Early thoughts on the Norwegian Aqua

The newest Norwegian cruise ship is an expanded version of the cruise line's Prima class.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, cruisers. I am Dan Klein, executive editor of Come Cruise With Me.

00:04That is comecruiswith.com, but you already knew that.

00:07I am in the buffet area on the beautiful Norwegian Aqua.

00:12We are on the maiden sailing. They did the name-ick yesterday, got to meet Eric Stonestreet.

00:16More about that later, but here are some early thoughts on the ship.

00:19First of all, it's an absolutely beautiful ship.

00:22The rooms are full-on modern. They're very large.

00:26The bathrooms are an incredible use of space. There's storage everywhere.

00:30There's USB ports everywhere. Sort of everything you would need.

00:32I think there's three outlets on the main desk, so really, really useful.

00:37There are some wonderful bars on the ship.

00:38The Whiskey Bar is a very distinctive bar, has its own drinks, really in its own kind of quiet space.

00:44The Poor House has really lively concerts, like a seven-piece rock band last night, doing all sorts of different stuff.

00:51A couple of little complaints.

00:52It's the local, which replaced the old sort of Irish-British pub, has no particular feel.

00:58That used to be like the center of the ship, felt like sort of town hall, sort of a place everyone could come together.

01:03Now it's just a very, very generic bar with a similar menu.

01:07I also don't love that there's pools sort of everywhere.

01:10It's kind of neat, but it's also kind of tricky.

01:12So there's multiple pools on the eighth floor.

01:15There's multiple pools on the pool deck.

01:17There does not appear to be an adult pool, although there is an added fee vibe beach club.

01:22So jury's out a little bit about that.

01:24Hard to tell on a short sailing whether that's enough space.

01:28The food has been good, but again, media sailing, we are limited as to where we can go.

01:32So last night, I actually ate at the Indulgences Food Hall, which is sort of a new concept.

01:37You sit down, there's an iPad in front of you or some sort of tablet, and you can order from eight or nine different restaurants.

01:42Different menu at breakfast, different menu at lunch.

01:44I thought the dinner menu was really, really good.

01:47Lots of different choices.

01:48I actually got some Indian and some Italian.

01:51There were lots of things you could mix.

01:52They will bring you drinks.

01:54The technology's not perfect yet.

01:56They haven't quite figured it out.

01:57But again, this is an inaugural sailing.

01:59The idea is to sort of get it right to work it out.

02:01So early impressions, very nice ship, an improvement for Norwegians, sort of taking them into like the luxury area where Celebrity is,

02:10mixing in some of the fun features that Royal Caribbean has.

02:13So again, very early impressions, but I've liked it so far.

02:18I am Dan Klein.

02:19Come cruise with me soon.