times and we made it back to Albany just after midnight.

[Hmmcminn]

[Frogger22]

Thank you for posting the dailies! We are 4 in 2 rooms end of March.  Different flights on way there same in way home. If I booked flights would have been 1600 each. NCL flights 450 so feel it’s okay. 

[AllHandsAstern]

How difficult/easy was it to get dinner reservations?

[dshefter]

51 minutes ago, AllHandsAstern said:

How difficult/easy was it to get dinner reservations?

You should not have difficulty. If you can't book a decent time prior to your cruise, I suggest getting onboard as early as possible on embarkation day and using the touch screens. You should get the restaurants you want.

[Hmmcminn]

55 minutes ago, AllHandsAstern said:

How difficult/easy was it to get dinner reservations?

I didn’t have any problem at all.  I booked all my dining reservations on the app at the 120 mark.   It will depend on your party size though because they only open up certain times for certain part sizes before the cruise.  That doesn’t mean they are all sold out, though, because they open up more reservations once the cruise starts.
 

 I even made reservations for the main dining rooms which you don’t have to do.  I’m just a planner, so I like to get early dining times so I can make it to all the shows/activities I want each evening.  For the dining rooms, there was never much of a que at 5 or 5:30, but I did notice lines as we left dinner each night.

[AllHandsAstern]

There's 7 of us so it's been a little awkward getting a rez so far. NCL wouldn't book that many seats prior to embarkation.

[ggTexasGal]

2 minutes ago, AllHandsAstern said:

There's 7 of us so it's been a little awkward getting a rez so far. NCL wouldn't book that many seats prior to embarkation.

Perhaps all of the tables for 8 were pre-booked prior to embarkation, but there should have been some 8-top tables still available when you embarked.  Although, I will say, timing might have worked against you.

[ZsaZsa2019]

26 minutes ago, Hmmcminn said:

1 hour ago, AllHandsAstern said:

How difficult/easy was it to get dinner reservations?

 

I believe on our last NCL (Bliss/Alaska) we even would walk right up to the actual restaurant the day we wanted to get a reservation (last minute of course) and got lucky with 5 of us. Not sure if Viva does that.  This was 2019.