I Thought Cruising Would Be Cheesy. The Norwegian Viva Changed My Mind.

Here’s my honest-to-a-fault confession: for years I assumed cruising wasn’t for me. I pictured fried-food buffets, forced fun, and a tacky party barge. I’m a resort person — a swim-up suite girl, specifically — and a floating hotel with a few thousand strangers didn’t sound like my idea of a vacation.

I was completely wrong. And I didn’t ease into being wrong, either. My very first cruise was nine days. Go big or go home, right?

We flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico for embarkation, and I will never forget the Uber ride to the port. When the Norwegian Viva came into view — massive, brand-new, gleaming — I was actually jumping up and down in my seat. She was so new, so posh, so modern and genuinely gorgeous that whatever I’d braced myself for evaporated before I’d even stepped aboard.

Christmas morning, every single morning

We booked a balcony suite, and the balcony turned out to be the whole trip for me. We slept with the door cracked open every night just to hear the ocean. And every morning we were up early — not because we had to be, but because we wanted to watch the pilot boat come out to meet us and see a brand-new island slide into view.

That’s the feeling I keep coming back to: it was like Christmas morning, every morning. A new gift outside the window each day, and we didn’t want to miss the unwrapping.

One small, practical tip if you’re a balcony person too: we were on deck 10, just high enough above deck 8 — where Ocean Boulevard wraps the ship and all the foot traffic hums — to clear the noise. High enough for quiet, low enough to still feel close to the water. Deck 10 has been my go-to for every sailing since.

The food I was dreading, and the food I found

The buffet fear? Misplaced. Yes — the buffet on the Viva is genuinely small, which is the knock you’ll hear about NCL’s newer ships. But here’s the thing: we never minded, because we found our own little secret. Most mornings we’d slip into Indulge Food Hall, get congee, add our own egg from the egg station, and ask for soy sauce. Asian congee for breakfast every day fits our palate perfectly, and it felt like we’d cracked a code the rest of the ship hadn’t.

Dinner was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed dressing up for a specialty restaurant at night — bottles of wine and champagne, escargot, genuinely excellent seafood. None of it was the cheesy, fried, heat-lamp food I’d imagined. The specialty dining is where the Viva quietly shows you what it actually is.

My ranking, for what it’s worth:

• Palomar is my number one — the seafood spot I’d go back for on its own.
• Le Bistro for the French classics (this is your escargot).
• Onda snuck up on me. We came to love it after a specialty dinner with family, and then had another special Onda dinner on a later Viva sailing in the Med. (Hi Liberty!)

The ports were where the memories got made

We had a full, port-heavy itinerary out of San Juan: St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire. A Southern Caribbean run that kept the “new island every morning” magic going the whole way. A few days I’ll never forget:

St. Lucia — my number one. We did a catamaran day, and it had everything: the Pitons rising up out of the sea, free-flowing drinks, the crew and the whole boat dancing together. At one point we sailed past Jeff Bezos’s yacht, Koru, glittering in the sun. We waved — and someone waved back. My husband swears to this day it was Bezos himself. I mean… it really does not get any better than that. (If swim-up St. Lucia is calling you after this, Jade Mountain is the water-forward dream up above Soufrière.)

Want your own day on the water there? We booked ours as a shore excursion through Norwegian, so it’s not the exact same outing — but this Viator tour is a very similar St. Lucia land-and-sea day out to Marigot Bay:

Book the St. Lucia land-and-sea tour to Marigot Bay →

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Aruba — Eagle Beach by way of a super fun party bus. We met great people on the ride over and had the kind of easy, laughing afternoon that’s the entire point of a vacation.

St. Thomas — Magens Bay. We grabbed a shuttle out, and the driver let me hook my music up to her Bluetooth while we rode shotgun on the front bench seat. Total strangers, instant fun. Fantastic memories — this is what vacation is for.

Curaçao we did on our own two feet, and I’ll be honest — it was hot, and that meant a lot of walking in the heat. The bright spot: if you’re there, eat at Rustiq. Excellent food, and fresh-made cocktails that went above and beyond. If I ever go back to Curaçao, though, it’ll be to a resort where I can stay in the water most of the day — which is exactly what places like Sandals Royal Curaçao and Pyrmont are for.

The honest part: let’s talk about the pools

Before I ever booked, the pool question worried me. NCL is known for not having a big pool deck, and as a self-identified water person, that gave me pause. The advice I got early on stuck with me: if you want to lounge in a pool all day, go to a resort, not a cruise ship. Fair.

So here’s the truth, having now done it: I managed just fine. There are water excursions in nearly every port. On port days, plenty of people leave the ship — so the pools are practically yours if you stay aboard. And if you’d rather, you just jump in with everyone else and make some new friends. I’ve since sailed the Prima over Christmas with family and the Viva again in the Med, and I’ll tell you the pools were noticeably more available in the Med in early May. Different trip, same lesson: you can be a pool person on these ships, you just can’t expect a sprawling resort pool deck. Set the expectation and you’ll be happy.

Should I have started smaller?

Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve started with a tidy 3- or 4-night Bahamas cruise — something to leave myself room to climb. Instead I started at the very top, on a brand-new flagship, for nine days. But whatever the case: I caught the bug, and it has not let go. I’m a cruiser now, and I didn’t see that coming.

Who the Viva is for

The Viva lives in my favorite middle ground — a ship with real life and energy to it, but big enough that you can always find a quiet corner that’s yours. An empty Soleil bar at the back of the ship on boarding day — where my husband and I had the place to ourselves for a long while, and I had my very first Red Bubbles (NCL’s batched sparkling cocktail). A balcony with the door open. A secret breakfast. And a dancing catamaran and a party bus when you want them. If you like a little reserved and a little lively — and you can’t stand a dull or empty ship — the Viva hits it.

It made a cruiser out of a die-hard resort person. That’s the highest compliment I’ve got.

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Want to sail the Viva? I’m an independent travel advisor with Fora, and I can book it for you directly — same rate you’d find on your own, with any partner perks available. Tell me your dates and who’s coming, and I’ll take it from there. Start planning →

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