Day 4: good-bye Türkiye; hello VIVA

I have one last taxi ride today, and I’m glad to be leaving Istanbul. I finally slept well and woke up feeling that I just had good hard sleep. I have mixed feelings about my visit to Istanbul, but I’m glad I did have some good experiences. Best advice I could give is tp book your taxi via Uber app do not just walk up to a random taxi and expect them to give you a fair price. They won’t. I read a local post that 99% of taxi drivers in Istanbul are scammers. Trust me on this. I never had an issue with I booked my taxi on Uber.  Can you tell I am having a hard time letting the taxi scam go?  

Let’s go to the ship!  One of the people in my cruise FB group posted a great photo of our ship (middle) in port.

Shhhh, don’t tell Royal Caribbean but I’m cheating on them by sailing on Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Viva.  

My first impression isn’t great. It took 1 hour 4 minutes from luggage drop off until I was on the ship. That’s a long time from my past cruise trips!  I think it is just a local Istanbul issue, but it was a weird process.  But here I am ready to step onboard VIVA!

I am totally lost on this ship and nothing makes sense, but I found Indulge Food Hall which is a totally cool experience. It is an area with 7 distinct restaurants. You find a table and order from the screen on each table. The waiter brings your food to the table and you enjoy. I have a feeling this will be my favorite place on the ship to eat. 

I explored each deck and took notes of places to visit for meals! The ship is really clean with a fresh color scheme and oh so bright. They might beat RC and win me over!  Finally got the call that cabins on deck 13 were ready so off I went to check it out.  

My room is tiny but has good storage (could use a few more than 5 hangers) and will be perfectly fine for this trip. It’s cozy with cold air conditioning. Oh and it has a glass shower door; I have a hate relationship with fabric shower curtains on cruise ships. Yuck! 

 

I gave in and took a quick nap before we sailed away. Good bye Istanbul.  I’m really liking this ship. It’s so fresh and simple. I wandered outside as the sun was setting.

I went back to Indulge Food Hall to try Texas Smokehouse and actually it was pretty good!  I really did appreciate the smaller portions so could try different items.  I think I just love ordering my food off the screen.

 

This cruise is port heavy and all my excursion start very early so it’s going to be early to bed!