VIVA Cruises GmbH
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Better Organization and Planning Needed
Service by housekeeping and wait staff was good. Food quality and drinks were good. However, the lack of readily available public toilets on board the ship personally caused my some distress. There was only 1 public toilet for men and 1 for women located on the Ruby deck close to reception. However, the lounge was located on the Diamond deck. As a 75 year old man, it became stressful to navigate up and down steps ever time I needed to use the toilet. The only other option was to go back to my cabin but that was located mid ship. Having only 2 toilets in the forward of the ship for 190 guests is insufficient and certainly a design flaw of the ship. The day of Embarkation was unnecessarily chaotic and stressful. Your website states that passengers may board the ship and check-in two hours prior to departure. I had called the agent who handled my booking to ask about the check-in time, and he informed me it was 2 hours before departure. We arrived about 2.5 hours ahead of departure, believing we we could wait in the lounge for check-in to start, as we were permitted to do on our 2 previous Viva Cruises. However, we were curtly told by a crew member that we had to wait on the sundeck and check-in would NOT begin until 1 hour before departure. The sky was threatening rain and the weather was cool but all passengers were forced to crowd onto the sundeck and wait up to 2 hours or more. When check-in was called, passengers had to descend the narrow stairs with hand luggage and many older passengers struggled while waiting in queue some doing so on the narrow stairs. When we descended the steps, another crew member was barking instructions that English speakers and German speakers should go to different check-in points, which added to the chaos because of the narrow space passengers were forced to navigate in. In all, it took us 2.5 hours to check-in! On our previous 2 cruises, the check-in process was seemless and organized, and passengers were permitted to wait in the lounge if they arrived early. The chaos and confusion on this 3rd cruise could have been completely negagated with better planning and organization.