10/08/2026
***Long Review****
🛳️ Norwegian Viva vs 👑 Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas
My honest review: NCL vs RC
Having sailed on 🛳️ Norwegian Viva and 👑 Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, my first impression is simple:
💰 NCL made me think about what I could buy.
🌴 RC made me think about w
But just to be absolutely clear: Both cruise lines want your money.
Both have:
💳 Specialty dining
🍹 Drinks packages
🚌 Excursions
🛍️ Shopping
💆 Spa treatments
🎰 Casinos
⬆️ Upgrades
But for me, the difference is how all of that is built into the holiday experience.
With 🛳️ NCL, I often felt the selling was overkill.
With 👑 RC, I spent more time enjoying the holiday.
It’s the little things you notice every day that either make your holiday easier 😊 or slowly start to frustrate you 😤.
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🛗 The little things: RC gets it right
Take something as simple as the lifts.
On 👑 Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean uses destination lifts.
You select the floor you want before getting into the lift, and the system directs you to a particular one.
Simple.
But on a ship carrying thousands of people, it matters.
⬇️ Less unnecessary stopping
⏳ Less waiting
🚶 Better flow
😌 Less frustration
It sounds like a small thing, but all these small things add up.
And that’s part of what I felt Royal Caribbean does so well:
Make the ship easier to use so the guest can concentrate on enjoying the holiday.
With 🛳️ NCL, I found myself more often noticing the friction.
With 👑 RC, I more often found myself thinking:
🤔 “That’s actually been thought through.”
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👨✈️👩✈️ The staff experience
This was probably one of the biggest differences I felt between the two cruise lines.
On 👑 Royal Caribbean, the staff seem to have one clear objective:
😊 Make sure the guest has the best holiday possible.
They were friendly, approachable and consistently seemed focused on the customer experience.
Even the little touches stood out.
You return to your cabin and find the towels turned into different animals and characters.
🐒 Monkeys.
🐘 Elephants.
🦢 Swans
Different creations throughout the cruise.
Now obviously, nobody books a cruise because they desperately need a towel elephant 😂.
But when you walk back into your cabin and see one…You smile.😊 And that’s the point!
On 🛳️ Norwegian Viva, I didn’t experience those same little touches.
And this is where I actually have sympathy for the NCL crew rather than simply blaming them.
My personal impression was that the staff often appeared more stretched and under pressure.
And if the crew are overworked, tired and responsible for too many guests, it’s much harder to create that relaxed, enthusiastic and memorable level of service that I experienced on 👑 RC.
So my criticism isn’t necessarily:
❌ NCL staff don’t care.
In fact, many of them work incredibly hard.
But there is a difference between:
💪 Working hard and
🧑🤝🧑 Having enough time and support to deliver an exceptional guest experience.
And, from my experience, 👑 Royal Caribbean felt better resourced in the areas where it really mattered.
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🧑💼 Guest services: RC wins again
On 🛳️ Norwegian Viva, I repeatedly noticed long queues at guest services.
😤
It often felt as though there simply weren’t enough people available to deal with the number of passengers needing help.
So what should be a quick question could turn into:
🚶 Queue
⏳ Wait
🙄 Still waiting…
On 👑 Royal Caribbean, guest services seemed much better manned and better organised.
And good service is often invisible when it works.
You don’t remember waiting two minutes.⏰
But you definitely remember waiting twenty.🕢
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📄 The amount of paper on NCL is ridiculous
One of my biggest annoyances on 🛳️ Norwegian Viva was the constant amount of paper posted
Almost every day:
💎 Jewellery promotions
🚌 Excursions
💆 Spa treatments
💰 Special offers
🛍️ Shopping
📰 Daily cruise information
Now, I completely understand having a physical daily cruise programme.
Some people like it.
And honestly, I do think it’s useful to have:
🎭 Entertainment
🕐 Opening times
📍 Activities
…all in one place without needing to pick up your phone.
👍 Great.
