The past few days have been spent on the move.  On Sunday we were up at 5am, to catch an airport shuttle at 7am.  We flew from Toulouse to Madrid to Rome, and I spent the day trying to remember which language I should be using.  Toulouse airport, being the home of Airbus, has an interesting assortment of planes on its apron, including all four Beluga planes parked neatly in a row, and the new A350-1000.  We could see how dry central Spain is, as we flew in to land at Madrid.  After a 2 hour wait, we were airborne again, touching down in Rome at about 3.30pm.  Fiumicino was chaotic, in true Italian style, and we ducked and weaved our way to the hotel shuttle bus bay.

Our home for the night was the B&B Hotel in nearby Fiumicino, a town which seems to have sprung up recently, around the Parco Leonardo shopping mall, the biggest we’ve seen on this trip. It had a huge supermarket, and fortunately Italy does not believe in “no food Sunday” (ie supermarkets closed).

Next morning it was back to the airport, but not to fly.  We were booked on a transport service called Shared Shuttle, with whom we’d book a transfer at 11.30am, to the cruise port at Civitavecchia, a bit less than an hour away by road.  A train would have taken twice as long and required a change, so we thought we’d take the easier option.  We waited at the appointed pickup spot … and waited … and waited.  At about 11.40am, we received a call to say the driver was “delayed” and would now pick us up at 12.20pm.  That is quite a significant delay, and we were not happy, especially as they didn’t pre-warn us.  Of course, 12.20 came and went, and our driver did not appear.  I had just pulled out the phone to call them, when he finally showed up at 12.40pm, 70 minutes late.  He gave a muttered, sort-of apology but no explanation.  Fortunately we had plenty of time, but there won’t be any 5 star review coming their way, that’s for sure.

We duly boarded our next ship, the Norwegian Viva, which is the newest in their fleet.  We haven’t sailed with Norwegian before.  We soon learned that Viva is a very different ship from what we’re used to.  The concept is to provide a lot of smaller spaces and spread people out across lots of venues.  The end result is that everyone still wants to be in the same few places – the buffet and the pool – and both are completely inadequate for the demand.  Everything is very segmented and there are lots of dead ends, making it confusing to find your way around.  They’ve also gone with the “throw a theme park on the top of the ship” model, so there is a huge speedway, which takes away my favourite, top deck sailaway viewing space.  There is nowhere to perch up high with a camera and get a decent, uninterrupted view.  There are several pools but they are all tiny, and I won’t be bothering to jostle for space in any of them.  The saving grace is Deck 8, which has a complete exterior promenade, lots of comfy places to sit, and is comparatively quiet.  If you are on the shaded side with a sea breeze, you can curl up on a couch in peace, and read a book or whatever.

The Indulge Food Hall is another new concept, which isn’t working the way they might have hoped.  It’s meant to provide an alternative to the buffet.  We like it, but judging by the ease with which you can get a table, others aren’t so keen.  You sit at a table or booth, with an ipad which has the menu.  Dotted around the space are various food stations, serving a variety of international food.  It’s a bit like a food truck park, and you can order things like pad thai, tapas, Texas grill etc. You just pick what you want from the ipad, place your order, and a few minutes later, it appears. Ian can specify gluten free, which so far seems to have worked OK.  The servings are moderate, so you can graze through several servings and see what you like.  Everything has tasted good, so we plan on having lunches there.  We tried the buffet for breakfast, and it was very average, so we’re planning on avoiding it. 

We had dinner in the main dining room, as we almost always do.  One of the senior managers introduced himself to Ian and explained he would look after all things gluten free, and explained the process.  I don’t think we’ll have any problems there – except that we had a 40 minute wait for a table, and were still eating at 10.30pm, when all we wanted to do was fall into bed.  There is no reservation system (!)

The cabin is nice and the bathroom is probably the best we’ve had on a ship. But our impression so far is that they’ve just got the design concept wrong, making some places very overcrowded, in a way we haven’t experienced on any other ship (ie have never waited more than 5-10 minutes for a dining room table).  They need to rethink some processes, even if they cant change the designs or layouts.  And from now on we will be avoiding any ship that doesn’t have an open deck.

We’ve also had to ditch some of our sightseeing plans.  Today we were meant to go on a bus trip to Lucca and Pisa, with free time in both.  But it would have been a 7 hour day – far too long in the heat.  This cruise has no sea days and a very busy port schedule, so instead we’ve stayed on board today resting – having already been to Livorno before, and seen everything there is to see.  We’ve also regretfully cancelled Pompeii, which would be even more unbearable unbearable in 38 degrees.  Instead we will go to the museum in Naples, and at least see some of the treasures excavated from Pompeii, even if we can’t see the site itself this time.  This is our third failed attempt at Pompeii.  We need to come back to southern Europe in November.  Meanwhile, the gentle breeze and the comfy chairs of Deck 8 are calling.