Norwegian Viva Accessibility Review

The Norwegian Viva is the sister ship to the Norwegian Prima.  The accessibility onboard is very similar.  We had the privilege of touring the public areas in the haven, but did not get to see the accessible room there.

We boarded early as visitors to film cabin tours while the ship was basically empty.  Once we finished filming we got checked in and filmed some of the public areas.

Hudson’s Restaurant is one of the main dining rooms on board, and it was open for lunch on embarkation day. Most people don’t know a restaurant is open for lunch that day and they dash to the buffet, which becomes overcrowded and inconvenient, especially with any kind of mobility device. 

Lunch in Hudson’s

On NCL, we always find the open dining room and get our trip started with a very relaxing and enjoyable sit-down meal. In Hudson’s we were seated immediately as the restaurant was mostly empty and were given a table close to the main aisle to make it easy for Cheryl’s Whill Ci2.  We were seated one table away from the window, and had a great view as we ate lunch. 

Menu

To start our meal, Cheryl ordered the Roasted Tomato Soup and the Crustless Vegetable Quiche, and I ordered the Wedge Salad.  Everything was quite tasty.

Quiche

Tomato Soup

Wedge Salad

For our main course, Cheryl ordered the Risotto Primavera with Pesto, and I ordered the Turkey Cottage Pie.  This was my second cottage pie, and it was quite tasty, with bits of ground turkey, peas and carrots. 

Risotto

Turkey Shepard Pie

For dessert, Cheryl ordered the 5 Spice Mango Tapioca Pudding, and I ordered the Crème Caramel.  The tapioca pudding was not what Cheryl was expecting, the Crème Caramel was typical, but neither dish was particularly sweet.Tapioca

Creme Caramel

Cabins

Cabin 15798  Category BA Portside aft near midship.

We are staying in an accessible balcony cabin 15798 which is a category BA cabin.  Our room is very well laid out, the balcony is small, as we are in an area of the ship where width of the deck changes and so our cabin balcony is at a 45 degree angle but there is enough space for the two chairs that are the standard with a small table, and with Cheryl’s Whill Ci2.  The drapes are controlled by buttons on the wall, by the bed, and/or by the door.

Balcony

Balcony View

Plate that covers track - Make sure door opens fully, or plate stays up.

The cabin has very good power availability, on each lamp next to the bed, there is one USB A port and one USB C port.  There is also a 120V outlet next to the bed on each side.  On the vanity, there is a 120V plug plus a USB A and a USB C plug available. The is an emergency button on one side of the bed.

Power and emergency pull cord - also USB C connection in lamp.

USB A connector on lamp

The bed is a double twin that creates a King size bed.  The bed is nice and firm and comes with 4 regular pillows and 2 decorative pillows.  The top of the mattress is 26” and there is 14” of clear space under the bed.  On the right side of the bed facing it, there is 34” of clear space and on the left, side the minimum clear space is 36” and that wall angles away from the bed at about 45 degrees. 

On the far left side of the area away from the left side of the bed there is a table with two chairs.

On the opposite side of the room, there is a vanity with the refrigerator in a cabinet next to the vanity.  Past the refrigerator area, there are two doors with two shelves behind each door.  The vanity area has a single drawer that is wide, and contains the room service menu and the phone directory for the ship. The hair dryer sits below the vanity on one side.

There is a nice sized flat screen tv, with multiple options to learn about or book things on the ship, there is a movie tab that has quite a few free movies plus some that you have to buy.  There is also a TV tab and the TV has 12 ship related channels, and 11 entertainment channels.  The entertainment channels include 4 different movie channels.

The cabin door is power operated with a NFC box on the outside and a switch on the inside.

NFC box outside

Left switch opens door

Behind the door when it is open is the closet, which is divided into two sections.  On one side, there is an area to hang longer garments, a shelf for the safe which would be easily reached by someone in a wheelchair and under it are two wire mesh slide out drawers.  On the other side there is a lowered clothes rod with a shelf above it, and then a raised rod above it. The closet light is motion activated. Waving a hand in the upper areas turns it on.

Right side of closet with safe, pull out drawers and hanging rod

Opposite the entry door is the bathroom door, and the two overlap in their reach so it is best to only open one at a time.  The bathroom door when fully open is 32.5” wide.

When you enter the bathroom, the shower is directly across from the door, and the toilet is offset to the right.  There are rails on the left side and rear of the toilet.  The shower has a handheld shower and is positioned so that they can never be left out of reach, and the shower chair is positioned within easy reach of the shower controls.  There are grab bars on the shower wall across from shower chair and on the left side of the shower chair.  The soap, shampoo, and conditioner dispensers are on the wall left of the shower chair and at a convenient height.

Stay Tuned For more to come.