But that’s very different from constantly receiving promotional flyers for things that are already:
📱 On the app
📍 Advertised around the ship
🛍️ Promoted elsewhere
At a certain point, it starts to feel like you’re being marketed to every time you return to your cabin.
And again, this fed into my overall feeling with NCL:
💰 There always seems to be another opportunity to spend money.
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🛍️ Advertise all day… open late 🤦♂️
This one really confused me.
🛳️ NCL can put a mountain of shopping promotions through your cabin door…
But then when you actually want to shop?
🚪 Closed.
A good example for me was Pandora, which also had some ship merchandise such as hoodies and other branded items.
You spend the day thinking:
“I’ll have a look at that later.” Then later comes around…
🚪 Closed.
And in some cases, you’re waiting until around: 🕙10PM
Seriously? 😂 They really need to rethink that..Not everyone is a night owl.
👶 Some people have children.
😴 Some people prefer to be in bed by 10pm.
🌴 Others have spent the whole day doing activities and are absolutely exhausted by the evening.
So if you’re someone who likes to browse the shops during:
☀️ The afternoon
🌆 Early evening
🍽️ After dinner
…you can easily miss out completely. And this is what makes it even more confusing:
NCL clearly wants to sell you things.💰💸💵
The amount of advertising makes that obvious.
So why make it difficult for people to actually spend money? 🤷♂️
📄 Advertise all day.
🚪 Open late.
🤦♂️ It just doesn’t make sense.
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🍽️ Dining: Now, to keep this review fair…
🛳️ Norwegian did get some things very right.
On Viva, dining — especially in the included restaurants — felt more:
😌 Relaxed
🕐 Flexible
🍽️ At your own pace
It felt more like: “Come in. Sit down. Relax. Eat.”
On 👑 RC, MyTime Dining can sometimes feel a little more structured than the name suggests.
📅 Reservation windows
⏳ Waiting for tables
🧑💼 A more organised seating flow
It’s not necessarily worse. It’s just more structured.
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🚿 Norwegian wins the shower! 🔥
Now here’s something I genuinely didn’t expect to say.
🛳️ NCL wins the shower. 🤣
I’m a big fan of a properly hot morning shower.🔥🔥
On Norwegian Viva, I could get the water nice and hot.
There was a warning to test the temperature, rather than the water feeling heavily restricted.🌡️
On 👑 Icon of the Seas, I found the shower temperature much more limited, at around 30 degrees from my experience. For me? Not hot enough 😭
🚿🛳️ NCL = winner! Give me the hot shower! 🔥
🛏️ The second bed was also better on NCL
The second bed on Viva was a proper:
🛏️ Pull-out double bed
That makes a big difference if you’re travelling with more than two people.
On 👑 RC, in the cabin I experienced, the additional sleeping arrangement was more like:
🛋️ Sofa/seating
or
🛏️ A single extra bed
Now, cabin layouts obviously vary. But based on my own cabins:
🛳️ NCL wins the extra sleeping setup.
Because when you’re travelling with multiple people, you don’t just care about how the cabin looks during the day.
You care about one thing at night:
😴 Can everyone actually sleep comfortably?
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🍹 The bar experience 😤
This was one of my biggest frustrations on Norwegian Viva.The seating and layout around some of the bars often felt:
😵 Overcrowded
🚶 Congested
🙄 Difficult to get served
Especially in the evenings. There were times when you had:
🪑 Seated guests
🍹 People waiting for drinks
🚶 People walking through
🙋 People trying to get the bartender’s attention
…all in the same space.You could find yourself stretching over people just to order a drink.🍸🍹
On 👑 RC, the bar areas felt better designed for flow.
You could:
➡️ Stand
🍹 Order
🚶 Move away
Without feeling like you were fighting your way through a crowd.
🍹 And the NCL bar service really frustrated me
This was one of my biggest pain points.
I often felt that the bartenders were trying to take too many orders at the same time.
Instead of:
👤 Take one order
🍹 Make the drink
😊 Give it to the guest
➡️ Move on
It sometimes felt more like:
👤 Take your order
👤 Take another order
👤 Take another order
👤 Take another order
Then…
🤔 “What did you order again?”🙈
And you could be ordering something as simple as a Sprite. But because multiple other orders had been taken, you could be waiting:
⏳ 10–15 minutes
…while the bartender tried to complete everything. Again, I don’t necessarily blame the bartender.
I think this goes back to the bigger question of whether the staff are stretched too thin.
But from a guest’s perspective:
I ordered a drink. 🍷 I just want my drink. 😂🍹
On 👑 RC, I found the bar service more organised and smoother.
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🎱 Bingo felt a bit… off 🤨
One thing that stood out to me on NCL was the bingo.
Now, bingo is supposed to be:
🎉 Fun
😂 Light entertainment
🏆 A chance to win
But on Viva, I noticed bingo being advertised as a rollover jackpot before the game had even taken place.
Now, let me be absolutely clear:
❌ I’m not saying anything is rigged.
But the way it was marketed made it feel less like a spontaneous game and more like:
💰 A structured revenue event.
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🕹️ The arcade: read the small print!
On 🛳️ NCL, the unlimited-play packages can sound great at first.
But you need to understand exactly what you’re getting. 🧐
unlimited play generally applied to:
🏀 Basketball games
🏎️ Racing games
💃 Dance machines
🔫 Shooting games
🎮 Other non-prize machines
Great. 🎉Play as much as you want. 👍
But the prize machines? 🎁Those usually required additional payment.
So you can easily think:”I’ve bought unlimited arcade access!”🎉
When in reality…
😬 Not quite.
On 👑 RC, the system felt more straightforward.
💳 Load credit
🎮 Play games
💰 Credit gone? Stop or top up.
Simple.
Neither system is perfect.
But NCL’s version felt more like:
⚠️ Read the fine print.
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🎭 Royal Caribbean absolutely destroys NCL on entertainment
Now we get to one of the biggest differences.
👑 RC wins this by a mile.
The Wizard of Oz was outstanding.🧙♂️🌪️✨
The ice show was spectacular.⛸️❄️🔥
And the water show? 🌊 Absolutely worth the wait in gold.
These didn’t feel like: “Pretty good for a cruise ship.”
They felt like:
🎭 Proper productions.
Royal Caribbean has clearly spent serious money on entertainment.
🎬 Props
🏛️ Sets
✨ Technology
🎭 Theatre experience
🌊 Water shows
⛸️ Ice shows
…all felt premium.
The décor made you feel like you were going into an actual theatre.🎭
Not just sitting down to watch: “A show on a ship.”
👑 RC doesn’t treat entertainment as something it simply needs to provide.
It feels like one of the reasons you booked the holiday in the first place. 🌴
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🎩 NCL’s best show? Brendon Peel
Now, to give Norwegian credit… The magician Brendon Peel was excellent. 🎩✨
For me, that was the ONLY best show on Viva.
Genuinely entertaining. Worth making time for.
But outside of that?
I found much of the entertainment on NCL comparatively:
💸 Cost-effective
🎭 Less spectacular
😕 Less memorable
And when you’ve just experienced what Royal Caribbean does with its shows…
The difference is enormous whereas NCL seemed to have gone all out on….CASINO 🎰
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🎰 But the NCL casino goes on forever 😂
Honestly, my personal impression was:
“How much more casino can we fit on this ship?”
🎰🎰🎰🎰🎰 I understand it.
A casino generates money.💰💰💰
More casino space potentially means more revenue.
But this brings me back to my biggest difference between NCL and RC.
👑 Royal Caribbean seems willing to spend serious money on things that create memories.
🎭 Huge productions
🌊 Water shows
⛸️ Ice shows
🎬 Incredible props
✨ Experiences people remember
🛳️ NCL sometimes made me feel like more of the investment was going into areas that could generate additional revenue.
Again: That’s my experience. That’s my opinion.
But when comparing Viva directly with Icon?
👑 Royal Caribbean didn’t just provide entertainment.
🎉 Royal Caribbean created an event.
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🧳 And then there was disembarkation… utter chaos 😵💫
And just when I thought I’d finished my NCL pain points…
Disembarkation happened. 🤣
😵💫 UTTER CHAOS.
Everyone seemed to be funnelled into a waiting area.
🧳 Hundreds of people
📄 Long passport-control queues
🚶 People trying to find their transport
🟡 Searching for someone in a yellow vest
And once you were through passport control, it felt like a bit of a scramble to work out: “Where the hell am I supposed to go now?” 😂
If you had a transfer, you needed to find someone in a yellow vest and ask where your particular transport was.
Surely this could have been handled better.
Put someone in a clearly visible position with:
📢 A speaker
📢 A megaphone
📢 Clear announcements
Something like:
🚌 “Airport transfer passengers, join this queue!”➡️
🚌 “Guests for this coach, go to this area!”➡️
🚕 “Independent transport and taxis, this way!”➡️
Simple.
Instead, it felt like:
🟡 Find the person who knows where your bus is. 😂
And when you’re:
🧳 Carrying luggage
😴 Tired
✈️ Heading to the airport
⏰ Possibly under time pressure
…the last thing you need is confusion.
BUT…
I have to give NCL some credit here.
Despite the chaos:
🛂 Immigration: around 20 minutes
🚌 Waiting for our transfer: around 10 minutes
So while it looked and felt chaotic, the actual timings weren’t terrible.
That almost sums up my entire NCL experience.
🛳️ The ship often got me where I needed to go.
😤 I just didn’t always enjoy the process of getting there.
⚖️ So… is NCL bad?..,Absolutely not.
And this isn’t:
❌ NCL bad
vs
👑 RC perfect
🛳️ NCL did some things better.
🛳️ NCL wins:
🔥 Hotter showers
🛏️ Better second-bed setup in my cabin
🍽️ More relaxed dining experience
🏛️ Stylish and premium-feeling spaces
🎩 Brendon Peel was excellent
But for me, the positives were often surrounded by friction.
😤 The constant flyers
🛍️ Shopping advertised constantly but open late
⏳ Queues
🍹 Bar frustrations
😵 Crowded bar areas
🕹️ Arcade restrictions
🎭 Less impressive entertainment overall
🎰 The seemingly endless casino
💰 The constant feeling of another product, package or upgrade being promoted
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👑 So why does Royal Caribbean win?
Because Royal Caribbean also wants your money.
Let’s not pretend otherwise 😂💳
You can spend an extraordinary amount onboard if you want to. But for me, the difference is:
👑 RC makes the holiday experience feel like the priority.
🛗 Better lift system
👨✈️ Better overall staff experience
🧑💼 Better-supported guest services
🍹 Smoother bar experience
🎭 World-class entertainment🎬
🌊 Incredible shows
😊 Little personal touches
🚶 Better flow around the ship
🎉 More reasons to simply enjoy yourself
And that’s the biggest difference.
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🏆 My final verdict
If I had to describe my experience with both cruise lines in one sentence:
💰 🛳️ Norwegian made me feel like I was on a cruise that wanted to maximise what I spent.
🌴 👑 Royal Caribbean made me feel like I was on a holiday that wanted to maximise what I experienced.
And that’s the difference.
🛳️ Norwegian sometimes gave me a better individual feature.
👑 Royal Caribbean gave me the better overall holiday experience.
And for me, this is probably the strongest way I can sum it all up:
👑 Royal Caribbean spends money creating memories.
🛳️ Norwegian often feels like it’s creating more places for you to spend yours.
Not everyone will agree.🤔 And that’s absolutely fine.👌
Some people will love Norwegian.🛳️❤️ Some people will prefer Royal Caribbean.🛳️❤️
But if you ask me one simple question:
❓ Which cruise line gave me the better holiday?
For me, the answer is easy.
👑 ROYAL CARIBBEAN. 🏆
Would I sail Norwegian again?
🤔 Probably.But only if:
💰 The deal was exceptional…
or…
😂 I somehow ended up on a free cruise.
For now though…
👑🛳️ I’M LOYAL TO ROYAL. 👑🏆
